Do you know your Net Worth

How well do you know your Net Worth

  • What's a Net Worth???

    Votes: 10 9.7%

  • I know mine give or take 50k

    Votes: 29 28.2%

  • I know mine give or take 10k

    Votes: 17 16.5%

  • I know a ballpark

    Votes: 24 23.3%

  • I know or have it written (nearly or exactly) to the penny.

    Votes: 23 22.3%
  • Total voters
    103
I just need to find a simple way to convert the things Henning mentioned into cash.
Well... more cash. I have a job that sustains me but I would like to be able to sustain more.
 
I use mint.com and whatever it estimates my house is worth added to whatever I have in my piggy bank gives an estimate.

Cheers
 
Henning said:
It's all meaningless, a trick of the imagination you were lead to believe. What is your net worth is better answered in the form of "What can you produce, repair, or provide society in return for your keep?", not, "How much money & stuff have you accumulated?"

What do you know? What can yo do? What have you experienced? What can you teach? What can you give? These are the real measures of human net worth.
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I get what you're saying and agree on a philosophical level. However, meaningless or not, the grocery store doesn't take your experiences as payment.
 
It's just a number,enjoy life ,and don't worry about it.
 
Alexb2000 said:
I get what you're saying and agree on a philosophical level. However, meaningless or not, the grocery store doesn't take your experiences as payment.
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Lol, they have, I repaired a refer for a stack of steaks before, no taxes that way either.;)
 
Jaybird180 said:
That's not what the poll says. I just explained this to my coworker who also misread the poll.

Those choices mean you know the number but the accuracy has a variance of about $50,000. This probably means that you have large fluctuations in your net worth and/or it's been a long time since you've updated your data. Same for $10k but it's been less time and/or volatility in your data. Knowing with a high degree of accuracy means that you actively track your Net Worth and likely have it recorded electronically and can readily access it and have done so recently.
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A $50k variance isn't much if you have significant assets. A $10k variance just means a a good night at the craps table.

Much "wealth" is tied up in assets that you can't download valuations into an Excel spreadsheet on an hourly basis.

It is easy to value a publicly traded company, much more difficult to value a privately held company. $1million in income from a privately held company is not going to get an 19.68 PE like the SP500, so, a PE of 4-5 on a privately held company means a guy with a $1million income stream is going to have his "net worth" swing by $1million, depending on if you want to assign a valuation of 4x or 5x.

Lots of illiquid assets can generate significant wealth and income, but can be nearly impossible to plug into a spreadsheet to calculate "net worth". And valuing them on a continuous basis would detract from far better uses of time.
 
I started in the 80s and bailed in the 90s.

Mint is free and aggregates al your accounts for the most part. Still buggy but you get what you pay for.


timwinters said:
Me too, and I just upgraded to 2014 because they forced me to.



It's their biggest PoS bug-filled program yet. 2011 was bad, 2014 is unbearably bad.



It's time to find something else.



Anyone have suggestions?
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Net worth used to be depressing years ago. I was negative until my late 20s.

Now it's marginally positive, but in reality if I *had* to liquidate all my assets and pay the fees/taxes involved I'd be just over $0.
 
Knowing what it is today, really isn't that relevant unless you need to use it today. So I don't know exactly how accurate my educated guess is, but I have a damn good idea.
 
Henning said:
It's all meaningless, a trick of the imagination you were lead to believe. What is your net worth is better answered in the form of "What can you produce, repair, or provide society in return for your keep?", not, "How much money & stuff have you accumulated?"

What do you know? What can yo do? What have you experienced? What can you teach? What can you give? These are the real measures of human net worth.
Click to expand...
In that case, I'm either the next Bill Gates or Joe MacMillan of Cardiff Electric. I know generally I'm worth far more after I kick the bucket, but I have 3 cars and a plane all paid for, and own most of my house. I do computers for a living, building them from the ground up or programming them. Unfortunately, if I ever lose my job, I'm probably too old to find another job in the field unless I do a Bill or Joe.
Besides, it isn't material things that make your net worth. It's how others remember you after you are gone. If I had nothing today 'cept my dogs and a roof over my head (kind of like my divorce 9 years ago), I'd still be happy and satisfied.
And quite successful.
 
JB1842 said:
I have enough just to pay off the mortgage and have some left over. She would still have to work. It's not worth the hassle for her to off me......yet.
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I have just enough that in the event of my demise she can purchase a for sale sign, and a marker.
 
Alexb2000 said:
I have an Excel spreadsheet that I created with automatic stock updates, interest calculations, etc. It literally takes 10 seconds to update, shows the deltas, running totals, etc. It also allows forecasting and "what if" scenarios. Excel is an amazing tool that almost everyone has. No need to ballpark if you'll take a little time and make one.
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In 1985 I got my first Mac and a copy of Multiplan, the precursor to Excel.

Since there was little personal financial software back then, I set up spreadsheets, which later in Excel became linked to each other.

Works well, and I kind of do try to track to the penny in order to spot trends. Once a month do a summary to see where we stand.

Once you start tracking expenses, it makes you more cognizant of where the money is going, and making adjustments. I can't think of much worse than NOT knowing how all that money is being spent.

Also, if and when someone needs a financial statement, it's very easy to plug in the numbers. Handy when refinancing, let's say.
 
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FastEddieB said:
In 1985 I got my first Mac and a copy of Multiplan, the precursor to Excel.

Since there was little personal financial software back then, I set up spreadsheets, which later in Excel became linked to each other.

Works well, and I kind of do try to track to the penny in order to spot trends. Once a month do a summary to see where we stand.

Once you start tracking expenses, it makes you more cognizant of where the money is going, and making adjustments. I can't think of much worse than NOT knowing how all that money is being spent.

Also, if and when someone needs a financial statement, it's very easy to plug in the numbers. Handy Shen refinancing, let's say.
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A personal friend who is a Federal Gov't manager over the OIG Budget Department (who coincidentally changed agencies - similar roles for a higher position) does ALL of her personal finances using Excel. She once told me about a $0.06 discrepancy, which she eventually found and fixed.

In spite of the drawbacks and extortion tactics, I'm a Quicken user. I suppose if I was better at it, I'd do excel too.
 
Jaybird180 said:
A personal friend who is a Federal Gov't manager over the OIG Budget Department (who coincidentally changed agencies - similar roles for a higher position) does ALL of her personal finances using Excel. She once told me about a $0.06 discrepancy, which she eventually found and fixed.

In spite of the drawbacks and extortion tactics, I'm a Quicken user. I suppose if I was better at it, I'd do excel too.
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I like quicken, quick books, all of them are great. I just don't want to be locked into a proprietary format exactly for the reasons you stated. Excel is basically a green columnar pad we used to use to setup accounting by hand around the time of Christ.
 
Alexb2000 said:
I like quicken, quick books, all of them are great. I just don't want to be locked into a proprietary format exactly for the reasons you stated. Excel is basically a green columnar pad we used to use to setup accounting by hand around the time of Christ.
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What do you do with this information?
 
JoseCuervo said:
What do you do with this information?
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Are you baiting me?

I already said above what I do with it. I also used it farming, while we could use cash accounting in those days which I assume you still do, the rules have changed now to accrual for other than a sole proprietorship so some form of financial planning is a must. Even if you don't know the sugar content, yield, and exact futures price of beats in July.
 
Alexb2000 said:
Are you baiting me?

I already said above what I do with it. I also used it farming, while we could use cash accounting in those days which I assume you still do, the rules have changed now to accrual for other than a sole proprietorship so some form of financial planning is a must. Even if you don't know the sugar content, yield, and exact futures price of beats in July.
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Not baiting. Just trying to figure the value of the time spent vs the benefits.

Why would a farmer need to know his daily net worth, closer than a "ballpark" in July?

His time, it seems, would be better spent irrigating or flying.

Are you making decisions based on Net Worth on a regular basis? What would they be, if you don't mind sharing?
 
JoseCuervo said:
Not baiting. Just trying to figure the value of the time spent vs the benefits.

Why would a farmer need to know his daily net worth, closer than a "ballpark" in July?

His time, it seems, would be better spent irrigating or flying.

Are you making decisions based on Net Worth on a regular basis? What would they be, if you don't mind sharing?
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So the John Deere dealer comes out and says you need a bigger tractor. Do I? Or is he just selling something? Using Excel I know what each piece of equipment cost, fuel burn, hours used per year, maintenance cost, labor to run it, major repair reserve, etc. just like an airplane. I can take his numbers, interest, test the machine for production, calculate tax effect, forecast income, etc. and know if it makes sense. In this case it did and I knew that before I ever wrote a check.

The other way is a guy thinks he can swing it and just wants a new tractor. I picked up a lot of stuff from guys like that at auction.:wink2:
 
Using Excel I know what each piece of equipment cost, fuel burn, hours used per year, maintenance cost, labor to run it, major repair reserve,
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OK, I think I see the disconnect. Your Excel spreadsheet isn't telling you NetWorth, and you aren't using Net Worth to make a decision. Your Excel spreadsheet is tracking your costs/expenses on old equipment, and, somehow you use them for making decisions on new pieces of equipment.

Much different than a NetWorth decision.


Alexb2000 said:
I can take his numbers, interest, test the machine for production, calculate tax effect, forecast income, etc. and know if it makes sense. In this case it did and I knew that before I ever wrote a check.
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Again, his numbers are completely independent of your Net Worth, and your Net Worth has no impact on his numbers. The neighbor down the road who is dang near broke would also see similar numbers from the John Deere dealer with respect to fuel burn, production, tax benefit, income, etc, just as the Mega-Corporation Conglomerate Farm located just over the hill from you.

The John Deere numbers are completely independent of Net Worth.



Alexb2000 said:
The other way is a guy thinks he can swing it and just wants a new tractor. I picked up a lot of stuff from guys like that at auction.:wink2:
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Hopefully you buy new pieces of equipment based on the future positive revenue stream (NPV, or Internal Rate of Return) and not based upon Net Worth.

I have known lots of farmers who had high Net Worth and were able to farm until they ran out of Net Worth. :yes: ;)
 
JoseCuervo said:
OK, I think I see the disconnect. Your Excel spreadsheet isn't telling you NetWorth, and you aren't using Net Worth to make a decision. Your Excel spreadsheet is tracking your costs/expenses on old equipment, and, somehow you use them for making decisions on new pieces of equipment.

Much different than a NetWorth decision.




Again, his numbers are completely independent of your Net Worth, and your Net Worth has no impact on his numbers. The neighbor down the road who is dang near broke would also see similar numbers from the John Deere dealer with respect to fuel burn, production, tax benefit, income, etc, just as the Mega-Corporation Conglomerate Farm located just over the hill from you.

The John Deere numbers are completely independent of Net Worth.





Hopefully you buy new pieces of equipment based on the future positive revenue stream (NPV, or Internal Rate of Return) and not based upon Net Worth.

I have known lots of farmers who had high Net Worth and were able to farm until they ran out of Net Worth. :yes: ;)
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It's all just part of the financial picture. I was talking about net worth generically and you wanted to apply it to farming, so I tried to give you an example. Tractors are assets sometimes worth several hundred thousand dollars a piece as you know and can be very relevant in the overall picture. However, I don't think you can look at them in a stand alone vacuum, or at least I never could. When I was farming it was something you did after you got home from work and on weekends unless you owned about 20 sections with some producing minerals. So net worth calculations were entirely relevant to buying a tractor because the farm might not be able to pay for it independently. Also, tax implications from other sources of income, like minerals, may require a tractor purchase for tax reasons even if the numbers don't work as a stand alone farm asset.

Bottom line financial planning doesn't effect flying or irrigating one bit, it's something I can do in less time than it takes to sit through a commercial and has proven at least for me to produce huge benefit. YMMV.

Sounds like you know how to make a little money farming.:D (old joke)
 
Wealth is not about what you have, wealth is about what you need.
 
To answer the originally posted question... Yes.

Did you mean to post a different question? ;)
 
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