In The Red
Debt is such a pain. When I was a new high school graduate I was in the black for the furthest amount I had ever been...over $2000 net personal worth. I bought a car for $1500 with 15 one hundered dollar bills. I just happened to have that cash sitting around in my sock drawer. Little did I know that that was the pinnacle of my net personal worth. Your current net worth is basically every asset you have (stuff, cars, house, investments, cash on hand, etc) minus your debts (mortgage, car payments, school loans, etc). Ever since the end of that summer I have gone further and further into the red. It started out with a $2500 bill after my freshman year of college. I got into snowboarding that year...so I spent most of my money on equipment and ended up broke going into the summer (without any jobs). That was the breaking point. Instead of floating around zero I plummeted and have never been able to recover. I lost my partial scholarship, so the following years had much bigger college loans (I finished with nearly $40,000 in school debt...even after paying thousands out of pocket every year).
I bought two cars this year, two cars that cost over $10,000 apiece. Now I am buying a house...that's going to be a lifetime of debt there. I haven't even covered credit card debt (mostly my wife's, since I actually only use my debit card).
In the end I just can't wait for the day when I look at what I have and what I owe and I actually have a positive net worth. It'll be great to be in the black. Once I get there the next goal will be to be 100% debt free. ...Someday