★ Money Challenge #18: Update Your Net Worth

This is part of our Weekly Money Challenge series. Be sure to check off any you’ve missed!

Q1 2017 is already in the books. (What?!) Money nerds know what time it is... It's Net Worth Update Time!

This week's challenge: Update your net worth. Don't have one to update? Change that TODAY.

There are many different methods to track it, but one simple equation is all you need...

Assets - Debts = Net Worth

Add up all your assets on on side (cash, investments, real estate), and all your liabilities on the other (credit card debt, mortgages, loans) then subtract the two and BOOM - your net worth is revealed.

Here are a few popular ways to track it:

If you need a little inspiration, check out our article today on why bloggers share their net worths with the world, or head directly over to our Blogger Net Worth Tracker and start gawking. Look for the person who it closest to your own to learn and connect with, and then move up the list a little higher to get motivated to push further! No one else needs to know where you stand, but it's incredibly important that you do. Questions: Why do you track your net worth and what tool do you use? – Derek, Master of Challenges ****** PS: Curious to see how last week’s challenge went? Click here and scroll to the bottom.

UPDATE!

We've got a lot of people tracking their net worth around here (and over in the forums). Here's some of this week's highlights. . .

I track because I love to see $$ signs, numbers and commas. And of course to see where we are and how far we've come! It's helped me convince my husband we could get to FI and retire sooner than he would have ever expected. Use the trusty spreadsheets but also like to use Personal Capital. Used Mint for a few years and switched to PC a couple years ago and love it. - AmyB

I give all credit to @J.Money for inspiring me to begin tracking my net worth AND posting it. Often people will comment saying they are too afraid to put it all out there and I always respond by saying how much seeing J$'s motivated me to get my butt in gear. You never know who YOU will motivate. Oh, putting it all out there is also the reason why I blog anonymously!! So if you are not anonymous I can totally understand why you would want to pass. Anywho, for those who are curious... here are my numbers. -Miss Mazuma …Because Miss MoneyBags was taken. ;)

I started tracking and publishing mine because I wanted there to be proof of my successful financial journey (and I was quite adamant that I would be successful, even when things looked pretty grim 10 years ago!). -Stephonee

I use Quicken to track mine since it handles the non-connectable accounts as well. I'm proud to say that I just made my net worth public for the first time today. -Route To Retire

I've been updating an excel spreadsheet from when I first started working full-time. It's been eye opening to see the progress and it's only gotten more and more complicated as I add different calculations, ratios, etc. PC is useful to pull data quickly but since it's relatively new, I still use the spreadsheet. I don't publish it though. -Jim

I have been tracking our net worth since i first installed Money on my PC back in 1997! Of course, back then and for many years after, it wasn't a conscious effort, i just updated the file without much thought to it. Nowadays I use Quicken (-transitioned in 2011 - after Microsoft killed Money and I ran into a heck of a time finding support for it). So, now - Quicken it is. And many moons later I admit, specially the last several years, I keep really close tabs on our net worth. You can say i am super intentional about it...and it has been nice to see the change from that far back. I don't currently publish it but if i ever get this blog up and running perhaps someday i will! - Looking at these reports is so inspiring, makes me want to grow up and follow the examples of others on here. Thanks for sharing! -Ana

I track my Net Worth using a spreadsheet. Specifically, Google Drive, because I can access it on my phone. But in the future, I will probably transition to tracking it using Personal Capital. I recently started using it and have been pleased with it. - WealthRehab

I use google sheets too. I created a sheet that has tabs for each year and then a dedicated tab for each month which has more detail, graphs etc.I track net worth but also investible assets which is more important to me as that is the number which will determine FIRE. The great thing about tracking net worth is that I never want the number to go down, so it really does focus the mind on any expenditures each month. bownyboy

Got mine all updated, fresh today. -OthalaFehu

I track my net worth because it tells a story about how we are doing with our money over the longer term! I think that small wins done over a longer period can build up to something very big! In our case this has led to an over 500% growth in our net worth since 2010! I update them publicly and just posted my latest update here. -Steven Goodwin

I started tracking my net worth a year and a half ago after finishing graduate school. For me it automatically came hand-in-hand with budgeting and making sure my finances were moving in the right direction and at the right pace. I live in a city with a high cost of living, and my first year in the real world was hard on my initial salary. I've since been promoted and I'm pretty proud of how I've done so far. I use Quicken. -Telyn