Donald Trump takes the phrase "feel like a million dollars" seriously. Or, in his case, it's feel like a billion dollars.

That's because The Donald says that his net worth is, well, whatever he feels it is on any given day. "My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with the markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings," he said in a legal deposition from 2007. CNN obtained a copy of the deposition recently.

Post continues after this video interview with Trump:
When questioned further, Trump elaborated: "Yes, even my own feelings, as to where the world is, where the world is going, and that can change rapidly from day to day."

No one knows exactly how much Trump is worth -- and he isn't saying. The real-estate market has crashed and he, or the companies he owns, have declared bankruptcy four times. He's had to sell his Trump Princess yacht and his Trump Shuttle airplane to pay off debts, according to ABC News, and his creditors have put a cap on his personal spending.

But that doesn't mean Trump is poor. Unlike most of us common folk, Trump uses bankruptcy as a business tool to get out of debt. He isn't really empty-pocketed.

"I've used the laws of this country to pare debt," he said recently on ABC News. "We'll have the company. We'll throw it into a chapter. We'll negotiate with the banks. We'll make a fantastic deal. You know, it's like on 'The Apprentice.' It's not personal. It's just business."

All of this is coming into focus now because Trump's making the media rounds claiming that he's a better presidential candidate than Mitt Romney because his net worth is "many, many, many times Mitt Romney." Trump hasn't officially declared his intentions for office, but he's sure acting like a candidate.

But Trump won't say what his net worth is, exactly. Forbes magazine says $2.7 billion, he added, but that's a low number. (He'll have to make his financials public if he runs for office.)

"It's much more than that," Trump told CNN's Candy Crowley. "I think people will be extremely impressed."

Trump was mighty upset when a New York Times reporter pegged his wealth at between $150 million and $250 million in 2005. The reporter said he got that number after talking to people who knew about Trump's finances, CNN reports.

"None of these people thought that he was remotely close to being a billionaire," the reporter, Timothy O'Brien, wrote in a book called "TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald." Trump sued O'Brien for libel after the book was published, and a decision is pending, CNN reports.

When you include the value of the Trump brand, he said in 2007, the actual figure of his net worth is closer to $6 billion. But who knows, he might have just been feeling really excellent that day.