What your net worth report shows
The headline figure is what you would have left after selling everything you own and clearing every debt with the proceeds. Below it sit the two totals behind it and the debt-to-asset ratio — the share of what you own that is still owed to somebody else. That ratio is the one to watch, because it moves when you pay down a balance even in a year when markets go sideways.
With your age entered, the comparison band sets your figure against the Federal Reserve median for your age group. A median is not a target — half of US families sit below it — so read it as a bearing, not a grade.
What is net worth?
Net worth is the value of everything you own minus everything you owe.
Net worth = total assets − total liabilities
Your income is not part of it. A high earner carrying large balances can have a negative net worth, while a modest earner who saves steadily can have a healthy one — net worth measures accumulated wealth, income measures cash flow. It is worth tracking annually because it is the only figure that captures saving, investing, debt repayment and asset prices at once.
A negative result is common, not a verdict: graduates with student loans and new buyers with a fresh mortgage routinely start below zero and climb out as balances fall.
How to use this net worth calculator
- Value assets at what they would sell for today, not what you paid — a recent comparable sale for a house, a current resale guide for a car.
- Enter debts as balances owed, never monthly payments. A $1,400 mortgage payment is not the liability; the $265,000 outstanding is.
- Include assets you are still paying for. A $300,000 home with a $220,000 mortgage adds $80,000 — asset and debt go in separately and the calculator nets them.
- Add your age to unlock the comparison band — optional, and nothing is transmitted.
- Set growth assumptions in the optional panel so the ten-year projection reflects your own saving rate.
Everything recalculates as you type, and the report prints on one page.
Which assets to include
Count anything you could sell or withdraw: your home at market value, cash, taxable investments, retirement accounts, vehicles at resale value, and valuables worth enough to matter. Business equity counts at what a buyer would pay.
Retirement accounts belong in at their full balance, even though withdrawing early would cost tax and a penalty: discounting them by a guessed tax rate swaps a known number for an invented one. Note the concentration instead, and remember what a Roth account changes about it.
Leave out anything you cannot sell or convert: expected inheritances, unvested equity, and the resale value of ordinary household goods.
Which debts to include
Every balance you owe, whatever the rate: mortgage, home equity borrowing, credit cards, student loans, auto loans, personal and medical debt, tax owed, money owed to family. Interest-free debt still counts at its balance.
Debts differ in what to do about them, not in how they count here. A 24% card balance compounds against you fast enough that clearing it usually beats investing the same money — the card payoff calculator puts that in months and dollars.
What a good net worth looks like for your age
There is no single target — it depends on age, income, household size and local house prices. Two checkpoints beat any benchmark: net worth trending up year over year, and a debt-to-asset ratio falling. Both are in your control in a way a national median is not.
The Fed’s medians rise steeply with age — the youngest group holds a small fraction of what the 65–74 group does — largely because home equity and retirement balances accumulate over decades, not because earnings differ that much. A figure below your bracket’s median usually reflects how long you have been accumulating, not how well.
Compounding closes the distance: run the same monthly amount through the compound interest calculator over ten, twenty and thirty years to see why the age curve bends the way it does.
What this calculator assumes
- Your valuations are right. Home value is where estimates go furthest wrong.
- No tax is applied to retirement balances or unrealised gains. Real proceeds after a sale would be lower — see the capital gains calculator.
- The projection is a straight continuation of your growth rates, not a forecast — markets never deliver an average as a smooth line.
- Nothing leaves your browser. No account, no email gate, no stored figures.
This is an educational estimate, not financial advice or a valuation of any specific asset.
Net worth questions people ask
Does my income count toward my net worth?
No. Net worth counts what you own and owe at a point in time; income is what flows in over a period. Two people on the same salary can be hundreds of thousands apart depending on what they kept.
Should I include my home in my net worth?
Yes — at what it would sell for today, with the outstanding mortgage entered as a debt, so the two net out to your equity. Leaving it out understates most homeowners badly, since home equity is the largest asset for the majority of US families.
Is a negative net worth bad?
It is common rather than alarming in your twenties and thirties, when student loans and a new mortgage are near full balance. What matters is direction: a negative figure shrinking each year is a plan working.
How often should I calculate my net worth?
Once or twice a year. Checking monthly mostly measures market noise, and the point of the number is the multi-year trend.