Today, in 10 minutes or less, you’ll learn:

• 🦚 Why tracking net worth isn't just about ego—it's a powerful tool for achieving life goals

• 🎯 The 6-step process to determine if you're on track to meet your long-term financial goals

• 🌉 Practical strategies to bridge the gap between your current finances and your life goals

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🎯 How to Track Your Net Worth (and Nail Your Life Goals)

Tracking net worth is just for stroking your ego.

👆️ I disagree with this POV.

Perhaps you’re starting a family and want to buy a 3-bedroom house in the Sunset in San Francisco.

Or maybe you’re fretting about the rising cost of university tuition:

If you have long-term goals, then net worth tracking will help you.

In this newsletter, I break down step-by-step how to track your couple net worth using the Money Abroad Net Worth Tracker and boost your confidence to achieve life goals.

Step 1: Determine your life and money goals

Recently, I wrote about combining your finances with your partner.

One common challenge is agreeing on the “why.”

Or your money philosophies.

This requires diving into the nitty gritty of your relationship with money, how your childhood households treated money, and how you want money to support your shared vision for your life together.

What life goals do you envision as a couple?

• Do you want to have a kid and start a family?

• Do you want to buy a home?

• Do you want to save for retirement?

Many of these goals will benefit from long-term financial planning.

The point of tracking net worth is not to stroke your ego…

… but to help you and your partner determine if you’re on track to achieving these long-term goals.

For example:

My wife and I recently opened a 529 account - a tax-advantaged investment account designed to (partially) fund our future kid’s education expenses.

This is planning at least 20 years in advance.

When my wife was 13, her parents set the expectation that she’d be responsibility for her university education costs. (Australian universities are more affordable than in the US.)

In contrast, I worked hard to get scholarships and grants to fund ~65% of my college expenses, with my parents covering the rest.

As a couple, we prefer for our future kids to fund their own university expenses, while creating a safety net in case they want to study overseas or attend an elite institution.

The 529 account is this safety net.

Investing $X in the 529 account is one of our money goals.

Step 2: Calculate the financial amount of your Life Goal(s)

Let’s take Kid’s Education as an example.

Say you want to save $200,000 in today’s dollars in 20 years.

(This is just a number I made up.)

At 3% inflation rate, that means your goal amount is $361,222 in inflation-adjusted dollars:

Step 3: Calculate your current Net Worth

Now sum all your balances across accounts within each category.

For both you and your partner.

I group asset categories as:

• Cash, T-Bills & Bonds

• Public Investments

• Real Estate

• Crypto

• Private Investments

• Company Equity (409A/RSU)

I group liability categories as:

• Credit Cards

• Student Loans

• Mortgage

• Unpaid Tax

Your net worth = assets - liabilities.

In this example, I exclude company equity from net worth (you can exclude other high-risk assets like crypto or private investments as well).

By measuring balances monthly or quarterly, you’ll see changes in your financial health over time.

Step 4: Estimate your projected Net Worth