Please also feel free to check out and comment on my staff writer post, 5 Criteria for My Future Car, at Sweating the Big Stuff today!

For anyone new to BFS, I post a net worth update at the beginning of every month in order to keep myself motivated and to involve BFS readers. Please feel free to ask questions, make suggestions, or even post your net worths too. I am a participant-motivated blogger, so please jump on in.

I calculate our net worth as listed below. I don’t include the value of our possessions, I round down to the nearest hundred for assets, and I round up to the nearest hundred for liabilities. I also don’t include my husband’s pension account since I’m too lazy to keep up with it and it shouldn’t actually matter until he retires.

Assets
1. Cash – $11,200 ($1300 up)
2. Stocks – $16,400 ($400 down)
3. Retirement – $34,900 ($900 down)
4. Home – $130,000 (same)
5. Cars – $16,000 ($2000 up.  Here’s something really odd – both of our cars APPRECIATED…my best guess is that gas prices and a bad economy are driving used car prices up for high gas mileage vehicles…needless to say, I was pretty dang surprised)

Liabilities
1. Home – $70,400 (down $600)

Total Net Worth = $138,100 instead of $135,500
Increase/Decrease = Up $2600 from last month

Okay, so crazy car appreciation may not be a great way to grow your net worth, so I’ll be proud of the other $600. 

I base the value of our home on two things: comparables selling in our neighborhood and the estimated appraisal by Chase Home Value Estimator. I will always estimate very low.

I base the value of our cars on Kelley Blue Book’s Private Party Value of our vehicles in “Good” condition truncated down to the nearest $1000. For example, if my car is valued at $4600, I’d calculate that as $4000.

Please feel free to visit the archive to see our past net worths.