At what age did you start to have a net worth, and where did it come from?

Question

At what age did you start to have a net worth, and where did it come from?

Answer 1

hello - i started to have one at 17, when i started to fund an ira.  ever since i have been funding that and other retirement accounts, 401K etc.  It came from my college job, i earned and saved enough to deposit it and never looked back.  i have 750K in savings now, and i don't have a huge high paying job.  it comes from diligent savings.

Answer 2

30 equity of my home mostly

Answer 3

Not until my forties.  Before then, I was a single mom and I acquired a lot of debt trying to take care of my two daughters without regular child support.  By the time I re-married, at age 39, I had about $40,000 of debt and my second husband did, too.  

We decided that we would do everything we could to get out of debt and start to build savings.  It took us eight years to pay off the debt and break even in terms of net worth.  I was 47.

Now, we have been married twelve years, I am 51, and our net worth besides the house is about $200,000 from IRA savings.  Our home equity adds another $160,000 to our net worth.

At first, progress is painfully slow.  But after awhile, all that savings starts to compound and things really pick up.