Do You Know Your Worth?

Yeah, yeah. I know you are priceless and your love, no money can buy.  But amongst us girls, do you really know your worth?

Recently, I posted an article on our Facebook page about women’s net worth.  Needless to say, the picture isn’t pretty.  I was chatting about this with a good friend and we were both shaking our heads when she asked me…”So what is net worth anyway?”  I knew then that I had to write this post.

Despite the lofty name, net worth is a simple formula really.

Net Worth = Assets – Liabilities

Said plainly, your net worth is how much you OWN minus how much you OWE.

If you owe more than you own, you have negative net worth. Our goal is to make sure that you have positive net worth.

So how do you know if what you have is an asset or a liability?

An asset is anything that you own that has positive economic value. Assets can be tangible like a house or intangible like stocks.  The easiest way to think about whether or not something is an asset is to ask yourself, could I convert this thing into cash if I needed to?  If you could exchange your car, your house, etc for cash then it is an asset.  If, on the other hand, you tried to sell your house and instead you owed money – then what you have is a liability, not an asset.

A liability is something you don’t own but that you owe…something that has negative economic value. A few common liabilities include credit card balances, car loans, mortgages, student loans.  Sound familiar? All of us likely have some type of liability hanging over our head.  The goal, again is to try to minimize these as much as we can so that net, net we are positive.

Now it’s your turn to determine your worth…are you ready??  Some people are hesitant about this step.  It can be scary. Trust me, with all the student debt I have I was a bit timid about doing the calculation myself.  But hiding from the truth never helps anything, it just prolongs the inevitable.  So chin up! We’re all big girls here.  Let’s roll up our sleeves and do the math.

Attached I have created the BDG “Know Your Worth” Net Worth Calculator just for you my BDG Crew!

Check it out here: KnowYourWorthCalculator

Remember, its okay if your net worth is negative right now. We are still young and have years ahead of us to accumulated mucho assets! The important thing is that we all now have the knowledge to take action.  You should check your net worth at least once per year to make sure you are heading in the right direction…positive!