# Do you have a positive net worth? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 8, 2012, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-positive-net-worth/615162 "2012-03-08T16:56:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![nikonikosuru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5f8ce5/32.png) [@nikonikosuru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nikonikosuru)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-positive-net-worth/615162/41 "2012-03-09T02:47:10Z")
Nope. It’s just because of my loans. By the time I graduate I’ll be $70k in the hole. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-positive-net-worth/615162/42 "2012-03-09T04:02:41Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > Bought my house in the fall of 2007. > > So, no. I bought mine in Dec 2007, but I just had it refinanced and it actually just about broke even in the appraisal. I happen to live in a sought after neighborhood and apparently things did better here than in some surrounding areas. ---
**Author:** ![Pai325](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Pai325](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pai325)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-positive-net-worth/615162/43 "2012-03-09T04:46:51Z")
Yes, but at my age, I’d better! ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21825_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-positive-net-worth/615162/44 "2012-03-09T11:41:43Z")
For the first time in a bazillion years, yes. My husband and I have been working very hard to get rid of our debt. Early in our marriage, we made some bad decisions, and more recently, we’ve had a couple of things not work out as we’d hoped. Oddly enough, it took my retirement to set things right, partly due to some retirement incentive money and selling back vacation time, which erased a couple of lingering debts. We refinanced our mortgage just before I retired - lower rate and shorter term. Other than that, we have only one personal loan outstanding, and that will be gone in August - sooner if we want to dip into savings. It’s weird - when we were deeper in debt, adding to it didn’t seem like a big deal, but now that it’s almost all gone, we feel it’s necessary to avoid more debt under any circumstance. Maybe we’re just smarter about money now… ---
**Author:** ![NorthernBiker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/50afbb/32.png) [@NorthernBiker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NorthernBiker)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-positive-net-worth/615162/45 "2012-03-09T12:36:23Z")
Nope when you include all my student loan debt, I’ll be negative for the next ten years. ---
**Author:** ![Moonlitherial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@Moonlitherial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonlitherial)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-positive-net-worth/615162/46 "2012-03-09T15:11:52Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > Fo > > It’s weird - when we were deeper in debt, adding to it didn’t seem like a big deal, but now that it’s almost all gone, we feel it’s necessary to avoid more debt under any circumstance. Maybe we’re just smarter about money now… I think it’s a combination of being smarter about money and the goal posts being in sight. I was brutal during the last 6 months of our debt repayment and then completely relaxed during our vacation causing me a little stress this week moving things around to maintain the debt free status. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-positive-net-worth/615162/47 "2012-03-09T16:19:31Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > It’s weird - when we were deeper in debt, adding to it didn’t seem like a big deal, but now that it’s almost all gone, we feel it’s necessary to avoid more debt under any circumstance. Maybe we’re just smarter about money now… debt is like weight. When you have a lot of it to get rid of, it seems hopeless and why not enjoy yourself. Once it gets to be manageable, it isn’t that hard to manage and you know clawing your way back to manageable is something you never want to do again. You just can’t let either creep up. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-positive-net-worth/615162/48 "2012-03-09T16:25:55Z")
I was lucky - I’ve never, as far as I know, had a negative net worth. The house will be paid off in October … I’m planning a mortgage-burning party. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-positive-net-worth/615162/49 "2012-03-09T17:33:44Z")
Yes, mostly because I “bought [a house] at the right time”. In October 1999 we bought a house in the NY metro area for about $315K with over 25% down (a “conforming” mortage at the time was capped at $240,000), and a low enough 30-Year rate that we could pay down additional principal every month by hundreds of dollars on our expected budget. This effectively made it very similar to a 15-year loan, but with the flexibility to drop down to the normal 30-Year payment if we needed the cash flow (which I did for a few months from time to time). This was just before the largest part of the real estate runup from the late 1990s through about 2007. Between the run-up and the principal paydowns, by some time in early 2004 the market value of the house exceeded the remaining balance on the mortgage. In mid-2007 we sold the house for $575K and rolled the equity into the down payment on another, larger house in the same neighborhood, taking on a new $240K mortgage. Our house has gone down in estimated value since then, but it’s still worth far more than the twice the loan balance - I would say about 3.5x our loan balance. Prior to that, I never had a negative net worth except for about 18 months after graduating college (which my parents fully paid for) when I ran a revolving debt on my credit card of somewhere between $500 and $1,000, mostly to feed the recurring repairs on my first-ever car, a 1988 Eagle Premier that had a third world electrical grid wired inside its components. I worked on eliminating that debt after moving on to a much higher paid job have been careful never to dip into the well again, except for the buying of a house when I was 30 years old and settling down to raise a family. I’m gloating now, but I have 3 kids spaced 2 years apart; the day is drawing near when I’ll be paying for 12 consecutive years of college tuition, with 8 of those years being doubled-up. Ack. ---
**Author:** ![codgerone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c37758/32.png) [@codgerone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/codgerone)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2012, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-positive-net-worth/615162/50 "2012-03-10T22:02:50Z")
Positive net worth at 57 years old. It’s only taken 40 years of hard work to get there! ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2012, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-positive-net-worth/615162/51 "2012-03-10T22:12:01Z")
Yes. I bought my home at a good time in a previously unfashionable area which, whilst not being fashionable, people are a lot more open to buying in these days. So my place (60-70% paid off) is now worth 1.5 - 2 times what I paid for it. I’ve no other liabilities and some savings, so if I sold everything I’d definitely be fairly in profit. ---
**Author:** ![Jasper\_Kent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@Jasper\_Kent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasper_Kent)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2012, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-positive-net-worth/615162/52 "2012-03-10T22:16:19Z")
I have a negative net worth, but that says more about how little I own than how much I owe. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-positive-net-worth/615162/53 "2012-03-11T16:01:25Z")
I am very proud of the fact that I’m in my early 40’s and have a net worth of about 800k including retirement, direct savings and some home equity. We’ve invested heavily in the market, particularly in safe dividend paying stocks that are currrently yielding about 1k each month just from dividends. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-positive-net-worth/615162.md?page=2)