How To Track Your Net Worth Beyond Your Bank Account
The hidden value of your physical assets.
Ownership Intelligence
Apr 8, 2026
4 min read
For a long time, like many people, I defined my net worth using cash + investments - liabilities. Sometimes I would go as far as including my car, but I ignored almost everything else I physically owned.
Little did I know, that stuff adds up. I’m a quantifier at heart. I check my stock portfolio every day, track my sleep every night, and even know what I ate down to the calorie. But I had no real view into the physical layer of my net worth. Everything around me that had value just wasn’t being accounted for, not because I didn’t care, but because there wasn’t a realistic way to track it.
The only solution I had ever considered was building yet another Excel sheet, typing in every item, then trying to find comps across eBay or Facebook Marketplace. Even then, I knew those values would change over time and there was no system I was actually going to maintain. It felt like a lot of effort for something that would immediately get outdated.
Because of that, there was always a bit of cognitive load. I didn’t really know what I had, what it was worth, or what I should do with it. It just sat there, untracked, even though a lot of it had real, recoverable value.
What I’ve realized since is that most people don’t have a net worth problem, they have a visibility problem. We track the financial side of our lives down to the dollar, but ignore everything else that contributes to it. If you want a more complete picture, you need to expand how you think about net worth.
There are a few simple ways to actually do that without overcomplicating it.
First, you have to start accounting for physical assets, not just financial ones. Tech, furniture, collectibles, clothing, equipment, all of it counts if it has a resale market. Most people mentally write these off because they don’t see them in a dashboard anywhere, but that doesn’t mean they don’t hold value.
Second, you need to think in terms of fair market value, not what you paid. The number that matters is what someone would realistically pay for that item today. This is an easy spot to get stuck on because finding comps manually across different marketplaces is time consuming and values change. That said, shifting to this mindset alone gives you a much more accurate picture. It also helps to separate what you own by how liquid it is. Some things you could sell tomorrow, others might take time, and some are effectively illiquid.
Third, you don’t need to do everything at once. The mistake I would have made in the past is trying to catalog my entire life in one sitting. A better approach is to just start with what’s around you. Pick a room, add a few items, focus on the things that clearly have value, and build from there. It compounds faster than you’d expect.
Once you start doing this, things click pretty quickly. You realize you have more value sitting around than you thought. You start making better decisions, what to keep, what to sell, what to stop buying. It turns something messy into something you can actually understand and quantify.
Until we built Zozy, I never had a clear view into what I actually own or what it’s worth. Now it’s as simple as snapping a picture, swiping to get a fair market value, and saving it to my inventory. Within ten minutes, I was able to uncover over $2,000 in value across my tech, sports cards, and a few pairs of shoes without even leaving my bedroom.
My net worth didn’t necessarily change, but my understanding of it did, and that’s what took a lot of weight off my mind.
For a long time, like many people, I defined my net worth using cash + investments - liabilities. Sometimes I would go as far as including my car, but I ignored almost everything else I physically owned.
Little did I know, that stuff adds up. I’m a quantifier at heart. I check my stock portfolio every day, track my sleep every night, and even know what I ate down to the calorie. But I had no real view into the physical layer of my net worth. Everything around me that had value just wasn’t being accounted for, not because I didn’t care, but because there wasn’t a realistic way to track it.
The only solution I had ever considered was building yet another Excel sheet, typing in every item, then trying to find comps across eBay or Facebook Marketplace. Even then, I knew those values would change over time and there was no system I was actually going to maintain. It felt like a lot of effort for something that would immediately get outdated.
Because of that, there was always a bit of cognitive load. I didn’t really know what I had, what it was worth, or what I should do with it. It just sat there, untracked, even though a lot of it had real, recoverable value.
What I’ve realized since is that most people don’t have a net worth problem, they have a visibility problem. We track the financial side of our lives down to the dollar, but ignore everything else that contributes to it. If you want a more complete picture, you need to expand how you think about net worth.
There are a few simple ways to actually do that without overcomplicating it.
First, you have to start accounting for physical assets, not just financial ones. Tech, furniture, collectibles, clothing, equipment, all of it counts if it has a resale market. Most people mentally write these off because they don’t see them in a dashboard anywhere, but that doesn’t mean they don’t hold value.
Second, you need to think in terms of fair market value, not what you paid. The number that matters is what someone would realistically pay for that item today. This is an easy spot to get stuck on because finding comps manually across different marketplaces is time consuming and values change. That said, shifting to this mindset alone gives you a much more accurate picture. It also helps to separate what you own by how liquid it is. Some things you could sell tomorrow, others might take time, and some are effectively illiquid.
Third, you don’t need to do everything at once. The mistake I would have made in the past is trying to catalog my entire life in one sitting. A better approach is to just start with what’s around you. Pick a room, add a few items, focus on the things that clearly have value, and build from there. It compounds faster than you’d expect.
Once you start doing this, things click pretty quickly. You realize you have more value sitting around than you thought. You start making better decisions, what to keep, what to sell, what to stop buying. It turns something messy into something you can actually understand and quantify.
Until we built Zozy, I never had a clear view into what I actually own or what it’s worth. Now it’s as simple as snapping a picture, swiping to get a fair market value, and saving it to my inventory. Within ten minutes, I was able to uncover over $2,000 in value across my tech, sports cards, and a few pairs of shoes without even leaving my bedroom.
My net worth didn’t necessarily change, but my understanding of it did, and that’s what took a lot of weight off my mind.