Jimmy Buffett Net Worth 2024: The Billion-Dollar Fortune of the Island Icon

The late American singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett was famous for his music, as well as his lifestyle. Known for his tropical lyrical themes and his “island escapism” lifestyle, Buffett recorded a lot of songs during his career.

At the time of his death in 2023, Jimmy Buffett’s net worth had reached $1 billion.

You may be surprised to learn that although Buffett was best known for his music, record sales only made up a small portion of his impressive net worth. In addition to being one of the best-selling music artists worldwide, Jimmy Buffet was a highly successful businessman and investor.

In this article, we’ll explore what contributed to his net worth, what he did during his life, and how he earned his fame and fortune.

6 Fun Facts About Jimmy Buffett

1. Island Lifestyle: Buffett’s “island escapism” lifestyle inspired a billion-dollar brand, Margaritaville.
2. Margaritaville Brand: Accounted for nearly 28% of his net worth, with $2.2 billion in sales in 2022.
3. Chart Success: Sold over 20 million certified records worldwide, with several gold and platinum albums.
4. Pilot: Buffett was an accomplished pilot, owning several aircraft, including a Dassault Falcon 900.
5. Cameos: Made numerous film and TV cameos, including in Jurassic World and Hawaii Five-O.
6. Cultural Impact: Jimmy Buffett’s music and lifestyle influenced generations of fans, known as “Parrotheads.”

Jimmy Buffet’s Net Worth: Full Breakdown

When Buffett died, he left his family a fortune. His net worth has been estimated at $1 billion at the time of his death, a lot of it coming from his music, but also from his business interests and investments.

After detailed research, we’ve created a breakdown of the assets, investments, and sources of income that contributed to Buffett’s billionaire status.

Jimmy Buffett’s Early Life, Personal Life, and Death

James William Buffett was born in Pascagoula, Mississippi on December 25, 1946. His parents were Mary Lorraine and James Delaney Buffett, who moved several times during his childhood, including in Fairhope and Mobile, Alabama. He also had two younger siblings, Laurie and Lucy.

He studied at St. Ignatius School, where he also played trombone in the school band starting from when he was only eight years old. In 1964, he graduated from McGill Institute.

After his high school graduation, Buffett enrolled at Auburn University.

This is where one of his Sigma Phi fraternity brothers taught him how to play the guitar. In 1961, he attended a folk music ensemble performance in Biloxi, Mississippi, and found his passion for music. A month later, he played a Stella guitar at a hootenanny.

Jimmy Buffett eventually dropped out of Auburn a year after he enrolled. When asked about it later, he described his decision to drop out as being “unable to balance his newfound interests in music and girls with [his] college classes”.

Having found his passion in music, Buffett joined a band called the Upstairs Alliance in 1966, playing acid rock with them. But, he didn’t give up on his education. He enrolled at Pearl River Community College at the University of Southern Mississippi and obtained his bachelor’s degree in history in 1969.

While at college, Buffet worked as a welder and electrician in a shipyard. He didn’t serve in the Vietnam War since he failed a physical exam.

Personal Life

In 1969, when he graduated from college, Buffett married Margie Washicheck.

The couple divorced in 1972, after which he met his second wife Jane Slagsvol, who was then studying at the University of South Carolina. They got married in 1977 in Aspen with The Eagles playing at their wedding.

Jimmy Buffett had two daughters with Jane, the radio personality Savannah Buffett, and the filmmaker Sarah Delaney. They also had an adopted son, Cameron Marley.

Buffett’s Death

In May 2023, the famous singer was hospitalized. In August, he entered hospice care for a disease he had diagnosed four years before.

Buffett died on September 1, 2023, aged 76, in his home due to complications from Merkel-cell carcinoma, a form of skin cancer. For years, he has kept his illness private from the public and toured while undergoing treatment.

Jimmy Buffett Net Worth: Becoming One of the World’s Top-Selling Artists

Back when Jimmy Buffett’s career started in the late 1960s, he struggled to get noticed in the music industry.

But releasing albums such as Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes, propelled him to incredible fame and cemented his status as an artist. Before Jimmy passed, he had released over 30 albums and performed at sold-out concerts visited by his most devoted fans, affectionately called the Parrotheads.

Out of his albums, eight are certified gold and nine are certified platinum or multi-platinum. He sold over 20 million certified records worldwide and received two Grammy Award nominations.

Let’s see how Jimmy Buffett’s career progressed over the years.

Beginnings in the Music Industry

After he graduated in 1969, Buffett moved to New Orleans, where he started doing street performances on Decatur Street. He also performed at the Bayou Room nightclub, located on Bourbon Street.

A year later, he decided to relocate to Nashville, Tennessee, to work on his career in country music. He didn’t have much luck at first, so he settled for working as an editorial assistant for Billboard. Even though he was more passionate about music, he was pretty good at his job, being the first to report that Flatt and Scruggs had disbanded.

Signing with His First Label

In 1970, Buffett finally had a breakthrough when he signed a two-album contract with Barnaby Records. He released his first album in August of the same year. His folk rock Down to Earth album sold a total of 324 copies, so it wasn’t a success.

When the time came for his second album High Cumberland Jubilee to be released, the label allegedly lost the masters. They found it five years later, in 1976, but not before Buffett was already popular in the industry.

Making Connections

In 1971, Buffett was hired by Exit/In, a club in Nashville, as the opening act for Dianne Davidson.

At about this time, he took up an offer by Jerry Jeff Walker, a country singer who he met when he worked as a journalist and lodged in his house in Coconut Grove. When the two friends went to Key West on a busking expedition in 1972, Buffett decided to move there.

This is where he initially got involved in the literary scene. When he moved to Key West, he met writers Jim Harrison, Truman Capote, Thomas McGuane (later his sister’s husband), and Tom Corcoran. When David Wolkowsky hired him to play for drinks at the Chart Room Bar in the Pier House Motel, not only did he meet his second wife, but also landed a job as the first mate on Foster Talge’s yacht, which became his day job.

Second and Third Studio Albums

In 1973, Jimmy Buffett signed his second recording contract, this time with ABC or Dunhill Records, which was then owned by Don Gant. Dunhill promoted Buffett as the replacement for Jim Croce after the latter died in a plane crash in September.

This contract led to Buffett’s second release, his album A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean, which he recorded at Tompall Glaser’s studio.

This album included titles linked to his life in Key West, including:

• I Have Found Me a Home
• Why Don’t We Get Drunk
• Grapefruit – Juicy Fruit

With the money from his second album, which was far more successful than the first, Buffett reportedly bought his first boat.
In 1974, Buffett released his second album Living & Dying in 3/4 Time, which included his first single that ever placed on the Billboard Hot 100, Come Monday.

Rise to Fame in Music

In 1975, when he was already climbing the ranks in the music industry, Buffett formed a band called Coral Reefer Band. This band was the opening act for The Eagles in August that year.

A year later, Don Gant produced the artist’s fourth album Havana Daydreamin’.

In January 1977, Buffett recorded and released the album that propelled him to fame in the industry, Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes. This album included the first of his many hit songs, Margaritaville.

In 1978, after he moved to Saint Barthelemy, Buffett released another album called Son of a Son of a Sailor, inspired by his father and grandfather’s careers in sailing. The title track of this album Cheeseburger in Paradise almost instantly reached 32 on the Hot 100.

In August of the following year, Buffett released yet another album, Volcano, which included the title track and Fins.

Buffett’s Music Catalog: Other Albums and Hits

As mentioned previously, Jimmy Buffett has released over 30 albums in his career. The most successful of them include:

• 1985: Compilation album Songs You Know by Heart (sold over 7 million copies by 2005)
• 1998: Don’t Stop the Carnival, based on the musical theater production he co-created, based on the same-named novel by Herman Wouk (this album was certified gold)
• 1999: Buffett Live – Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays (a live album pulled from different concerts during his Don’t Stop That Carnival Tour and Beach House on the Moon Tour, this album was also certified gold)
• 2004: Album License to Chill, which sold 238,500 copies in its first week and topped the US pop albums charts

• 2006: Take the Weather with You (included the song Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On, in honor of Hurricane Katrina’s survivors)
• 2013: Songs from St. Somewhere
• 2020: Collection of songs Songs You Don’t Know by Heart (a collection of lesser-known songs by the artist)
• 2023: Equal Strain on All Parts (released posthumously that November)

In addition to his highly-sold albums, Jimmy Buffett released plenty of trending songs, including:

• 1994: Duet with Frank Sinatra covering “Mack the Knife” for Sinatra’s last studio album Duets II

• 2003: Duet with Alan Jackson of It’s Five O’clock Somewhere (which won the Country Music Association Award for Vocal Event of the Year, Buffett’s first award of many)
• 2010: Partnership on the song Knee Deep with Zac Brown Band, released in their album You Get What You Give (the single was certified platinum)

At this point, Buffett was so popular that he was named the tenth biggest touring artist of the decade in 2010. He had sold 4.5 million tickets over the previous 10 years.

Buffett’s Final Performances

Jimmy Buffett made his final performance at Snapdragon Stadium, San Diego, on May 6, 2023. He also made guest appearances at two other concerts, one in June and one in July.

According to Forbes, the artist made $570 million from touring and recording and $50 million from his music catalog.

Awards and Honors

Buffett is one of the most popular artists in the world and as such, he has won many awards and received great honors during his lifetime.

In 2007, he was nominated for the Event of the Year Award at the Country Music Association Awards for his song Hey Good Lookin, featuring George Strait and Alan Jackson. That same year, he got a star on the Mohegan Sun Walk of Fame.

After his death, Buffett was selected for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

In 2015, Buffett spoke at the graduation ceremony at the University of Miami where he was awarded an honorary doctorate in music.

That same year, his hometown of Pascagoula in Mississippi named a bridge after him in his honor – the Buffett Bridge. They also declared a Buffett Day.

Philanthropy

Buffett was a great philanthropist as well, not only through charity performances but also through donations. In 1981, he founded the Save the Manatee Club with former Florida governor Bob Graham. He also donated a lot to the Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory.

Very often, Buffett would do charity performances.

In 2002, he played at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. He also held hurricane relief concerts such as the Surviving the Storm concert in November 2004, in which he helped support relief efforts for Hurricane Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne.

In 2008, Buffett performed in a Hong Kong concert to raise funds for the Foreign Correspondents’ Club Charity Fund and support children in need. Two years later, he partnered with Allen Toussaint and Jesse Winchester in a free concert on the beach in Gulf Shores to draw tourism to the area after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

He even changed some of his songs’ lyrics to reference the disaster and promote environmental conservation.

Business Interests, Investments, and Assets of Jimmy Buffett

Jimmy Buffett was a major businessman, investor, author, producer – and so much more. Throughout his life, he made a fortune by investing his time and money in different projects, which we’ll look at here.

Authorship

Buffett was a best-selling author. He wrote three number 1 bestsellers:

• Tales from Margaritaville in 1989, a collection of short stories
• Where is Joe Merchant? in 1992
• A Pirate Looks at Fifty in 1998, a memoir

In addition to his bestsellers, he released several other novels, including:

• A Salty Piece of Land in 2004, which included a CD single of the song A Salty Piece of Land
• Swine Not? in 2008
• Trouble Dolls and The Jolly Mon, two children’s books he co-wrote with his daughter Savannah

Theater, TV Appearances and Soundtracks

Jimmy Buffett’s career expands to TV and theater, as well.

Cameo Appearances

Over the years, Jimmy Buffett has made many cameo appearances and has even worked as a producer on several of them. Let’s take a look at some of his most notable cameo appearances:

• 1973: Introducing Jimmy Buffett
• 1984: Repo Man
• 1991: Hook
• 1994: Cobb
• 1998: Hemingway: Take Nothing
• 2000: Tales from MargaritaVision (executive producer and actor)
• 2005: The Aristocrats
• 2006: Sun Dogs (producer and actor)
• 2010: Hawaii Five-O in seven episodes until 2020
• 2012: Basically Frightened: The Musical Madness of Colonel Bruce Hampton
• 2015: Jurassic World
• 2018: Billionaire Boys Club
• 2019: The Beach Bum
• 2020: Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President
• 2021: Under the Volcano

Soundtracks and Credits

Buffett wrote the soundtrack for the 2006 film Hoot, in which he also played a role and co-produced it. Some other film music credits include:

• Hello, Texas, for the film Urban Cowboy in 1980
• I Don’t Know, for the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High in 1982
• Turning Around, for the film Summer Rental in 1985
• If I’m Gonna Eat Somebody, It Might As Well Be You, for the animated film FernGully: The Last Rainforest in 1991
• The theme song to Johnny Bago, CBS’ television series in 1993

Theater

Buffett’s foray into theater was in 1994 when he worked on Don’t Stop the Carnival, writing the music and lyrics for the show. The show ran for only six weeks and had negative reviews from critics.

His second production was a musical called Escape to Margaritaville, which ran in San Diego between May and July 2017. Escape to Margaritaville featured Greg Garcia and Mike O’Malley’s book and Buffett’s classic songs. The show was well-received by critics and has had several limited runs in New Orleans, Chicago, and Houston.

Business Ventures

At one point in his highly successful career, Buffett realized that he wanted to become a businessman as well. He used his escapism lifestyle to launch several successful businesses that promote this kind of living to his fans.

This is how the Margaritaville brand was born. Through Margaritaville Holdings LLC, Buffett licensed casinos, hotels, a restaurant chain, bars, beverages, furniture, apparel, appliances, and much more.

According to Forbes, the Margaritaville brand accounted for 28% of Buffett’s billion-dollar net worth. The company made $2.2 billion in sales in 2022.

Restaurants

In 1984, Buffett partnered with one of his friends to open a t-shirt store in Gulf Shores in Alabama. This venture didn’t pan out, but the two partners decided to give it another go, the second time in Key West. Not long after, they expanded their small store to the famous Margaritaville chain.

The businessmen expanded their brand and opened restaurants in different locations, using the Margaritaville and LandShark Bar & Grill names. They had restaurants in Atlantic City, Nashville, New Orleans, The Bahamas, Las Vegas, Turks and Caicos, the Cayman Islands, Orlando, Baltimore, and more.

The highest-grossing business of them all was the Margaritaville Café, located on the Las Vegas strip. Not only was this Margaritaville restaurant the most profitable for Buffett, but possibly the most profitable in the US at one point.

Interestingly, this wasn’t Buffett’s only restaurant chain.

He was involved in yet another chain named after his other hit song Cheeseburger in Paradise. The chain was founded in 2002 and sold in 2012 to Luby’s. He founded it in partnership with Bloomin’ Brands, so it is unknown how much of the $11 million sale went to Buffett.

If you’re a Margaritaville restaurant fanatic, check out the tale of 2 popular YouTubers venturing to every single franchise.

Record Labels

The Margaritaville empire expanded to the music industry, as well.

In 1992, Buffett launched Margaritaville Records, with the distribution being handled by MCA Records. The deal with MCA finished in 1996, and three years later, he founded Mailboat Records, through which he released live albums.

Beer Brand

At one point, Buffett signed a concert sponsorship from Corona. This is when he decided that he wanted to start his own brand, so he partnered with the world’s largest beer company Anheuser-Busch in 2006 and started brewing Landshark Lager, his beer.

Buffett’s alcohol business has been valued at $400 million.

Video Games

In 2012, THQ released Margaritaville Online, a game for Facebook. The game was discontinued two years later but, in 2016, Buffett partnered with FunPlus and developed a new one.

Casinos

Buffett also opened casinos under the parent company Margaritaville Holdings LLC. In 2013, in partnership with the Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, he opened a $35 million entertainment complex at the hotel. His Jimmy Buffett Margaritaville-themed complex included a restaurant with a Landshark Bar and Grill, a coffee shop, a retail store, the 5 O’clock Somewhere Bar, and a gaming area with table games and slots.

The second of the casinos was the Margaritaville Casino and Restaurant in Biloxi, which licensed the name from Buffett. This establishment worked from May 2012 to September 2014.

Investments in Sports

Buffett was a baseball fan and as such, he was part-owner of two minor league teams:

• Madison Black Wolf (1996-2000)
• Miami/Fort Myers Miracle (1989-2014)

Other Investments

In addition to these businesses, Buffett has invested in several others.

In 2005, Buffett signed a contract with the Sirius Satellite Radio station to broadcast Radio Margaritaville.

In 2017, he entered a partnership with Minto Group to acquire a $1 billion retirement village in Daytona Beach Florida. Latitude Margaritaville was a 3,900-home village and the first of several retirement communities that resulted from this partnership.

Other communities were located on Hilton Head Island, Panama City Beach, and South Carolina.

In 2018, Buffett decided to enter the cannabis market. He teamed up with Wrigley Company’s William Wrigley Jr II’s business Surterra Holdings and licensed Coral Reefer brand marijuana. The brand launched in April 2019 and ceased to sell in April 2023.

Buffett also partnered with Warren Buffett, becoming a shareholder at Berkshire Hathaway. He increased his stake over the years, but it hasn’t been disclosed how much he owned in the business at the time of his death.

Real Estate

Buffett was a very rich man, and he wasn’t afraid to make major investments with his fortune. Before Jimmy died, he invested heavily in real estate. At the time of his death, he owned a large number of impressive mansions, including:

• Beverly Hills mansion, acquired in 2014 for $8.25 million
• Sag Harbor mansion, acquired in 2016 for $6.5 million (this is where he passed away)
• Palm Beach home, acquired in 2002 for $802,000 (worth $7.25 million after his death)

At one point, Buffett owned two more mansions in Palm Beach. He sold his first Palm Beach mansion in 2010 for $18.5 million and his second mansion in 2020 for $7 million.

In 1998, he sold several properties in Key West for $900,000.

He made several other real estate acquisitions, such as his 2013 Palm Beach house with 3,100 square feet, which he bought for $1.3 million. He also owned a home in Saint Barthelemy and an apartment in the Deutsche Bank Center in New York, but it is undisclosed if he still owned them when he died.

Planes

Buffett was also a pilot and he owned a Dassault Falcon 900 jet he used for his travels. At other points, he owned several jets, including a Boeing Stearman, Lake Amphibian, Cessna Citation, Grumman Albatross, and more.

What Can We Learn from Jimmy Buffet’s Story?

Jimmy Buffett’s story is a journey of creativity, resilience, and entrepreneurship. As such, it offers valuable lessons on leveraging one’s interests and talent to build a multifaceted career.

While he was primarily known as a musician, Buffett’s fortune largely stemmed from his business empire, which included restaurants, casinos, real estate, cannabis, and more. This teaches us of the power of diversifying income streams and how this can provide greater financial stability that goes beyond one’s primary career.

Buffett capitalized on his “island escapism” lifestyle to build his Margaritaville brand. Creating a strong personal brand can help in establishing businesses that extend your influence and resonate with your audience.

Buffett’s early career was marked by challenges and setbacks – just like any career. His first album sold poorly and the label lost his second album. However, he persisted and adapted, and eventually found success. This underscores the importance of adaptability and perseverance in the face of failures.