I was playing with the millionaire calculator over at CNN, and I found the Net Worth calculator. According to it, we have a significantly higher net worth than others my age (25-34 yr olds have a median net worth of only ~$8.5k), and somewhat higher than others in my income level ($77k-$99k income levels have a median net worth of ~$301k). Even if you half our net worth to account for a two person household, we’re still much higher than our age group, and not much lower than our income group.
That got me thinking – I don’t think we have enough to retire on (by a long shot), and while net worth isn’t always the best predictor of being able to retire, it’s a number that usually gives an overall view of your financial health. I know we’re better off than many in our peer group, but I don’t see us as financially healthy yet. If I don’t think our net worth is “good enough”, then more than 50% of the folks in our peer group are not doing very well at all. Granted, we live in a very high cost of living area, and that skews things which I don’t think CNN takes into account (it didn’t ask me anything about geographic location), but I’m not sure that those differences would drastically change the numbers, since theoretically the averages include both high and low-cost of living locations.
Do you have a Net Worth goal? Or are you just wanting to increase your Net Worth to watch it increase? Do you think Net Worth is an accurate predictor of how “healthy” a person’s finances are?