I’ve been hesitant to start this net worth series. I plan to update our net worth details at the end of each month. However, I’d of course hope to see our net worth increase every month, and I know that’s not going to happen for us for a few months yet.

We’re unemployed and aren’t looking for work too soon. Granted I will be doing a bit of contract work for a few weeks this summer but it won’t be enough to bump up our net worth. SO, if anything, hopefully seeing the downtrend over the next few months will give us the encouragement we need to get back to work so we can start seeing those numbers go up.

That all said, when I first put our net worth together last month I was actually pleasantly surprised to see the amount. I highly recommend tracking your net worth. EVEN if you’re in the negative. Much like tracking your spending, seeing the numbers should encourage you to work on improving them.

How I calculated:
Cash – This is the amount we have in Savings and Chequing accounts. I know, this is insane and absurd to hold this much in non-invested accounts. I’m embarrassed to even show this. BUT – we recently moved back to Canada from the US and we have restrictions on what we can do with our money so I’m in the process of setting up investing accounts but we want to make sure we talk with cross-border accountants to ensure we do everything correctly.

Credit Cards – Self-explanatory. This is the amount owing on our credit cards as of June 30. We never carry a balance and pay them off in full every cycle. We use credit cards for just about every purchase in order to earn travel points.

Retirement – This is the amount we have in RRSPs and American 401Ks (converted to CAD).

Apartment Equity – This is the amount of cash we’ve paid against the apartment. This doesn’t actually factor into the net worth calculation (see below), but I like to have the amount there for my own interest.

Condo Value – This is a bit of a wild guess and I think actually a conservative guess. I won’t update this amount much unless something drastic happens. I base it on the sales price of similar units in our building. For example, a unit two floors down, a few square feet bigger than ours sold a few months ago for $530,000.

Amt Owing on Condo – Self-explanatory. Our mortgage.

Net Worth Calculation – I use a fairly simple calculation that includes our cash assets plus the estimated value of our home less our outstanding mortgage. I know there are people who also take into account the value of their vehicles but personally I don’t see a lot of purpose to that. Our vehicles are 7 and 13 years old. They hold value to us, but they aren’t worth a ton if we were to sell them and we’ll probably hold onto them as long as we can – unless we become a one car family.

I’ll provide a Net Worth update every month going forward but like I said, it’ll be down-trending for the next few months so it’ll be a bit depressing.