So the M-Network and its Friends is doing a net worth project today.  The simple definition of net worth is your assets minus your liabilities.  Sounds easy enough to do it after a couple cups of coffee, right?

Well, I am having problems figuring up our net worth.  I know for sure we are positive for the first time in our marraige…heck probably for the first time in my life!  I just can’t nail down a concrete figure.

The first problem is my house and its mortgage.  If I use the property tax assessment then we will be very negative, simply because of exemptions applied to it.  Tennessee has no state income tax (for the most part, especially at our income level) so it uses property taxes to raise money for the education system.  To keep people who are house rich but income poor from being scalped every year by property taxes, there are a plethora of exemptions…so on my annual tax statement my house is basically listed as being worth less than 2/3 of the mortgage value.

I could run with the mortgage amount, which would make the conservative assumption that my house has not appreciated one red cent since May 2001.  Then the problem is: I don’t know how much I still have left to pay on the mortgage balance.  See, back in 2002 I set up the mortgage on an auto-draft with approximately $50 extra towards principle each month.  Even if I could find the amortization schedule for the mortgage, I am quite a bit ahead.  The upside of this is my mortgage has not been late for any reason in the past 6 years.  The downside is I won’t have numbers for it til the end of the month when they send me my tax form thingy.  I think we have about $10,000 of equity.

Some folks include their vehicles, but this begs the question: do I bother to include the little purple truck?  LOL  KBB.com says it’s worth $1200 give or take.    The Pizza Taxi is paid for also, and worth approximately $4000.  Hubby’s truck is worth about $14,500 and we now owe less than half that ($6938.52 as of this morning!  With more payments speeding towards it!).  So that’s about $12,000 worth of positive on the balance sheet, but depreciating monthly.

People also include their emergency fund and retirement accounts.  OK, so our e-fund has a little over $1600 in it LOL  I have a tuition fund with $1400 in it, but will be paying spring semester tuition in about a week after they apply my pell grant award.  Hubby has about $2K in his TSP, but I don’t have an exact figure since they changed everyone’s login for security reasons…and that letter giving the new login is here on my desk somewhere…  My retirement account is still under $500 LOL

So, basically our net worth is approximately $27,500 BUT AT LEAST IT IS POSITIVE NOW!!!  That in itself is an accomplishment after a lifetime of poor money management skills and debt :)  Here’s how the rest of the gang stack up:

• Rocket Finance: Net Worth for the New Year
• My Dollar Plan 2007 Net Worth Update
• Paid Twice It’s Hard to Get Back to Zero
• Being Frugal I’m In The BLACK
• Single Guy Money December Net Worth Review
• Mrs. Micah 2007 Paid Down Debt and Bolstered Savings
• Gather Little By Little How We Increased Our Net Worth
• Cash Money Life Net Worth Goals for 2008
• Moolonomy 2007 Net Worth Review
• Credit Withdrawal M-Network + Annex Net Worth-apalooza
• My Two Dollars Posted Net Worth - You Know You Wanna Peek!