Should You Share Your Net Worth With Others?
I love me some net worth updates. I read them up and down, all over the personal finance blogosphere. One of the main money motivators for me came initially from the voyeurism afforded me on the internet, particularly in living vicariously through the monthly reports of J. Money at Budgets Are Sexy. But after initially sharing my own net worth, I had a change of heart about revealing my own numbers. As much as I love gawking at the financial situations of a fellow stranger, I wondered: should you share your net worth with others?
Fear and anxiety in sharing your net worth
For me, the problem isn’t plastering my net worth all over the internet for strangers far and wide to critique. The problem is when the anonymous strangers aren’t so anonymous. I developed a fear and anxiety about sharing my net worth not because of the embarrassment of the inevitable negative month or two, but rather from the potential of friends and family seeing these numbers, good bad or otherwise.
Some of you may know my net worth from a previous post, which is totally cool with me. It might still be on the site somewhere. I’m not too worried about. But a month or two ago, when I thought a friend might have uncovered my little unprofitable side hustle, I very hastily deleted the most obvious references to my net worth. Surely there is still a link to a page that used to contain my net worth somewhere on this site. Which is fine. But I panicked and removed most of these references when faced with the prospect of non-internet-strangers making judgments based on that number. Friends and family knowing my net worth ultimately made me uncomfortable in a way I wasn’t prepare for.
In reality, this friend probably doesn’t care at all about what I’m up to in my spare time. Even if they did, it really wouldn’t be the end of the world if they sought out this site, saw my net worth, and silently judged me for it, for better or worse. But the fact that this became a plausible scenario made me uncomfortable enough to shy away from following in the footsteps of the personal finance porn curators that I so admire. I relegated myself back to a mere personal finance porn consumer, leaving ImpersonalFans only with a peak at my asset allocation.
The importance of tracking your net worth
Even if you’re not a blogger deciding whether or not to post your net worth for all the world to see, I strongly believe in the value of knowing what that net worth number is. Tracking my net worth (and, as it turned out, budget) was the biggest step in gamifying the subject of money for me. The net worth reports of others were my gateway into the world of personal finance, and tracking my own net worth was instrumental in getting a handle on my own financial situation.
The biggest value to tracking your net worth is in the clarity it provides. Putting all your accounts in one place–be it a spreadsheet or a site like Mint or Personal Capital–is a game changer. Upon discovering such a revolutionary concept, the natural inclination is to share this method with anyone who’ll listen. And upon sharing, it’s tempting to get into specifics. Depending on the nature of your relationship, this might not be such a good idea.
Talking with friends and relatives about money
It’s one thing to talk about money with strangers online. But money is such a complicated subject that doing so with friends and family is a needlessly tricky exercise. Depending on the friend, my numbers could seem boastful, or pitiful, or entirely illegible. Or, somehow, all of the above. In any case, I found out I wasn’t ready to put myself in that socially awkward position just yet.
I have a few friends with whom I communicate frequently in matters of money. These conversations generally lead to us making bad decisions together, like chasing meme stocks or piling into the top of the cryptocurrency market, but they are fun conversations nonetheless. And yet, even among these close friends with whom I speak regularly about money, the subject of overall net worth doesn’t come up. I have some idea, based on their risk profile and the amounts of money they’ve invested into certain “projects” (aka fake dog-themed internet tokens). But ultimately I don’t know the totality of their financial situations, and they don’t know mine. And, perhaps, it’s better that way.
Should you track your net worth? Yes, absolutely. Should you share your net worth with others? That one is a little more open-ended. For me, doing so even anonymously felt a little too personal for Impersonal Finances. That said, do I appreciate it when others share these numbers for me to gawk at? Yes, yes I do.
So… anyone got a net worth report I can look at?
Good read! I like to share my passive income numbers and from time to time my investment portfolio market value. And regular readers can find out total wealth as from time to time I also share our cash balance. Which is fine. I want to share how our savings efforts and investment approach are paying off over time and documenting our Path to Financial Independence by 2024.
I am learning so much in our personal finance community and hope that sharing our approach and experiences might be of value for others.
But as I share real numbers etc., this is also one reason why I write anonymously on my blog.
Cheers
I love the personal finance voyeurism–just turns out I wasn’t comfortable showing off my ankles in a public space (even anonymously).
There is so much to learn from taking a non-judgmental look at how other people spend their money and the intentionality behind it. Likewise, there’s a lot to glean from how people MAKE their money, especially in the passive income/side hustle world.
Cheers to FI ’24!
That’s why I share numbers ……anonymously 🙂 No one in my circle of friend or family in real life knows about our blog.
And please keep doing so! I love checking them out!
IF, you are human after all! Seriously, everyone has doubts, especially when it comes to this subject. We are constantly comparing ourselves to others. But like you said, the main reason I don’t share NW is because of family. It’s such a counterintuitive concept, because many of us are earning this money to provide for our families or at least help them out. I remember your NW, but don’t worry, I won’t tell a soul!
Haha I can neither confirm nor deny the humanity claim. I am glad the memory of my net worth posts lives with someone! It is funny–if a random person emailed me and asked what my net worth is, I would tell them. Unless they are forwarding that email to people I grew up with!
I never included my net worth online, simply for the main reason you talk about – family. Other than that, I’d have no problem sharing all my numbers. But I just assumed, at some point my family would find out about the blog and then get real weird if they saw all of my numbers displayed. Which is kind of the biggest irony of all, most of us have no problem talking/sharing numbers with anyone outside of our immediate friends/family… hahaha.
But people do just get weird. They see your high net worth and then expect you to pay for things. Or start making comments like, “you don’t have to worry about that, you have money.” I used to talk more early retirement and numbers with my family years ago, but then I quieted down because I’d get weird comments like that. If everyone was mature and cool, then talking NW would be no prob. But man, it’s just bizarre how weird some people get about money.
I think you did the right thing. If you’re worried at all about family/friends looking at your numbers, delete it or don’t do direct links. I don’t think you need to scrub everything, if someone really wants to see your numbers, they’ll figure out a ballpark range for you no matter what.
The more interesting conversations will probably be, what you tell people when you’re eventually FI and leave your job. I think I’ve settled on just telling people I’m on sabbatical. Hahaha. But I’ll cross that road, when/if I ever get there.
Haha yeah. This is the situation I am currently in. Everyone knew that I was going to just take a little mini-retirement since our income was fully funded for the year. But that was 2020.
Now in 2021, I have had to field a lot more of the “What are you going to do next” – I’ve been working to drop hints here and there without having to say it outright, but I am sure they’ll eventually figure it out when I never go back to “working” full time.
Do they know about your blog? If they do, that gives an answer to the question of “what are you doing?” If not, you could say you’re doing some freelance writing? For whatever reason, it is very difficult for people to grasp the concept of anyone under the age of 65 not having a day job.
Haha so true–let me swap insights with complete strangers but not share any of these helpful bits of information with close friends & family because they might get weird about it.
That is a great point about expecting you to pay for things. I probably have a higher net worth than a lot of my friends with higher salaries–but because I have somewhat of a budget and invest the remainder, I don’t have necessarily have the same disposable income.
The sabbatical conversation is something to look forward to! I think I’m going to say something that freaks everyone out, like that I’m taking some extended time to find myself.
I definitely don’t share it. With anyone. Like you mentioned, I track it because it gamifies the entire endeavor for me. But I don’t think it’s a particularly useful number, and it can be very misleading. In my case, most of my net worth is in real estate, which is quite illiquid and the result of luck and a real estate market that has gone nuts recently. And most of us have such unique financial circumstances, which creates space for so many bloggers to write about so many different things, but also makes it hard to compare our situations to anyone else’s. I take the approach of sharing details that are relevant to whatever I’m writing about, like asset allocation percentages, loan balances, approximate income, specific expenses, and the like. And I DEFINITELY don’t want people who I actually know to have that information!
Asset allocation is probably a more helpful look into what your peers are doing–which oftentimes is included in a blogger’s “net worth report.” If someone is offering a look behind the curtain, I’m taking them up on it, no matter what details they are revealing!
When I started my blog, part of my goal was to write about financial topics in a way that I could share them with friends and acquaintances. Having my network splashed all over it would have distracted from that goal. People would be tempted to compare my situation with theirs, and then explain away why I could do X but they couldn’t, because after all, my network with higher/lower than theirs. Very intentional on my part.
The other day, my 9 year-old asked me about our net worth. One day he’ll know, but today he’s a little young for the burden of that number.
That your nine-year-old knows about net worth is amazing in itself haha.
There is certainly a danger in the comparison game. I have a friend who is slacking a bit on finances and, instead of taking action, will brush off anything I’ve done because I had XYZ. Most people don’t want to hear how easy it is to start saving and investing because that takes away their excuse.
I love this topic being brought up right now because this is something that I struggle with. I always try to be an open and honest person, and yet when it comes to finances I have tried to keep it mostly under wraps. But the thing is, everyone knows that I sold my business and if they did a thorough enough search on the internet can make some educated guesses as to how much it sold for and how much of a cut I received. They don’t know my exact ownership percentage, but I think assumptions can be made.
My wife and I have chosen not to say anything, because we don’t want our relationships with others to change negatively. Perhaps those changes might only be short-term, but it has what has led us to be more restrained with giving exact numbers, and also why I write anonymously.
Even so, blogging about my finances in any way brings me satisfaction to be able to share with like-minded individuals. Similar to Joel, the more I reveal, the better I feel. Perhaps one day, you will all know who I am and what my net worth is. Because honestly, it shouldn’t matter. Perhaps one day my friends and family will also know? Only time will tell…
For whatever reason, it’s hard to be honest about money without people inferring something else from that data. I think it’s easy to guess how much people make, but not always how much they have. Since some people are spending $75k on a truck despite a $40k salary, while others are tightwads on a $150k salary, you never really know.
There’s something about putting an actual number to it can be jarring depending on the friend/family member. Strangers knowing my net worth? Totally fine. People I work with or grew up with? I’m not ready for that one, it turns out. But I’ll keep reading any numbers you want to reveal haha.
i don’t share absolute numbers, only proportions of assets and percentages of stocks in the portfolio. i like it that way because it is scalable and i should emphasize that scalable part a little more i think. i’m only kind of anonymous with my photos on the blog and everything. it probably wouldn’t take sherlock holmes to figure out who i am.
it’s funny though, an investing friend who reads the blog asked me how much $$ i owned of shopify stock last week. she made a guess and i told her the answer was more like 5x her guess. i think that was an attention getter that this is not some game we’re playing over here.
Percentages are a nice compromise for sure. They tell the story without telling the whole story.
I suppose your friend’s guess wouldn’t have been to far off of your initial investment–those numbers tend to balloon when you invest in 20 baggers!
Hilarious. I share my networth too and am afraid to send this blog to people i actually know. I rushed to delete mine once as well (missed it in some places too) when i thought someone i actually knew saw my website.
I mean, people know what my job is and probably can make an educated guess, so I’d imagine they wouldn’t be too shocked/really care.
Haha yeah it is definitely a psychological thing. In reality, nobody really cares. But I THINK they might possibly maybe care and it holds me back. I made the previous posts private so I can always switch them back on again should I get out of my own head one day.
Great question. While I keep an eye on my net worth, I don’t ever share it with anyone, ever. Just my thing. That said, I’m always eager to take a peek at others’.
I LOVE looking at them, so I feel like a hypocrite. It’s a great way to see what peers are doing with their money, and might even give you an idea about how you can increase your earnings potential or savings rate. And I always enjoy the tales of personal growth or struggles that accompany them. It’s great content!
I know what you mean about having friends/family see all your numbers and such. It’s kind of weird. BUT, I am learning more and more that a) The numbers don’t matter. It’s the *process* and robotic consistency that I’m trying to demonstrate. b) The more I reveal, the better I feel (which is weird because I used to think the opposite) and c) whatever I write on the internet gets forgotten about after 7 days.
I’ll keep reading your stuff whether you share numbers or not 🙂
ps. Just finished writing my NW update post for June, and it’ll drop on BAS site this Monday! 🙂
I think once the initial shock wears off and they see the process and the slowly trickling increases over time, it’s much less of a concern. But I am not mature enough to weather the initial reaction just yet haha
And you better keep posting those net worths at Budgets Are Sexy–I feel like I grew up on them! Thanks for carrying the mantle!