Determining my worth

Ha! Thanks for the depressing topic!  :)   Finding out your net worth is not too difficult to figure out, especially for the average college student, who probably doesn't own much yet, or have many, if any, investments. The simple equation to figuring out your net worth is to subtract what you owe from the value of what you own. If you don't own a house, a car, a savings account, or investments like a 401K plan, and you are debt free, it should be very easy to figure out! You are probably still on the plus side in the net worth category, because you must own something. 
If, however, you don't own any of the above listed things, and you DO have debt, your net worth is probably in the hole. I used a financial calculator at http://www.msmoney.com/mm/financial_health/where_stand/yournetworth.htm to determine my net worth. If you plug your numbers in, and you do not like what you see, you can try to turn those numbers around by using a site like https://www.mint.com/ or https://money.strands.com/ which launched in 2009 and won the Best Banking Website in the 14th Annual Webby Awards in 2010. Moneystrands has an online app for money managing, as well as a free app for iPhones and iPods. A calendar can be set up to show which bills are about to be due. A 12-month spending plan can be established (otherwise known as the "b" word: budget.) One reviewer wrote:  "Where does my money go" is my favorite feature offered by Moneystrands. It has helped me reevaluate where I spend the majority of my money. My coffee and food budget has been cut by 75%. Just having the visualization of my spending has helped me save so much." A person can set up email alerts; if you reach a certain level of spending in a certain budget category, an alert will be sent to your email or phone warning you so that you can reign in your spending. A person can even compare their spending (by category) with others in the community!


How important is it to know your net worth? Experts are divided on the topic. Per a New York Times article: "To me, it’s an irrelevant number,” says Spencer Sherman, author of “The Cure for Money Madness” and a founder and the chief executive of Abacus Wealth Partners. “If people have a billion in net worth and are spending half a billion in a year, they’re really poor.” After all, they’re on pace to be broke in 24 months. (Sherman’s preferred measure of financial health for retirees is a ratio that compares net worth, excluding home equity, with the amount of money people take from their portfolios each year. He generally doesn’t want clients spending more than 4 to 6 percent of their holdings annually.)
Of course, this is really referring to people who have taken some kind of interest in their finances, obviously, if they have a financial advisor and an established portfolio! Most experts agree that knowing your net worth is a good basic place to start and can lead to learning how to better manage your money.