Hello, whinibers. My name is Jesse Meekham. This is podcast number 385 for whinab, where we teach

you four rules to help you stop living paycheck to paycheck, get out of debt, and save more money.

I want to just take a step back.

I've been in the throes of deep, deep research into a topic that is perplexing me, a topic that is not about

finances at all, but it did remind me because of the complexity and the back and

forth nature of my own opinion on this deep study of this topic that

you could just go either way. You could just go either way. One thing says this, the other thing says literally the exact opposite.

And I wonder if that isn't what we run into,

as it relates to our personal finances as well.

You say you know you're supposed to do this,

you're supposed to do that, this is good for you, this is bad for you, do it this way, no do it that way,

this is most important, no that's's least important on and on we go there is and I discussed it several episodes ago

Marks of success or mile markers I guess you could say for what you're experiencing as you begin to budget in your

finances. The positive symptoms you might see or perhaps it's the lack of symptoms that is really impressing you as it relates to your finances.

Either way you look at it, there were a lot of different mile markers that you could say, well that means I'm seeing success.

But if I could boil it all down and put you at ease as it relates to your own

quest to improve your finances, there is really one measure that is just rock solid,

unequivocal, and it is that your net worth is climbing.

Over time, over some reasonable period of time, your net worth is going up.

And the way you measure your net worth is you take your assets, things that you own, and you subtract things that you owe.

What you own, less what you owe.

Now, you can get into all kinds of arguments around what you should include in what you owe.

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