How Much Money Did Walter White Actually Make in Breaking Bad (2024)

“I rented this place and I started bringing it here because…. I didn’t know what else to do. I gave up counting. I had to.”

Ever thought how much money the greatest gourmet meth chef in history – Walter White made throughout his multi-season tenure as Heisenberg in the Breaking Bad series? In Season 5 Episode 8 of the show, we realize that Walter had initially sought to have a stake in the drug business because he wanted to have a goal of a menial $737,000. In that very episode, we discover Walter White had more than quadrupled his initial goal. In fact it was the three times the quadruple of his initial goal. He had earned enough to be called North America’s richest meth dealer this side of the continent. That was when he made the epic “I have so much I can’t even count” statement in that iconic scene. Walter White had so many notes of different denominations of 20, 50, and 100 dollars that he stopped counting.

How much did Walter White Actually make? What was the net worth of his entire criminal empire? It is time we decipher Walter White aka Heisenberg – the Man, the Myth, the Legend.

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Jesse Pinkman and Walter White did not enter the drug trade because they had a hobby. They had a clear and present goal – make enough money to love like Kings, or in Walter’s case, die like Kings. Played by Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul, the duo was trying to find a shortcut to wealth. And that shortcut was a nirvana given the color of blue. Heisenberg’s meth was the purest form of meth ever produced. Its distinct blue color allowed Walter White to power through the powerful drug empire and created a niche market for them-selves. After a certain point of time, Walter stopped counting the money his massive revenue stream was generating. His business was booming. Both Pinkman and White became millionaires.

The rags to riches story of the coolest start-up in history began with Walter White, a brilliant chemistry teacher, teaming up with his goon of a student named Jesse Pinkman to cook meth straight out of a rolling RV vehicle. Using his mastery of chemistry to his advantage, Walter developed a form of crystal meth that was the purest the world had ever seen. The Blue Sky drug took off and started selling like hot cakes. Before they knew it, Walter White and Jesse Pinkman had made a hell of a lot of money as well as even more enemies.

After Walter took the alter ego of Heisenberg, they had a confrontation with Gus Fring and began working for him. Fring’s operation had a secret super lab that had much more powerful equipment that Heisenberg could ever have gotten their hands on. But Gus Fring was not meant to last for long. Fring was eliminated from the competition and Walt and Jesse parted ways with his operation. They then joined another man – Mike Ehrmentraut. His fumigation facility was the perfect place for being converted into a meth super lab. Walter White’s greed led him to start his own meth empire. He branched off to side with Todd Alquist, Jack Welker, and the Neo-Nazi group.

We all know amazingly that plan went.

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Coming to the point of calculating the net worth of Walter White’s Criminal Empire, there are a number of factors and forces that come into play. So the results might not be what you would have expected to be. But we will try to keep things as simple, straightforward and accurate as possible.

By the end of the series, Heisenberg’s criminal empire had so many steady and strong sources of revenue that the money could not possibly be counted by one person alone. The partnership between Pinkman and White meant that in the early days, the money would be equally split between the two parties. Pinkman and White could get the same share. Jesse had a habit of splurging his income the minute he got it. Walter used it more sensibly – using the money for his cancer treatment, pay the fees of Saul Goodman as well as Hank Schrader’s medical charges. He even opened up a car wash to act as a front for his money laundering scheme.

Walter’s wife Skyler White was also responsible for some expenses of her own. She used the tainted money to clean up many messes. Ted Beneke’s 621,000 dollar IRS problem was paid off by Skyler White. In the end of Season 5, it is revealed that Walter White earned a little over 80 Million Dollars in hard cash. Out of that money, he gave 5 Million to Jesse Pinkman simply out of guilt. There was a lot in store that was unaccounted for.

Walter White’s Million Dollar Barrels

The hard earned 80 Million was stuffed into eight large barrels by Walter White and then buried in the vastness of the New Mexico Desert. The White Supremacist Neo-Nazi pals of jack raided the place where the barrels were buried and took all but one of the barrels. The last barrel they left in Walter White’s possession in Breaking Bad was almost 11 Million Dollars. Walter used some of that money to escape town after he was almost captured. In the following months, he spent another lump from that money on gathering different supplies before he made his way back to Albuquerque. For his son, Walter left a sum of 9 Million dollars as a parting gift. Walter then started walking on his path of revenge and make sure Jack’s White Supremacist gang pays for what they did to him.

Jesse Pinkman – How much was he left with in El Camino?

When Walter offered Jesse the 5 Million, Pinkman firmly refused. Apart from the fact that it looked like an act of pity, Jesse knew it was tainted blood money. Jesse joined Hnak and the DEA in an effort to take down Walter White and his empire. He threw most of the dollar bills oout of the window of his car. Jack and the Neo-Nazis captured him and turned him into their slave. Pinkman was forced to cook meth for them in their lab. Walter slaughtered the Neo-Nazis, giving Jesse a chance to flee the compound.

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In the movie, Jesse was seen trying to find the money in Todd’s apartment. That stash of money was necessary to help Jesse buy a new identity and disappear. He split the money with Todd’s pals and fell 1800 dollars short. Ed Galbraith demanded the 250,000 dollars to be paid in full. This forced Jesse to go back to the people he split Todd’s stash with and then use it to pay Galbraith. Pinkman got a new identity and moved to Alaska. In the end, Pinkman was left with probably a few hundred thousand dollars.

Walter White’s Multi- Million Dollar Criminal Empire had crumbled into dust.