Quick answer: To calculate net worth, add up everything you own at today’s value, add up everything you owe at today’s payoff balance, and subtract the second total from the first. Net worth = assets − liabilities. For scale, the Federal Reserve’s Financial Accounts release of September 11, 2026 put U.S. household and nonprofit net worth at $195.9 trillion in the second quarter of 2026.
Net worth sounds like a number for people with stock portfolios and lake houses. It isn’t. It’s one subtraction, and it’s a clear answer to the question “am I actually getting anywhere?” Your budget tells you what happened this month. Your net worth tells you what all those months added up to.
The math itself is quick. Where people get stuck is everything around it: does the house count, does the 401(k) count, what about the car you still owe money on? This guide answers those one at a time, with a worked example you can copy.
Key takeaways
- Net worth = what you own minus what you owe. That’s the whole formula.
- Value assets at what they’d sell for today, and debts at what it would take to pay them off today.
- Compare yourself to the median for your age, not the average. The average is pulled way up by the very rich.
- One check-in per quarter is plenty. The direction matters more than the number.
What is the net worth formula?
The net worth formula is total assets minus total liabilities. Assets are things you own that have money value: cash, savings, investments, retirement accounts, a home, a car. Liabilities are debts you owe: a mortgage, car loan, student loans, credit card balances, medical bills, buy now pay later plans. If the assets total is bigger, your net worth is positive. If the debts total is bigger, it’s negative.
The hard part isn’t the subtraction. It’s being honest and consistent about what goes on each side.
How to calculate your net worth, step by step
You need your banking app and your latest loan statements. Do it in one sitting so all the balances come from the same day.
- List every asset. Checking, savings, cash, brokerage accounts, retirement accounts, HSA, the home you own, vehicles, anything else you could actually sell for real money.
- Write today’s value next to each one. Use the current balance for accounts and a realistic sale price for things.
- List every debt. Mortgage, car loan, student loans, every credit card, personal loans, money owed to family, BNPL plans.
- Write the payoff balance next to each one. That’s the full amount owed today, not the monthly payment.
- Total both columns and subtract. Assets minus debts. Write the date next to the answer.
That date matters. One net worth number is a snapshot. Two of them, three months apart, are a trend, and the trend tells you whether your plan is working.
A worked example you can copy
Here’s a made-up household in their early thirties: renting, one car with a loan, some student debt, a small 401(k). Nothing fancy, which is the point.
| What you own | Value | What you owe | Balance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Checking + savings | $6,400 | Car loan | $11,200 |
| 401(k) | $38,000 | Student loans | $24,500 |
| Car (private-party value) | $14,000 | Credit card | $3,100 |
| Total assets | $58,400 | Total debts | $38,800 |
$58,400 minus $38,800 is a net worth of $19,600. Notice what happens if you leave out the car: assets drop to $44,400, but the $11,200 car loan is still sitting on the other side. Counting the loan and skipping the car makes you look poorer than you are. Counting the car at what you paid for it makes you look richer. Use what it would sell for today.
This is also where paper earns its keep. When the two columns sit side by side on one page, you can’t quietly forget the car loan. The Net Worth Tracker in our fillable budget planner is laid out exactly that way, assets on one side and liabilities on the other, so the subtraction happens where you can see every line.
Does a house count toward net worth?
Yes, a house you own counts toward net worth, and so does the mortgage on it. Put the home’s estimated market value on the asset side and the full mortgage payoff balance on the debt side. What’s left over is your home equity. The Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances counts a primary residence as an asset, and 66.1 percent of U.S. families owned their home in 2022.
Two practical rules. First, be conservative with the home value. An online estimate is a guess, and selling a house costs money. Second, pick one method and stick with it every time. If you switch from one website’s estimate to another’s, your net worth can “jump” without you doing anything at all. If you rent, nothing goes here.
Does a 401(k) count as net worth?
Yes. A 401(k), IRA or other retirement account counts toward net worth at its current balance, even though withdrawing it early usually means penalties. The Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances lists retirement accounts as financial assets, and 54.3 percent of families held one in 2022. Leaving retirement money out would make most working people look far poorer than they really are.
One honest caveat: money in a traditional 401(k) hasn’t been taxed yet, so you won’t keep every dollar when you withdraw it. You don’t need to calculate the tax to track your progress. Just know that the number on the statement is a little bigger than what you’d actually get, and be consistent about how you count it.
Your net worth, on one page you’ll actually fill in
The Fillable Budget Planner is a PDF you can type into or print. It includes a Net Worth Tracker (assets minus liabilities), a Debt Payoff Tracker, Savings Goals and a monthly budget set, in an undated version and a dated July 2026 to December 2027 version.
Get the Fillable Budget Planner →What is a good net worth for my age?
A good net worth is one that’s higher than it was a year ago. For a reference point, the Federal Reserve’s 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances reported a median family net worth of $192,900, with big differences by age. These are medians, so half of families in each group had less and half had more.
| Age of head of family | Median net worth (2022) | Mean net worth (2022) |
|---|---|---|
| Under 35 | $39,000 | $183,500 |
| 35 to 44 | $135,600 | $549,600 |
| 45 to 54 | $247,200 | $975,800 |
| 55 to 64 | $364,500 | $1,566,900 |
| 65 to 74 | $409,900 | $1,794,600 |
| 75 and older | $335,600 | $1,624,100 |
Source: Federal Reserve, Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2019 to 2022 (Table 2, 2022 dollars). The 2022 survey is the most recent one with published results.
Look at how far apart the two columns are. The mean for all families was $1,063,700, more than five times the median. That’s what a handful of very wealthy households do to an average. If you compare yourself to the mean, almost everyone feels behind. Compare yourself to the median for your age, and then mostly compare yourself to you from last year.
Is a negative net worth bad?
A negative net worth isn’t a verdict, it’s a starting line. It means your debts are currently bigger than your assets, which is common for people early in their careers with student loans, or anyone who just bought a car with a loan. What matters is the direction: if the number is less negative every quarter, your plan is working, even before it crosses zero.
If you’re in negative territory, high-interest debt is often a good place to start. Paying a card down with cash doesn’t change your net worth that day, since your cash and your debt both drop, but it cuts the interest that drags the number down every month after. Our guide on which debt to pay off first walks through the order, and the debt payoff plan guide turns it into dates.
How often should you calculate your net worth?
Calculating net worth once a quarter is often enough for most households. Monthly checks mostly show noise, like a market dip or a card that hadn’t been paid yet that day. Quarterly is frequent enough to catch a bad trend early and rare enough that you’ll actually keep doing it.
Pick a date you won’t forget, like the first weekend of January, April, July and October, and use the same rules every time: same home estimate source, same “private-party” car value, same balances pulled the same day. Consistency beats precision here. A slightly-off number measured the same way four times a year tells you more than a perfect number measured once.
That’s also why our planner gives net worth its own page instead of squeezing it into every monthly spread. Your monthly pages handle spending; the net worth page is where you step back four times a year and see the whole picture. The PDF doesn’t do the math for you, so you’ll want a calculator or your phone nearby, and it comes with a free Money Tracker Google Sheet you can open from a QR code inside.
Net worth vs. budget: why you need both
A budget and a net worth number answer different questions. Your budget asks “where is this month’s money going?” Your net worth asks “after all those months, where do I stand?” You can have a perfect budget and a net worth that isn’t moving, if the leftover money never lands anywhere.
The useful combo is simple: the budget sends money somewhere on purpose (an emergency fund, extra debt payments, retirement), and the quarterly net worth check confirms it actually worked. If you’re tracking in Notion instead of on paper, our Notion finance tracker guide covers how to log balances there.
Start with the monthly side first
Net worth grows from what each month leaves behind. The free Monthly Budget Template for Google Sheets tracks budget vs. actual, bills and savings goals so you can see where that leftover money comes from.
Get the free Monthly Budget Template →This article is general educational information, not personalized financial advice. Figures are from the Federal Reserve sources named above as of their publication dates. Consider your own situation or talk with a qualified professional before making money decisions.