Definition

Everything you own minus everything you owe, a number that for most millennials can be expressed as a negative sign followed by their student loan balance. Forbes publishes a list of people with the highest net worth annually, presumably just to ruin everyone's day.

Example Usage

"My net worth is technically negative, but if you count my loyalty points and half-used gift cards, I'm practically middle class."

Related Terms

Intermediate

Penny Stock

Stocks that trade for less than a dollar, which are to investing what scratch-off tickets are to financial planning. They're cheap, exciting, and almost certainly going to leave you with less money than you started with, but the thrill of potential riches keeps people coming back.

💰 Finance / Accounting
Advanced

repo

Short for either 'repurchase agreement' (a fancy overnight loan in finance) or 'repossession' (what happens to your car when payments stop), proving that context is everything. In finance, it's a legitimate short-term borrowing tool where securities serve as collateral; in collections, it's the nightmare scenario involving a tow truck at 3 AM. Tech folks have also hijacked the term for 'repository,' because apparently three definitions weren't confusing enough.

💰 Finance / Accounting
Intermediate

depletion

The exhaustion of a resource faster than it can naturally replenish itself, whether that's oil reserves, soil nutrients, or your marketing budget by mid-quarter. In accounting, it's the method for allocating the cost of extracting natural resources. Basically, fancy terminology for "we used it all up."

💰 Finance / Accounting
Beginner

vesting schedule

The timeline over which stock options or retirement benefits become owned by the employee, ensuring they can't grab equity and immediately quit. It's the corporate version of 'you have to stay for dessert if you want dessert.'

💰 Finance / Accounting
Intermediate

Stock-Based Compensation

Paying employees with equity instead of cash, diluting shareholders while claiming the expense is somehow not real money. Tech companies love it because it preserves cash while making EBITDA look artificially high.

💰 Finance / Accounting
Advanced

phantom income

Income that you have to pay taxes on despite never actually receiving the cash, which is as frustrating as it sounds. Common with certain bonds, partnerships, and investment structures designed by people who hate you.

💰 Finance / Accounting

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