Comments on: Why You Should Calculate Your Net Worth

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 23:01:00 +0000

Trent,

Great article. You did a great job of expressing the importance of knowing your net worth as well as explaining the fact that it’s not so much the number that’s important but rather how it changes from period to period. This helps people understand that it’s all about the journey rather than the destination.

Keep up the great work!

Paul

By: mjcarrabine

mjcarrabine — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 04:07:10 +0000

Bank of America’s new Portfolio feature lets you add all of your accounts from any financial institution. It even lets you add “manual” accounts so you can update ones that aren’t online.

I agree with Trent that watching my net worth number rise, however slowly, is a huge motivator.

Rick, that is how I handled my home purchase in my networth. I think it also motivates me to make extra principal payments. Although, Sometimes I do like to take out my “condo” account and my mortgage accounts so that I see a higher percent increase from month to month.

By: Rick

Rick — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 18:57:41 +0000

Hey Trent, I love your blog. I have a question for you. When doing net worth calculations, how do you (or will you) account for your house? In the month you buy your house, does your debt go up by thousands of a percent? Also, since in the early months of paying off the house, the principal goes down very slowly. So your debt will change equally as slowly.

I ask because I’m going to close on a house later this month. I’ll have $165K in debt, and each month the principal will only go down about $200. So that’s like a decrease in debt of 0.12%. Hardly anything to get excited about.

By: Tkriger

Tkriger — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 22:13:09 +0000

I just calculated my net worth for the first time as well because of thise blog…I did it in excel initially, but found this site yesterday http://www.networthiq.com

I don’t care who sees it, but heres what it looks like filled out:

http://www.networthiq.com/people/Tkriger/2007/03

By: Miserly Bastard

Miserly Bastard — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 20:44:46 +0000

You left out one of the most important reasons, in my opinion: it forces you to look at your investments and asset allocations, to track performance, etc. for your financial assets.

By: Steve L

Steve L — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 19:02:47 +0000

You should check out the free service by YODLEE, it consolidates all your accounts and calculates Net Worth for you, with changes over time.

https://moneycenter.yodlee.com

By: TOK

TOK — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 19:00:45 +0000

Love your blog! Networth is a great way to track how you are progressing towards your goals. I have been doing this twice a year for the last ten years. I just started using networthiq.com to track my networth.

By: plonkee

plonkee — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 18:28:11 +0000

I calculated my net worth for the first time ever just recently. I had the figures for the beginning and end of 2006 and discovered that I was worth much more than I realised. Its too difficult to calculate more often (some of my accounts are postal) but calculating the change was eye opening.