How to track your net worth in the UK
Written by The Blooom editorial team, published and updated . It takes about 6 minutes to read.
Net worth is everything you own minus everything you owe. Here is a plain method for working yours out in the UK, and how often to update it.
What is net worth?
Net worth is everything you own minus everything you owe. Write the date next to it, because the same figure four months apart shows whether your plan is working.
What goes into a net worth figure?
Count every account, investment, pension and your home at a sensible sale value, then take away the mortgage, cards, loans and car finance. A student loan can go either way, as long as you stay consistent.
How often do people update their net worth?
Monthly or quarterly is plenty. Daily checking mostly buys anxiety, because house prices and markets move for reasons that have nothing to do with you.
Net worth is one subtraction: everything you own, minus everything you owe. It is the only number that moves when your whole financial life moves, which is why it is worth knowing even when it is negative.
Step one: list what you own
Write down every pot, at its current value. Rough is fine on the first pass: you are building a shape, not filing accounts.
- Current accounts and savings accounts, including any cash ISA.
- Investments: a stocks and shares ISA, a general investment account, shares from work.
- Pensions: workplace pots count, and so does anything left with an old employer.
- Your home, if you own one, at a sensible estimate of what it would sell for.
- Cars, and anything else you could genuinely sell for a meaningful sum.
- Premium Bonds and other NS&I holdings, at face value.
See your own figures
Put in one account and Blooom shows what it earns, what it could earn, and every date that matters.
Step two: list what you owe
- Mortgage balance: the amount outstanding, not the original loan.
- Credit cards, overdrafts and any buy-now-pay-later balances.
- Loans and car finance, including the balloon payment on a PCP if there is one.
- Anything owed to family, if you treat it as a real debt.
The two entries people argue about
A UK student loan behaves less like a debt and more like a graduate tax: repayments are a percentage of income above a threshold, the balance is written off after a set period, and nobody comes after your house. Some people include it, some leave it out. Either is defensible as long as you are consistent, so the trend still means something.
A defined-benefit pension pays an income rather than holding a pot, so there is no balance to add. Showing it as an income line beneath the total, rather than inventing a capital value, keeps the number honest.
Step three: subtract, then date it
Owned minus owed is your net worth. Write the date next to it. A single figure tells you very little; the same figure four months apart tells you almost everything about whether your plan is working.
How often to update it
Monthly or quarterly is plenty. Daily checking turns a long-term measure into a mood ring: house prices and markets move for reasons that have nothing to do with you, and watching them hourly mostly buys anxiety.
It also helps to separate the two ways the number moves. Money you added is yours; a market move is weather. A tracker that shows those separately tells you whether you are actually making progress.
Where the cash sits matters too
Two things worth checking while you have the list open. The FSCS limit for deposits is £120,000 per person, per authorised firm, and it is per firm, so two brands sharing one banking licence share one limit. Investments sit under a separate £85,000 limit, which covers the firm failing rather than your funds falling in value.
If a house sale or an inheritance has left an unusually large balance in one place, temporary high balance cover can reach £1,400,000 for 6 months.
Figures checked 24 Jul 2026 (2026/27 tax year), from gov.uk and the FSCS.
Blooom gives information and eligibility, not regulated advice. Figures are for the tax year named above and the right choice depends on your own circumstances.
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See your own figures
Put in one account and Blooom shows what it earns, what it could earn, and every date that matters.