It is more complete
One bank balance ignores cash, savings, investments, and debt.
Net worth
The one number that summarizes how your money is doing
Net worth is simple: what you own minus what you owe. Neto brings together accounts, investments, and debt so you can follow that number without a spreadsheet.
Accounts + investments - debtMulti-currencyHistorical trend
Why net worth beats isolated balances
It is more honest
Debt matters. Net worth forces it into the picture instead of leaving it in the background.
It is more actionable
You can see whether spending, saving, or investing is actually improving your position.
Why it beats looking at your bank balance alone
One account balance doesn't tell the whole story. You can have money in several places, investments that move in price, or debts that cut your real position.
- More realistic: it counts what you own and what you owe.
- More complete: it works when you hold several currencies, banks or assets.
- More actionable: it shows whether saving, investing or paying down debt is moving the number that matters.
From daily spending to the full picture
Neto joins the small habit of logging expenses with the wide view of net worth. You see not just how much you spend, but whether your position is improving.
What counts as an asset and what counts as debt
The part people get wrong is not the subtraction, it is deciding which side things go on. The classic case is a home: if you own a €250,000 flat with €180,000 left on the mortgage, you do not add the value or subtract the debt on its own, both go in, each in its own column. What that flat contributes to your net worth is €70,000, and it grows every month you pay down.
The second mistake is valuing things at what they cost. A €30,000 car bought five years ago is not worth €30,000. The third is including furniture, clothes or your phone: you are never going to sell them, so they only add noise to a figure whose whole value is being clean.
- Count these: cash, accounts, deposits, funds, ETFs, shares, crypto, pensions, property and vehicles at today's price.
- Subtract these: mortgage, loans, cards, instalment purchases and money owed to family, always the outstanding balance, never the monthly payment.
- Leave these out: personal belongings and anything you would not sell. They inflate the figure without making it more useful.
What to do when the number stops moving
A flat net worth almost always has one of three causes, and they are worth checking in this order because the first one cancels out the other two.
The first is expensive debt. If you carry a balance on a card, revolving credit or instalments, that debt grows faster than almost any saving can: while it is there, your net worth will not move however much you put aside. The second is that saving is whatever is left at the end of the month, and at the end of the month there is rarely anything left. The third is not knowing where the money goes, which is a recording problem, not a discipline one.
That is why net worth is read alongside spending: the figure tells you whether you are doing well, and the detail tells you why.
Frequently asked questions about net worth
Is Neto a net worth calculator?
Neto works as an app for tracking your net worth over time. It doesn't just produce a one-off figure: you record accounts, investments and debts, and see how they change.
Do I need investments to calculate it?
No. You can start with accounts and debts alone. If you add investments later, Neto folds them into the calculation.
Does Neto give investment advice?
No. Neto is not a financial adviser, a broker or a trading app. It's there to show and organise your own information.
How often should I recalculate it?
Once a month is plenty. More often only adds noise, because investments move daily and what matters is the trend across several months.
Does net worth include my salary?
No. Salary is a flow: it comes in and goes out. Net worth is a snapshot of what stays. That is why two people on the same salary can have opposite net worths.
What if I rent?
Nothing changes: rent is neither an asset nor a debt, it is an expense. Your net worth is your savings and investments minus whatever you owe.