I'm having a vigorous debate with my SO (all in good fun--it's about whether we crack our "millionaire wine" tonight). I say no, SO says close enough, so, we are going to crowdsource.
I see the following ways to measure net worth.
1.) Pre-Tax, Include House Equity, Include college savings.
2.) Pre-Tax, Include House Equity, Exclude college savings.
3.) Pre-Tax, Exclude house, exclude college.
4.) Post-Tax, Include house, include college.
5.) Post-Tax, Include House, exclude college.
6.) Post-tax, Exclude House, Exclude college.
#1 seems to be what a lot of people use.
I find it hard to justify ignoring tax leakage. And on a personal level, once I put money into my kid's 529 plan, I no longer view it as my money, even though it certainly is legally. So my view is that #5 is the best way to look at it.
Under #1, we crack open our wine tonight. Under #5, we do not. Of course, we weren't over the line under any way of measuring it two weeks ago--it's all the market--so we're going to go back and forth several times. But that wasn't the Wine Agreement!
I tried to set this up as a poll but couldn't figure out how. But I'm interested in thoughts! I know a lot of people exclude house equity because (a) it's very hard to measure (I'm using Zillow value, which appears deflated in my case, but w/e) and (b) it's not remotely liquid. My house equity number is net of 7% selling costs, though.
Edit: I forgot to add, I haven't included all of our "stuff" in any of these calculations. Car, electronics, exercise stuff, blah blah blah. It's enough to be meaningful if we had to literally sell everything we owned to fund stuff, as it would cover probably a year of expenses or so, but I think it's silly to go to that extreme. But in any case, it wouldn't cause us to be drinking wine tonight under #5, so.