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New year energy fades fast, but a simple money habit can outlast every resolution. We’re laying out a clear, no-fuss way to track net worth so you can see progress in black and white and make better choices week by week.
We start with the basics: assets minus liabilities, done honestly and without fluff. You’ll hear how to list only the big, easy items—home, mortgage, cash, KiwiSaver, Sharesies—while skipping the noise that slows you down. We dig into realistic valuations, why your car is worth less than the purchase price, and how to treat jewellery and collectibles without inflating your numbers. Then we map out a rhythm you can keep: update your sheet on the first of each month or each season, watch the line across the quarter, and use the trend to guide your next move.
From there, we translate the numbers into action. If the line dips, it’s a signal to review spending leaks, Afterpay cycles, or credit card creep. If it climbs, we show how to build on that momentum by nudging KiwiSaver contributions, accelerating debt repayments, and keeping your list short for consistency. Along the way, we share candid examples and a simple framework that prioritises clarity over perfection. This is not for a bank or a mortgage application; it’s for you—your confidence, your goals, and your plan to make 2026 the year of measurable growth.
Set up a one-page sheet or a whiteboard, track the big numbers, and read the trend with a clear head. Subscribe for more practical money tools, share this with someone who needs a fresh start, and leave a review to tell us the first change you’ll make this month.
Tips. We're going to give you some tips. We're going to give you some tips that you can follow in 2026. All right. I've got James with me. Hello, James. So net worth. Your favorite word of 2025. We're going to bring it into 2026.
SPEAKER_00
My net worth is going to increase so much this year because my net worth is so low at
the moment. The only way is up. I can't see it getting any worse than what it is. So, but seriously, net worth is a really important tool for or calculator for working out how you're progressing over the long term. So you want to see your net worth improve, you know, each quarter of the year. And you can calculate it really easily. So it net worth is a measure of how you how well you're man managing your financial affairs.
SPEAKER_01
Okay. So on one side of the sheet, it will have all your assets. Yep. And on the other side of the sheet, it will have all your debts. Yep.
And then you take one and take away the other. And that that's your net worth.
SPEAKER_00
And simple words. Assets minus minus debt. Okay. So you think of all the things you own, and you know, the you know, you might, you know, it's going to be property, possibly your house, a cash.
SPEAKER_01
Kiwi savers.
SPEAKER_00
Yep, absolutely, Kiwi Saver. You can children. Children are an expense. Okay. Yep, they're going to the other liability.
SPEAKER_01
Pets. Pets.
SPEAKER_00
Are also a liability and an expense.
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
SPEAKER_00
Unless you're breeding them, I suppose. That's just the way I look at animals. I know.
SPEAKER_01
But that's still a lot of cost to breed them too.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah. So we've got these assets. So you've got your house and your land, you've got your cash, you've got your Kiwi Saver. Um, those are probably the three ones. Oh, you've probably got your Sherzy's account these days. You know, people have got maybe anything between 1,000.
SPEAKER_01
Jewelry?
SPEAKER_00
Jewelry, absolutely. You can add in there, you know, and you can get that stuff valued as well.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
So though those are those are your main asset classes, I would think. So you add all those up to up together, and that's and that's your total assets. So if I think of my case, you know, my house is about 800,000 in Palmerston North, mortgages about just over 200. So based on that, about 600,000. But I haven't I've still got to take off all the other debt. So then on the other, on the right hand side of the table, we're looking at our debt or our liabilities. So these are the things that you owe money on. Okay. And this
is where it gets a bit more interesting because a lot of people only debt might be their mortgage. But nowadays you're getting, you know, you've got after pay credit cards. Credit cards, car loans. So all these things sort of add up and and they can be quite, you know, a large amount. So if you look at my look at my case, let's just say I've just got a house. And house is worth 800, mortgage is six hundred, and I've got fifty thousand dollars of other debt. So my net worth is a hundred and fifty thousand. Six hundred no, no, no, it's five hundred and fifty. I'm thinking very negatively today. Five hundred and fifty thousand. Yeah. So what I want to do is if I make that calculation, is you just put it in a little Excel sheet or on a whiteboard, and then
in a month's time, you can do it every month at the beginning of every month. You just look at the value. Your house value is probably not going to change a lot. But your Kiwi saver should go up, should be going up over the long term, it'll have and hopefully your debt will come down. Yep. So there's there's two ways you can improve your net worth assets up and reducing your expenses.
SPEAKER_01
Okay. So that's a really good exercise to do that in the beginning of the year. Yep. Especially to start to get into a habit because everyone, you know, comes out with a lot of energy in January and I go, cool, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna go do that. But if you were to commit to something, I think that's a really cool exercise to commit to because at the end of the year you should be able to see clear progress. And even if you just do it in January, March, sorry. Yep, every quarter. Every quarter in the beginning of each season, if you do that, even that would help.
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely. I think it would be really cool if you did it on the first of every month. It's a really easy thing to do because all you've got to do, we've got a whiteboard there, you just list your assets. I've only got three or four. You don't have to get into all the nitty-gritty like the bicycles and and all that kind of stuff. Do you want to mean just put in your key, your main assets, yeah, and all your debt. Yeah. And then at the beginning of each month, you just go online, you know, you look at your key reservoir balance, you look at your cash balance, and you just jot it down.
SPEAKER_01
So we were talking about net worth. And as you were saying, we don't have to list it all of it. We just have to list the big things. Yes. So if you are getting overwhelmed that, oh my god, how am I gonna put a value on all my jewelry, all my bicycles, all my stack of cards that I've been collecting since I was five. Yeah, you know, the stock of cards or Pokemon cards or whatever they have. Just list the big items. List the items that are easy first, and then as you get better, you know, that could be the goal for 2027. So let's say January 2027, you get a little bit more detailed.
SPEAKER_00
But just for 2026, keep things easy, keep them simple, maybe have a house, mortgage, yep, car, car, loan, yeah, any cash, your kiwi saver on the asset side. And be be sure to include all your debt on on the on the liability side. You know, you wanna you want it to be a really fair
reflection of where you're at. So you only I tend to put when I'm putting my assets in, like I'm really honest about the value of my cars, because they're really not worth that much, and they tend to go down, well, they do go down in value. So just be a bit wary of putting in your the purchase price of your car as your asset value.
SPEAKER_01
Also remember this picture that you're painting right now is for you only. It's not for the bank, it's not for your mortgage application, it's not for anyone to be impressed by. Yeah, the only person you're impressing here is you.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01
And I think this is sometimes what people forget is that they're so caught up in the world of what do I need to provide to the bank? What do I need to provide to my mortgage advisor? What do I need to provide to my insurance place? They forget about themselves.
SPEAKER_00
Yep.
SPEAKER_01
So I think this is an exercise for you to build back your own confidence in who you are and where you're going and where have you come from.
SPEAKER_00
Yep. It's really cool to see a progress. So you can see a few months of it maybe staying the same, and you might feel a little bit, you know, this is not working. But then it it might it'll it should start jumping up. Now, if it's not going up, or even if it's going down, that tells you something about what you're doing in your financial life that you're spending more than you earn. So it's a really good measure of you know, because in theory, you should have money going into that Kiwi saver every month, so it should be going up. Your your mortgage and your debt should be going down, you should be paying it down. So that should be an improv improving over the over over the quarter. It doesn't have to improve every month, but over the quarter, every quarter, you want to see some improvement. And if it's not improving, you need to have a look at your financial affairs.
SPEAKER_01
And maybe that's the time when you need to talk to someone like us and understand why it's going down, why you are not moving from position A to position B. And what can you do to improve that position?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I love talking to people about net worth. So if they could uh if they want to give me some numbers or whatever, uh and and that they want me to have a look at it, that would be really cool.
SPEAKER_01
Okay, awesome. Well, James, thank you so much for um sharing your wisdom today. And for those that have missed out, we did do a massive episode on net worth. I think if you just go on our channel and uh put uh the word net worth in a search bar,
that should come up to you with that episode that James and I did and all the tools. But if you are feeling confused, if you need someone to hold your hand, please feel free to reach out to us. We'd love to help you. Thank you.
