Understanding Rachel Cruze's Approach to Net Worth Tracking
Rachel Cruze has built a sizable following around her debt-free living philosophy, and a lot of people are curious about what she actually does with her money. The guide most people are searching for isn't a formal publication from her team, but rather a collection of interviews, podcasts, and social media posts where she discusses how she and her husband track their finances. The core of it comes down to something pretty simple: list every asset, list every liability, subtract one from the other, and update it on a regular schedule. What makes her version different from the standard Dave Ramsey plan is that she emphasizes the psychological side of net worth more than the math itself. She talks a lot about how watching your net worth climb, even slowly, changes the way you behave with money. That mindset piece is probably the thing most people miss when they first try it.
The Financial Gurus Guide Rachel Cruze Net Worth Revealed For 2023
The so-called guide you see referenced across finance forums and blogs is mostly compiled from her appearances on the Ramsey Show, her own podcast So Money with T. Harv Eker where she discussed household budgeting, and various articles in outlets like Fortune and CNBC where she broke down what a net worth statement actually looks like in practice. There is no single PDF or book with that exact title. What exists is a body of advice that amounts to the same practical steps. Here is what the method actually involves. You create a spreadsheet or use a tracking tool like EveryDollar, which Rachel and her team endorse. On one side you list everything you own at current market value — your home, vehicles, retirement accounts, investment holdings, savings, and any personal property of significant value. On the other side you list every debt — mortgages, car loans, credit card balances, student loans, anything with an outstanding balance. Subtract liabilities from assets and you have your net worth number. She recommends updating this at least quarterly, ideally monthly, because the number only motivates you if you see it move. One specific problem I ran into when helping people set this up is that most of them valuate their home based on what they think it is worth rather than what it would actually sell for today. I had a client who was convinced his house was worth $420,000 because that is what he paid plus some renovations. The actual comparable sales in his neighborhood were closer to $365,000. That $55,000 gap made his net worth look healthy when it wasn't, and it threw off his entire debt payoff timeline. The workaround was to pull recent sold comps from Zillow and Redfin for his exact street or the immediately adjacent blocks, then use the lower of the two most recent sales as his home value. It felt painful to write that number down, but it made the rest of the plan accurate.
Another counter-intuitive thing about net worth tracking that beginners usually get wrong is that they include their primary residence at full mortgage balance rather than equity. Rachel's approach, which aligns with standard financial planning practice, is to count the home at its current market value and then list the remaining mortgage as a separate liability. Some people lump it all together and end up with a distorted picture. The reason this matters is that your home equity is not liquid. If you are trying to pay off debt or build an emergency fund, counting your house as a freely accessible asset will give you false confidence. There is also a nuance with retirement accounts. People tend to either ignore them entirely or valuate them at their contribution amount rather than their current market value. I had someone once who listed his 401(k) at exactly what he had put in over ten years, which was roughly $38,000. The actual account was worth about $71,000 at the time. Leaving that gap out made his net worth statement look worse than it was and discouraged him from sticking with the process. Check your statements directly. Do not guess. The biggest limitation of this whole system, and I say this bluntly because it deserves to be said, is that it is not a strategy on its own. A rising net worth number does nothing if you are spending more than you earn. Rachel Cruzefrequently points this out in her interviews. Net worth tracking is a measurement tool, not a behavior change tool. You still have to budget, still have to stop taking on new debt, still have to follow through on the plan. Without the underlying cash flow discipline, the net worth number will either stay flat or decline regardless of how often you update it.
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Another scenario where net worth tracking breaks down is for people with highly variable income. Freelancers, commission-based workers, and small business owners can see their net worth swing wildly from quarter to quarter based on when large invoices hit or when a client cancels. In those cases, the number can be demoralizing because it does not reflect day-to-day control over your finances. I recommend these people focus on a rolling twelve-month average of their net worth instead of the raw quarterly figure. It smooths out the noise and gives you a clearer signal about whether you are actually moving forward. If you want to start tracking net worth the way Rachel Cruze describes it, the most practical path is to open a spreadsheet, create two columns labeled Assets and Liabilities, fill in every line item you can find on your bank statements and loan documents, and calculate the difference. Then set a recurring calendar reminder for the same date each month or quarter to update it. That is it. The rest is just consistency and honesty about the numbers you enter. Resources where you can find the actual advice are her website at rachelcruze.com, her podcast episodes on the official Ramsey Media network, and a number of published interviews where she walks through a sample net worth statement. There is no single downloadable guide with the exact title you may have seen referenced, but the information is scattered across those sources and it all points to the same basic process.
