Every month I post my updated net worth for those that are interested in following my progress. I have been tracking my net worth online since January 2006. I look forward to compiling the numbers each month, and doing so keeps me motivated, focused, and accountable.
Nice rally on top of last month’s losses.
Hi Clint,
I find your Net worth updates very interesting to drop in on from time to time (the downs are as informative as the ups!)
I just wondered about your home equity figure which doesn’t seem to move. Is that because you have an interest only mortgage? Just curious what made you concentrate exclusively on the stock accumulation rather than putting some into the house over the years…
Regards
Stephen,
The value I show for home equity is simply a conservative estimate. I never really found a method that I liked for tracking it and this is where I settled. In many ways I would prefer to ignore the home equity and simply track my “liquid net worth”, but that doesn’t seem fair to the large percentage of my income that goes toward paying off the mortgage (I have a standard 30 year mortgage). Initially, I increased the amount of equity by the amount of principal that I was paying off of the purchase price, but that wasn’t accurate as I had bought towards the top of the housing market and prices had declined. Using sites like Zillow to determine the value didn’t work well as the value changed dramatically from month to month. So, in the end, I just settled on a conservative estimate that I slowly increase each month. It’s not perfectly accurate, but it doesn’t need to be. I don’t want my home equity to be an important part of my net worth, as it’s money I can’t spend. There’s a chance I may be moving in the next year, so that should give me an update to the actual equity. Thanks for checking in.