What is Net Worth and How To Calculate Your Personal Net Worth
If you follow the news whether it is politics, business, sports, or even celebrities, you will often hear the term “net worth” mentioned.
A quick look at the headlines for the past month reveals articles about President Trump inflating his wealth by billions, Jeff Bezos being worth $150 billion, to Kylie Jenner being the youngest billionaire. Forbes Magazine’s Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans is enormously popular and often referenced.
This brings up the question what exactly is net worth anyways?
Are you considering switching banks or closing your old bank account? You aren’t the only one. A Consumers Union survey found that nearly one in five checking account customers considered switching to a different bank or credit union, but less than half actually went through with it because it proved to be too much trouble.
Remember cash? Those pieces of paper with denominations and portraits of presidents printed on them? Besides rappers using them to make it rain at the club, cash is still accepted almost everywhere by people all over the world to pay for products and services. Yet with the rise in popularity of digital payments along with debit and credit cards, less and less people are carrying around this form of payment.
I was making small talk with someone earlier this month and we were talking about what age would be the perfect age if we could go back in time. I settled on the age of 25. What’s not to like about your 20s. For many of us, we’ve finally got done with school and started our first real job that’s not asking someone if they want fries with that. We are all bright-eyed and ready to take on the world and experience all that it has to offer.
Writing a check payable to cash might seem like a good idea. It’s simple enough. You write out a check as you would normally except instead of a person or company in the “Pay to the order of” line, you simply write “Cash”. Then you write in the amount, sign your name on the front, endorse the back, head to the bank, and give it to the teller. A minute later you will be walking out of the bank with a pocket full of bills.
Remember last year when the Equifax data breach exposed the personal information of almost 148 million Americans? Thanks to that hack, Congress passed a new federal law in May to help prevent identity theft. Starting today September 21, 2018, that new legislation goes into effect and you’ll now be able to freeze your credit report for free at all three of the major credit reporting agencies.
It has been said there is a fine line between being frugal and being cheap. Frugalness is perceived as an admirable quality. Cheapness is not. Tell your friends you saved a bunch of money on car insurance by switching to Geico and they’ll all be patting you on your back. Tell your friends you are saving a bunch of money on car insurance because you decided to cancel your policy and everyone will consider you a cheap-ass. Don’t be a cheap-ass.
First of all, if your father is Warren Buffett then you can disregard everything I say in this blog post. For the rest of us, giving your parents all your money to invest for you is a bad idea. It’s not bad because I’m saying your parents are going to steal your money or go invest it all on pumpkins. Our parents have our best interests at heart, but they are actually making it worst for their children.
The Federal Reserve has been increasing interest rates as the economy has been getting stronger. Yet the rates on your savings account at the local brick and mortar bank is still holding steady at a fraction of a percentage. You go online and see online savings and money market accounts offering rates over 150 times higher.
When you are getting a loan, a new credit card, or even a quote for car insurance, a little three-digit number determines whether you are approved and what rates you will pay. This number is your credit score and it is calculated from everything that is in your credit report to determine your credit worthiness. Lenders use your credit score to quickly decide the chances that you will repay your loan obligations if they do business with you.