The Millionaire in the Making Series – Stats!


Earlier I compiled the complete list of CNN Money’s Millionaires in the Making (MITM).  Over the past 5 years, these individuals and couples submitted their information to CNN Money and were profiled online and in print.  The profiles followed a similar theme and contained specific personal finance nuggets, like savings account balances, annual incomes, and ages.  I took all these pieces of info and built a complete database.  Now I’ll share with you the compiled financial information of the 60 profiles.

Averages

Here are the average stats of the 60 profiles:

  • Age*: 35
  • Number of Kids: 1.00 (yes, exactly 1)
  • Household Income: $121,046.15
  • Retirement Savings**: $180,434.75
  • Emergency Savings***: $38,569.76
  • Real Estate Equity****: $210,635.42
  • Business Value*****: $536,250.00

What I think we can learn from these averages is that generally speaking to be a millionaire in the making you should plan on having a pretty decent sized household income and only one kid.

*Age is based on the oldest known member of the household at the time of profiling
**Includes taxable and non-taxable accounts, as well as education accounts
***Includes cash in savings (and checking, if included) , CDs, and money market accounts
****Includes personal residence and rental properties
*****Only four profiles listed a business value

Highest

Profiles with the highest value in each category:

Lowest

Profiles with the lowest value in each category (excludes profiles with zero):

Age

Age

Location

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Bubble Busted?

These five profiles had at least $300,000 more in real estate equity than they did in retirement and emergency savings combined:

Notice the States.  Four of the five are from a bubble state, and the Texan is a real estate broker.  It’d be great to check in on these people to see how the real estate bust has affected their MITM status.

Well Balanced

These five profiles had less than $10,000 difference between their real estate equity and their savings (both retirement and emergency):

Hopefully you enjoyed viewing these profiles and compiled information.  I find all the profiles very inspiring in some way and all have helped to put some perspective on my own financial situation.  Be sure and check out the other lists I’ve put together:

Related posts:

  1. Where Are They Now? Podcast Interview with a Millionaire in the Making: Todd French
  2. List of Other Millionaire Series
  3. The Complete List of CNN Money’s "Tycoons in the Making"
  4. The Complete List of CNN Money’s "Millionaires in the Making"
  5. Millionaires in the Making: The Rodrigueses

10 Responses to The Millionaire in the Making Series – Stats!
  1. Jonathan
    January 5, 2008 | 11:42 am

    Interesting compilation you got there. Initially, I thought it might reveal some sort of bias as to who they chose to profile. But overall, it seems like they have a good mix going on.

  2. hank
    March 17, 2008 | 5:08 pm

    Wow. That’s actually a really deep dive into it. Surprised it didn’t get more traffic. Love the input. Looks like I’m off the map with 2 kids (and the wife wants another) – I may not make it to a million as I’d planned! :)

  3. money funk
    August 27, 2008 | 4:01 pm

    This is a really neat analyzation of the MITM. I’m definitely gonna let people know about it on my blog, as I think the results are very interesting (also, makes me realize I am far from par). ;)

  4. EnoughWealth
    July 29, 2009 | 8:57 pm

    For calculating the “Average” Business Value as $536,250.00 , it looks like you just averaged the four profiles that reported a business value. It would be more usual to calculate the average business for the entire cohort of 60 profiles ie. $35,750. This of course assumes that all 56 MITM that didn’t report a business value have no business…

    In any case, with a sample size of only four, the average business value is severely skewed by the one high value ($1.7m). The other three reported business values only total $445,000! With such a small sample size the median value of the four would probably be a better indicator (around $180,000?)

  5. PT
    July 29, 2009 | 11:28 pm

    I agree, EnoughWealth. I didn’t think to use the Median. Thanks for stopping by and digging into the stats with me.

Trackbacks/Pingbacks
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  3. ptmoney.com » Blog Archive » The Complete List of CNN Money’s "Tycoons in the Making"
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