Your net worth is the single clearest number for measuring financial progress. It cuts through the noise of income and spending and answers one question: are you actually building wealth?
The formula is simple — assets minus liabilities — but doing it right means knowing what to count, how to value it, how to benchmark it, and how to keep the number growing. This guide walks through all of it.
What is net worth?
Net worth is everything you own (assets) minus everything you owe (liabilities).
Net Worth = Total Assets − Total Liabilities
If your assets add up to $250,000 and your debts total $90,000, your net worth is $160,000. It can be positive or negative — a new graduate with student loans and little savings may have a negative net worth, and that’s completely normal. What matters is the direction it moves over time.
Two flavors are worth knowing:
Gross net worth — total assets minus total liabilities (the standard figure).
Liquid net worth — only the assets you could turn into cash quickly (cash, investments), minus liabilities. This tells you what you could actually access in an emergency, since your home and car aren’t easy to spend.
Step 1: Add up your assets
Assets are anything you own that has real, sellable value. Group them so nothing slips through the cracks:
Your primary home (current market value, not what you paid)
Rental or investment properties
Personal property and other
Vehicles (use realistic resale value, not sticker price)
Valuable collectibles, jewelry, or equipment
Business ownership or private equity
Money owed to you
Add these up to get your total assets. Use current market values, and be honest — inflating your home or car value only fools you.
Step 2: Add up your liabilities
Liabilities are everything you owe. Use the current outstanding balance, not the original loan amount:
Mortgage balance
Auto loans
Student loans
Credit card balances
Personal loans and lines of credit
Medical or tax debt
Any other money you owe
Add these up to get your total liabilities.
Step 3: Subtract
Subtract total liabilities from total assets. That’s your net worth.
Amount
Cash & savings
$18,000
Investments & retirement
$142,000
Home (market value)
$380,000
Vehicle
$15,000
Total assets
$555,000
Mortgage
$295,000
Auto loan
$9,000
Student loans
$22,000
Credit cards
$3,000
Total liabilities
$329,000
Net worth
$226,000
What to leave out
A few things commonly trip people up:
Income and salary — net worth is a snapshot of what you have, not what you earn. High earners can have low net worth.
Monthly expenses — these affect net worth over time but aren’t part of the calculation itself.
Depreciating stuff at retail price — furniture, electronics, and clothing rarely have meaningful resale value. Skip them or use conservative numbers.
Term life insurance — it has no cash value (whole-life policies do).
Common mistakes to avoid
Overvaluing your home and car. Use current market value, and remember you’d pay fees to actually sell.
Forgetting old retirement accounts. A 401(k) from a job you left three years ago still counts.
Ignoring debt behind “good” assets. A $400,000 house with a $380,000 mortgage adds only $20,000 to your net worth.
Counting investment gains as your own contributions. When you review how your portfolio is doing, separate the money you added from the money the market earned. Mixing them makes a good month look better than it was — and a bad one worse. (More on this below.)
How do you compare? Net worth benchmarks
It’s natural to want a benchmark. Just remember that averages are skewed upward by the ultra-wealthy — the median (the middle household) is a far more realistic yardstick than the average, and both vary widely by age, region, and cost of living.
Rather than chase someone else’s number, use a personal benchmark. One popular rule of thumb from The Millionaire Next Door is:
So a 40-year-old earning $80,000 would have an expected net worth around $320,000. Hit that and you’re a solid accumulator of wealth; double it and you’re doing exceptionally well. It’s a rough guide, not gospel — but it beats comparing yourself to a headline average.
The most useful benchmark of all is your own net worth last year. Beating your past self, consistently, is the entire game.
How to grow your net worth
There are only two levers, and both matter:
Grow assets. Save and invest consistently. Automate contributions to retirement and brokerage accounts so growth happens without willpower. Time in the market and compounding do the heavy lifting.
Shrink liabilities. Pay down high-interest debt aggressively — credit card balances especially, where the interest often outruns any investment return. Every dollar of debt eliminated raises net worth just as surely as a dollar saved.
A few habits that compound over the years:
Increase your savings rate, not just your income. Raises quietly disappear if spending rises to match them.
Keep housing and vehicle costs in check — the two biggest budget lines for most households.
Invest for the long term and avoid reacting to short-term market swings.
Track your investment returns honestly so you know what’s actually working.
That last point is where most people — and most apps — get tripped up. If you add $10,000 to your brokerage account and it grows to $60,000 from $48,000, it looks like a $12,000 gain. But $10,000 of that was your own deposit; the market only earned you $2,000. Confusing the two makes it impossible to tell whether your investing is any good. The fix is a flow-adjusted return (also called a money-weighted return), which strips out your deposits and withdrawals to show true performance.
How often should you calculate it?
Once a month is the sweet spot. Frequent enough to catch trends, infrequent enough that daily market swings don’t rattle you. Pick a consistent day — the first of the month works well — and log the number each time.
The magic isn’t in any single calculation. It’s in the trend line. Watched over years, a net worth that climbs up and to the right is the clearest proof you’re on the right track.
Do it the easy way: track it automatically
Calculating net worth by hand once is a great exercise. Doing it every month, across a dozen accounts, gets tedious fast — and manual spreadsheets go stale the moment a balance changes.
That’s what a net worth tracker is for. NetTrack connects your bank, brokerage, and retirement accounts, rolls everything into one net worth figure, and updates it automatically. It also computes the flow-adjusted return described above, so the deposits and withdrawals you make don’t get mistaken for market gains — you see how your portfolio actually performed.
Frequently asked questions
What should my net worth be at my age?
There’s no universal target. As a rough guide, The Millionaire Next Door suggests (age × annual income) ÷ 10. More important than any benchmark is that your net worth is trending upward year over year.
Is my house part of my net worth?
Yes — count your home’s current market value as an asset and your remaining mortgage as a liability. The difference (your equity) is what actually adds to net worth. If you want to know what you could access quickly, look at liquid net worth, which excludes your home.
Does my 401(k) count toward net worth?
Absolutely. Retirement accounts — 401(k)s, IRAs, pensions, HSAs — are assets and often make up the largest share of a household’s net worth. Include old accounts from past employers, too.
What’s a good net worth?
A “good” net worth is one that’s positive, growing, and on track for your goals. Comparing to national averages is misleading because they’re skewed by the ultra-wealthy — benchmark against your own past instead.
How is net worth different from income?
Income is what you earn; net worth is what you keep. It’s entirely possible to earn a high salary and have a low (or negative) net worth if spending and debt keep pace. Net worth is the truer measure of financial health.
The bottom line
Net worth is assets minus liabilities — simple to calculate, powerful to track. Add up what you own, subtract what you owe, and check the number monthly. Grow it by saving consistently, paying down debt, and measuring your investment returns honestly. Whether you’re climbing out of debt or building toward financial independence, that single figure, watched over time, tells you the truth about your progress.
We just shipped a batch of updates that make NetTrack feel more rewarding to use — and give you a direct line to the people building it. Here’s what’s new.
Milestones — every financial win, celebrated
Tracking net worth is motivating on its own, but the big moments deserve more than a number ticking up. Milestones automatically marks them and gives you a badge for each:
Net-worth records — every time you cross a new threshold
Debt paydown — milestones on the way down, all the way to debt-free
Savings goals — progress at 25%, 50%, 75%, and the moment you hit 100%
When you cross one, NetTrack celebrates it — and the badge is yours to keep.
You’ll find your badges right on the Home screen. Tap on your Net Worth to open the statistics sheet, and you’ll see the Milestones banner. Tap on it to open the full screen.
Turn on milestone alerts in Settings → Notifications to get a heads-up the moment you hit one.
Try it out
Update to the latest version of NetTrack, then:
Check your Home screen for new milestone badges.
Head to Settings to message the team or browse Ideas.
Drop us a feature request — we’re reading every one.
For the past few months, two requests have consistently topped the list:
A proper Light Mode.
An easier way to manage accounts on existing bank connections.
Today’s release delivers both.
Light Mode
Light Mode is here.
We redesigned it from the ground up to match the cleaner, simpler direction NetTrack has been moving toward. The new theme keeps the same focus on readability and data density while feeling much brighter during daytime use.
You can switch between:
Dark
Light
System (follows your device setting)
Just head to Settings → Appearance and choose the style you prefer.
Manage Existing Connections Without Reconnecting
Previously, if your bank added a new account or you closed an old one, updating NetTrack wasn’t always obvious.
Now when you select an institution you’ve already connected, you’ll see a dedicated update flow.
Simply select your existing connection and choose Add or update accounts. NetTrack will refresh the institution and let you include newly available accounts without creating a duplicate connection.
Why This Matters
Many banks let you have multiple accounts under a single login, and those accounts change over time.
NetTrack should adapt with you.
Whether you’re opening a new high-yield savings account, adding a brokerage account, or closing an old credit card, keeping your dashboard accurate should take seconds—not a full reconnect.
Available Now
Both features are available today:
Light Mode
System Appearance Support
Dedicated Account Update Flow
Easier Account Add/Remove Management
As always, thank you for the feedback and feature requests. Many of NetTrack’s best improvements start with user suggestions, and these two features are a direct result of that.
We’re excited to announce one of the biggest NetTrack updates yet. This release helps you answer three important questions:
How much income are my investments generating?
Am I on track to reach my financial goals?
Is my portfolio actually healthy?
With new Dividend Tracking, Goal Projections, and Investment Health Analytics, NetTrack now gives you deeper insight into both your current finances and your future financial progress.
Dividend Tracking Has Arrived
For many investors, dividends are a critical part of long-term wealth building. Until now, dividend income was often buried inside brokerage statements and transaction histories.
NetTrack now brings dividend income front and center.
Whether you’re building a dividend portfolio or simply collecting income from ETFs, you can now see exactly where your cash flow is coming from and how it’s growing over time.
Soon to come – future dividend projections.
Goal Projections
Saving for a vacation, emergency fund, house down payment, wedding, or any major life milestone is easier when you know whether you’re on pace to reach your target.
Our new Goal Projections feature takes the guesswork out of goal planning.
NetTrack automatically analyzes your historical savings activity and projects when you’ll likely reach your goal.
If you’re falling behind, we’ll show exactly how much additional monthly savings is needed to hit your target date.
No spreadsheets. No manual calculations.
Just a clear picture of where you stand.
Investment Health Analytics
Portfolio value alone doesn’t tell the full story.
A portfolio that gained 10% might still carry excessive risk, poor diversification, or concentration issues.
That’s why we’ve introduced Investment Health.
NetTrack now calculates:
Volatility
Beta
Sharpe Ratio
Maximum Drawdown
Concentration Risk
Diversification Warnings
You’ll also receive actionable insights when your portfolio becomes overly concentrated in a single holding.
For example:
“33% of your portfolio is in VOO.”
This helps investors identify potential risks before they become problems.
Instead of simply tracking performance, NetTrack now helps you understand the quality of your portfolio construction.
Why This Matters
Most financial apps show balances.
NetTrack is focused on helping you make better financial decisions.
With this release you can:
Understand your dividend income
Stay on track toward savings goals
Measure portfolio risk and diversification
Make more informed investment decisions
Together, these features move NetTrack beyond simple net worth tracking and closer to becoming a complete financial command center.
Available Now
Dividend Tracking, Goal Projections, and Investment Health are available today in the latest version of NetTrack.
The best financial decisions start with visibility – and this release gives you more visibility than ever before.
We’re excited to launch one of the most requested features in NetTrack: Goals.
Goals bring intentional saving directly into your budgeting workflow, making it easier to plan for the future while keeping your finances organized in one place.
Whether you’re building an emergency fund, saving for a vacation, or working toward a house down payment, Goals helps you track progress automatically as your accounts grow.
Savings Goals Built Into Your Budget
Goals are fully integrated into the Budget experience in NetTrack. Instead of managing savings separately in spreadsheets or disconnected apps, you can now create and track goals directly alongside your monthly budget.
With Goals, you can:
Create custom savings goals
Set target amounts
Assign one or more accounts to each goal
Configure goal priority
Track funding progress automatically
View total progress across all goals
As your linked account balances change, your goals update automatically in real time — no manual tracking required.
Flexible Goal Tracking
Every goal can be customized to match how you actually save money.
Want to dedicate a high-yield savings account entirely to your emergency fund? You can assign that account directly to the goal.
Saving for multiple things from the same account? Goals can still track progress automatically while helping you prioritize what matters most.
You can create goals for things like:
Emergency funds
Vacations
House down payments
Weddings
New cars
Investment milestones
Anything else you’re saving toward
Shared Household Goals
We’re also introducing Household Goals.
With the new Household settings, NetTrack now supports shared savings goals between household members. This makes it easier for couples and families to collaborate on larger financial milestones together.
One of the biggest goals with this release was reducing manual work.
Most budgeting apps require constant updates and maintenance. NetTrack Goals are designed to stay in sync automatically using your connected accounts and real balances.
That means less time managing spreadsheets — and more time actually making progress toward your financial goals.
Available Now
Goals are now available in the latest version of NetTrack.
To get started:
Open the Budget tab
Tap into Savings Goals
Create your first goal
Assign accounts and priorities
Watch your progress update automatically
We’re excited to continue expanding budgeting and planning tools inside NetTrack, and this is just the beginning.
Your home is one of the biggest pieces of your net worth — now it finally updates alongside the rest of your finances in NetTrack.
With our new Real Estate Tracking feature, you can add properties directly into NetTrack and automatically track their estimated value over time. Whether it’s your primary home, a rental property, or an investment property, NetTrack now gives you a more complete picture of your financial world.
What’s New
Track Any Property
Simply enter an address and NetTrack will automatically estimate the property’s current market value.
No spreadsheets. No manual Zestimate checks. Just one place to monitor your entire financial picture.
Automatic Valuation Updates
Property values update automatically so your net worth reflects real estate market movements over time.
You’ll also see historical value trends directly inside the property page.
Real Estate Included in Net Worth
Your property values are now integrated directly into your overall net worth calculations, helping you see the full picture across:
Cash
Investments
Retirement accounts
Credit cards & loans
Crypto
Real estate
Why We Built It
A lot of net worth trackers ignore real estate entirely — even though for many people it’s their largest asset.
We wanted NetTrack to become the single source of truth for your financial life, and that means including property ownership right alongside your bank accounts, investments, and budgets.
Designed for Simplicity
Adding a property takes seconds:
Open “Add Account”
Tap “Track a Property”
Enter an address
NetTrack handles the rest
No complicated setup required.
Available Now
Real Estate Tracking is now live in NetTrack on iOS and Android.
We’re continuing to expand NetTrack into a complete financial command center — with budgeting, investments, AI insights, financial health scoring, and now real estate tracking all in one place.
Today we’re rolling out two of the biggest additions to NetTrack yet: Financial Health Scores and AI Insights.
The goal with this release is simple: help you understand not just what your financial numbers are, but what they actually mean.
Most finance apps stop at dashboards and charts. NetTrack now goes a step further by turning your financial data into a real-time health score and personalized insights that explain the story behind your money.
Financial Health Score
Your new Financial Health Score gives you a single 0–100 rating based on the core metrics that actually determine long-term financial stability.
Instead of manually trying to piece together savings, debt, spending, and growth trends across dozens of charts, NetTrack now summarizes everything into one clear score.
The score is built from five weighted components:
Savings rate
Net worth growth
Debt-to-asset ratio
Emergency runway
Spending stability
Each category contributes to your overall score and includes actionable feedback explaining what’s helping or hurting your financial position.
For example:
“Raise savings rate to 20% to max this out.”
“Near-zero leverage.”
“10.6 months of runway — well covered.”
The result is a living financial health system that updates automatically as your finances change.
Whether you’re aggressively building wealth, paying down debt, or simply trying to stay on track, the score gives you a fast way to measure progress over time.
AI Insights
We’re also launching AI Insights — personalized financial summaries generated directly from your real transaction and investment activity.
Instead of digging through transaction lists and portfolio screens, NetTrack now surfaces important events automatically.
Examples include:
Large debt paydowns
Changes in net worth
Investment performance drivers
Spending pattern changes
Income trends
Cash flow anomalies
The insights are designed to feel more like a financial analyst reviewing your accounts rather than a generic budgeting app notification.
Some recent examples:
“Your investment portfolio rose 0.78% this week, led by strong performance from SBUX and INKT.”
“You settled $5,782 in balances across Amex, Chase, and Citi accounts.”
“Net worth crossed the $470k threshold.”
The goal is to help you quickly understand:
What changed
Why it changed
What impact it had on your overall financial picture
Why We Built This
One thing we kept hearing was:
“I can see my numbers, but I don’t really know if I’m doing well.”
That’s exactly the problem this release is designed to solve.
NetTrack is evolving from a passive dashboard into a system that actively helps you understand and improve your finances.
The Financial Health Score gives you a benchmark. AI Insights explain the movement behind the benchmark.
Together, they create a much clearer picture of your overall financial trajectory.
Available Now
Financial Health Scores and AI Insights are now rolling out in the latest version of NetTrack.
Update the app and explore the new features from the dashboard.
More AI-powered analysis, forecasting, and personalized recommendations are already in development.
We just shipped the biggest update in NetTrack’s history.
This isn’t just a feature release — it’s a complete redesign of the app from the ground up, focused on one thing: making it dramatically easier to understand and manage your money.
A Fresh Start
Over the past few months, we took a step back and rethought everything.
How should a net worth app feel?
What information actually matters day-to-day?
Where do people get stuck?
The result is a completely rebuilt experience — faster, cleaner, and more intuitive across every screen.
You’ll notice it immediately.
A Brand New Look
NetTrack now has a fully redesigned interface and a new visual identity.
A modern, minimal design that puts your data front and center
Smoother navigation between core areas like Net Worth, Activity, and Budget
A new logo and updated color system designed for clarity
Everything is simpler, more consistent, and easier to scan at a glance.
A Better Net Worth Experience
Your net worth dashboard is now more actionable and easier to understand.
Clear monthly changes with visual trends
Improved charts that highlight real progress over time
Faster load times and smoother interactions
Instead of just showing numbers, NetTrack now helps you see momentum.
Activity That Actually Feels Usable
We rebuilt the transactions experience to feel fast and effortless.
Cleaner transaction list with better categorization
Improved merchant display and account context
Faster scrolling and search
Whether you’re reviewing spending or digging into details, it just feels smoother.
Budgeting That Makes Sense
Budgeting has been redesigned to be more intuitive and flexible.
“Ready to Assign” makes it clear how much money you still have to allocate
Category groups are easier to scan and manage
Overspending is surfaced clearly without being overwhelming
It’s a system that helps you stay in control without feeling like work.
Built for Speed
Under the hood, NetTrack has been completely rebuilt.
Faster performance across the app
More reliable data syncing
A foundation that lets us ship new features much быстрее
This update isn’t just about today — it sets us up for everything coming next.
What’s Next
This redesign is just the beginning.
We’re already working on:
Smarter insights into your spending and saving habits
More powerful investment tracking
Expanded automation and rules
Our goal is simple: make NetTrack the easiest way to understand your financial life.
Try It Now
Update the app and explore the new NetTrack.
As always, we’d love your feedback — this release was shaped heavily by what you told us, and we’re just getting started.
We’ve been hard at work expanding NetTrack’s investment experience—and this is one of our biggest updates yet.
This release gives you more control, better insights, and a smoother way to track your portfolio, whether you’re fully automated with Plaid & SnapTrade or managing things manually.
Manual Investments Are Here
Not every investment account connects perfectly—and now it doesn’t have to.
You can now:
Add investments manually
Track individual holdings across accounts
Maintain a complete view of your portfolio, even for unsupported brokers or assets
This is a huge unlock for anyone with private investments, manual trades, or accounts that don’t sync reliably.
Built-In Ticker Research
We’ve added a dedicated research experience directly inside NetTrack.
Search for any stock or ticker and instantly view:
Real-time pricing
Performance across time ranges (1W, 1M, 3M, YTD, etc.)
Clean, focused charts
No more jumping between apps just to check a stock—you can research and act in one place.
Watchlists
Found something interesting? Save it.
With watchlists, you can:
Track tickers you’re considering
Monitor performance before investing
Keep tabs on key companies without adding them to your portfolio
This pairs perfectly with the new research flow and makes NetTrack feel much more like a true investing companion—not just a tracker.
Portfolio vs S&P 500 Comparison
One of the most important questions in investing is simple: am I actually outperforming the market?
Now you can answer that instantly.
NetTrack now lets you compare your portfolio directly against the S&P 500 (SPY), so you can:
See if you’re outperforming or lagging the market
Visualize your returns side-by-side
Understand performance in context—not just raw gains
Your portfolio performance now tells a much clearer story.
Improved Portfolio Experience
We’ve also upgraded the portfolio view to make insights clearer and more actionable:
Time range filtering for deeper analysis
Cleaner performance breakdowns with gains, cost basis, and returns
More intuitive charts and visualizations
Your portfolio should be easy to understand at a glance—and now it is.
What This Means
NetTrack is evolving beyond just “net worth tracking.”
With this release, we’re moving toward a full financial command center:
