- Sidepiece
- Posts
- How to Increase Your Net Worth
Hey y’all. We’re taking your net worth to the top 📈
First Disruption to Smartphones in 15 Years🤳
Mode is on a mission to disrupt the entire industry with their "EarnPhone," a budget smartphone that’s helped consumers earn and save $150M+ for activities like listening to music, playing games, and ... even charging their devices?!
Over 11,000 investors already acquired shares — and with only days remaining prior to their bonus tier closing, allocations are limited.
*Disclosure: Please read the offering circular at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile’s Regulation CF Offering.
Featured Opportunities
We’ve got 4 new opportunities for you this week. Want to see a specific type of work? Just let us know. For more jobs like these, check out a full list here.
This client is looking for a copywriter for SEO-oriented health content to help patients better understand their own health.
Starts with building one template, then potential to continue working together. Must have extensive Wordpress experience, including Elementor.
Need a graphic designer capable of designing PowerPoints for remote, part-time work.
Ideal candidate is someone with experience in digital advertising that can design websites, correct images, image search, etc. Hours will vary, but they’re looking for someone long-term.
How to Calculate and Increase Your Net Worth
Your net worth is a calculation of your assets (something with value) minus your liabilities (money you owe). For example, a house, car, and investments would be assets. Student loan debt, credit card debt, and the remaining balance on your car loan would be liabilities.
Your net worth is a good measure of your financial health and is useful in figuring out when you can retire.
💡Maybe I was late to the party, but just last year I learned that a millionaire isn’t someone who makes $1M per year. It’s someone whose net worth is $1M+. When you think about it, becoming a millionaire during your lifetime might be more within reach than you thought.
There are two ways to increase your net worth: Increase your assets and decrease your liabilities. There's a limit on how much you can decrease your liabilities — you can’t go lower than $0. There’s no limit, however, on how much you can increase your assets.
How to Decrease Your Liabilities
Debt, specifically mortgage debt, is the largest liability for Americans. Student debt, auto loans, and personal loans fall shortly after. If you have debt, here’s a few things you should do:
Look for Forgiveness Options You Might Qualify For
If you have student loan debt, explore forgiveness options. If you have medical debt, reach out to the hospital the debt is with. Non-profit hospitals are obligated to provide financial assistance to low-income patients, which in some cases means forgiveness. You won’t find many forgiveness options for other kinds of debt.
Negotiate Your Interest Rate (If Possible)
Believe it or not, you can negotiate your interest rate on credit cards. Just call up your credit card company and ask about an interest rate reduction. Is it always successful? No, but it’s worth a shot. Use this script.
Refinance to a Better Interest Rate
If neither of the above work, consider refinancing — the process of swapping your current loan for one with a better interest rate and/or terms. A lower interest rate can save you both time and money throughout your debt payoff journey.
Create a Strong Debt Payoff Strategy
Having a solid debt payoff strategy is critical in getting out of debt quickly. Small tweaks can make a massive difference, allowing you to pay off debt faster and without paying as much in interest.
Plug your debt into the free Boost app, and it will guide you through the most optimal debt payoff strategy to help you get out of debt faster.
How to Increase Your Assets
Assets like checking/savings account balances and investments are a bit easier to grow than something like purchasing a home. Here’s a few things to do to increase those balances:
Negotiate a Raise or Increase Your Rates
Be intentional about growing your income over time. Try negotiating your salary with your boss or increasing your rates if you own a business.
If neither are possible, consider a simple side hustle like using a cash back app (Ibotta, Upside, and Fetch are all good). You can also view a massive list of gig opportunities within our app.
Keep More of What You Make
Use a free app like Boost to track your income and expenses, then look for ways to trim your spending. Are there subscriptions you don’t use? Can you switch auto insurance providers and save? Get creative, cut back your spending, then save or invest what’s left.
Be Intentional About Investing
Over 40% of Americans have no investments. However, investing is key to increasing your net worth, mainly because your investments can grow beyond just the amount you contribute. In the last 10 years, for example, the S&P 500 (an index fund investment that tracks 500 of the largest US companies) has grown 10.41%. This means that if you had $10,000 invested 10 years ago, you’d have roughly $28,000 today, without even contributing another time.
Use an investment calculator to see just how much you need to contribute each month to reach the net worth you want.
Be Strategic About What Debt You Take On
Purchasing a home, car, or real estate will increase your assets, but if you’re drowning in debt to do it, it likely won’t lead to a meaningful increase in your net worth. Before taking on debt, think through what it’ll look like to repay the debt, the interest rate you’re getting, and how long it’ll take you to pay off.
Helpful Resources
To calculate your net worth, use a calculator like this one.
To increase your net worth, get serious about eliminating debt. Try Boost (it’s free!), an app designed to help you optimize your debt payoff journey.
Ask the Sidepiece Team
A: Okay, hear me out — O*NET Online. I’ll be straight up…it’s a government website so it looks a bit outdated, but my teacher forced me to use this in high school and I still come back to it multiple times a year.
It’s a massive database of jobs — thousands of which are things I didn’t even know existed — with data on how much you can make, the skills you’d need, and if it’s a growing industry.
To search by a specific area of interest, go to the top navigation bar, click Find Occupations, then Industry. When I used it, I discovered a ton of opportunities and it forced me to think creatively about how I wanted to shape my career and what type of work I wanted to be doing. Check it out. You might be surprised by what you find.
Have a question? Drop it into this Google Form.
See ya next week,
Grace