Net Worth By Age charts are mere entertainment at best and misleading at worst.

Check out this CNN Money charting tool in which you enter in your age and your annual salary and it calculates some fun facts and figures. It takes your age and gives you what the median net worth figure is for each age group; it also takes your salary and gives you what the media net worth figure is for each age group. And with two numbers, you’re expected to figure out if you’re doing well, doing poorly, or just plain doing. Except you can’t.

There are simply too many variables.

Take someone who is between 25 and 34 and think of all the life changes that occur in that time period. If you didn’t go to college, you’ve probably been working for at least half a decade by the time you turn 25. Someone who did go to college likely will be a couple years into their first job by the time they hit 25. Can you compare the two? Can you honestly compare that against the median of $2,125? What if you’re 25, married and have two kids? What if you’re 25, not married, don’t have kids… is it even fair to compare the financial situation of the two 25 year olds? No way. Age is the least significant part of that equation.

What about salary? $50,000 annual salary means you should have a net worth of around $109,975. Well if a 25 year old’s net worth is around $2,125 and a $50,000 annual salaried person’s net worth is around $109,975… which is it? Which number is one supposed to believe? I know that at my first employer, someone with a bachelor’s degree in engineering could command a $50,000 salary in 2003. That person was likely younger than 25, so should they have around $2,125 or $109,975 in net worth?

If you play with these tools and find yourself ahead, that’s great. If you play with these tools and find yourself behind, you might consider it a shot across the bow if you have no extenuating or mitigating circumstances. Chances are you don’t fit into the cookie cutter scenarios so don’t get too high or low on yourself.

Net worth by age tables are fun, but take them with a ton of salt.

What do you think of these surveys and tools? Useful? Deceptive?

I’ve decided to stop divulging hard numbers in my “Net Worth” series of posts where I publicly track our progress towards financial prosperity. The reason why I started the series was because other personal finance bloggers were putting their net worths out there and I felt like it was the cool thing to do - and it was. Had I not been so public I wouldn’t have had the honor of appearing in the New York Times, quite possibly the coolest thing that has happened since starting this blog, but I feel that the usefulness and “cool” factor of posting a net worth has been exhausted.

If you’re struggling through debt, posting the amount of debt you have gives you motivation to work harder at paying it off. As you pay, you watch that number shrink. As you pay, your readers celebrate your one step closer to debt freedom. But who celebrates when Random Joe Blogger adds another X% to his net worth? I know I don’t really care and I’m pretty sure no one else really cares either.

What people care about are the things you did, not the amount you saved, and so my monthly personal finance updates will now focus on any personal finance related decisions I’ve made in the last month and not on the dollar amounts. Do you think it is a mistake? Do you welcome this change? Do you not really care? Please share your thoughts!

I haven’t calculated a Net Worth value in several months now, mostly to hide the fact that I bought an engagement ring, but now I have a dilemma. Since my fiancée and I have begun using a joint checking account and direct depositing all of our money into it, I have no idea (or concept) of my net worth, only our net worth. So, I wanted to ask every engaged/married couple out there… when you calculate net worth (haha, I wouldn’t calculate it if I wasn’t writing a blog, to be entirely honest) do you just add all the assets together?

The dilemma I have now with calculating the net worth for both of us as one is that my goals, in the upper right, were originally set for me, personally and not for me + 1. With me + 1, should I revise my goals? I’m hinting towards yes.

Another issue now is that I don’t really want to be harassing my fiancée every month to see her retirement account statements, though I know she’s happily show me, it’s just a pain in the butt. So, I think I’m going to give Quicken or MS Money or some other software a whirl now where the numbers can be pulled in automagically. I want it as easy to maintain as possible… anyone have any good recommendations?

So, two questions:

1. Should I begin calculating my net worth as our net worth?
2. Should I restate my goals?
3. What personal finance tracking software should I use?

Thanks!