Advanced options
Net worth = everything owned minus everything owed. Track it quarterly or yearly: the direction matters far more than the level, and comparing against anyone else's is the fastest way to learn nothing useful.
What The Net Worth Calculator Works Out
- Total assets: home at realistic sale value, pensions at current pot value, savings and investments, and anything sellable such as a car. Homes at last year's optimistic valuation and cars at purchase price flatter the number without changing the reality it fails to describe.
- Total liabilities: mortgage, loans, cards and finance. The mortgage's steady amortisation is often the quiet majority of a household's early wealth-building.
- Net worth: assets minus liabilities. The example household (GBP 300,000 home, GBP 80,000 pensions, GBP 30,000 other assets, GBP 185,000 of debt) stands at GBP 225,000. Negative net worth is the normal starting position of anyone with a student loan and no house; exiting it is the first milestone.
- Liquid position: accessible savings minus non-mortgage debt. It measures resilience and is the number an emergency actually consults; pension-heavy positions are wealthy but illiquid until access age.
- Including student loan (advanced): UK student loans are often left out because repayments are set by income (9% above the plan threshold) and the balance is written off after 25 to 40 years. This card shows the figure with it included so you can see both.
- Realisable net worth (advanced): takes selling costs off the home (estate agent fees of 1% to 2% plus legal costs, so 2% to 3% overall) and a haircut off cars and valuables, which rarely fetch their valuation in a quick sale.
- Excluding home and pension (advanced): savings and other assets minus all debt, the wealth you could actually deploy without selling your house or waiting for pension access.
- Projected net worth in 5 years (advanced): grows the home, pension and savings at your chosen rate, adds monthly saving, and reduces the mortgage by the capital you repay each month, with a year-by-year table. Set growth to 0% to see the effect of saving and repaying alone.
- Using the number: track it quarterly or yearly on the same assumptions; the trend answers whether the household is building or eroding and catches what income alone hides. The standard order of operations (emergency fund, employer pension match, expensive debt, then investing) moves the line faster than any spreadsheet. Not financial advice.