Calculate and Track your Net Worth in 5 minutes using Google Sheets
A friend of mine asked me the other day“What’s your total net worth?” I instinctively replied that it was none of his business while deflecting the question with a chuckle. It got me thinking afterwards that I had no clue how much my net worth was. I thought tracking net worth was for multi-millionaires who had income streams from every direction. Net worth was just the sum of my checking and savings account right? I soon learned later that I was wrong. That moment inspired a late night session spent browsing the web and researching all I could on how to calculate my net worth and track it with minimal effort. I’ve done most of the hard work by creating this tool so you don’t have to! You just have to plug in a few numbers and that’s it!
To make a copy to your own Google Docs library, Go to File > Make a Copy. If you want an offline version Go to File > Download as > Microsoft Excel.
Let’s brush up on a few key terms before filling out the spreadsheet.
Some key terms:
Liquid Assets: Cash on hand or an asset that can be readily converted to cash. An asset that can readily be converted into cash is similar to cash itself because the asset can be sold with little impact on its value.
Generally, the easier/quicker it is to convert your asset into cash, (without taking a sharp decrease in price) the more liquid it is.
examples: stock, index funds
Illiquid Assets: Assets that cannot be easily or quickly converted to cash.
examples: car, house, antiques
Net Asset Value (NAV): Refers to the value of an asset minus its liabilities. It is often used to refer to mutual funds but if you’re talking about stock its just the current stock price.
One thing to understand that your net worth is your assets minus your liabilities. That’s just another way to say how much money you have after subtracting your total debt. So for example, if I have $5,000 in my bank account and owe $22 to my credit card company, my net worth is $4,978. If I have $60,000 in my bank account and 2 units of ACME stock worth $100 each, then my net worth is $60,000 + (2 * $100) = $60,200. Lastly, if I have $60,000 in my savings account but owe $100,000 in student debt to my University, my total net worth is -$40,000!
Fill out the balance sheet with your assets and feel free to factor in significantly illiquid assets like your car and house. Comment below if you have any questions!
