Net worth -- how do you count the 'stuff?'

Quick post to draw your attention to the fact that I've updated my net worth for January 2007 (you can see the graphic on the sidebar to the right)

NetworthIQ tells me I'm now worth $28,727 -- a $1,583 (5.83%) increase from the end of December.

Much as I'm pleased that the little line keeps pointing in the right direction (yay saving!) the reason I thought I'd make this a blog post in and of itself is because of a conversation I had with my girlfriend recently about getting renter's insurance.

We had a break-in a while back. Nobody was home and the only things taken were her jewelry (my iPod, laptop, camera and Xbox were all in plain view but were left untouched) and while it wasn't really traumatic for me, I can tell my girlfriend is still very edgy due to the whole "feeling violated" factor.

As such, she's big on getting renter's insurance. I'm open to the idea myself since it seems surprisingly affordable, but one of the requirements is that we obviously have to have everything in the apartment accounted for and possibly appraised.

My girlfriend asked me to ballpark the total replacement value of everyting we own and I said somewhere between $5,000-$10,000. Her guess was much higher -- something in the neighbourhood of $25,000. At first I thought she was way off, but now I'm not so sure. I know we wouldn't get back exactly what we'd paid for all the stuff -- just the replacement value of it all, but the more I think about it, we have a lot of little things adding up. Electronics alone, I'd say there's a few grand right there. A 35-inch TV, DVD player, Xbox 360 system, two laptops, one desktop, two digital cameras and two iPods. That right there would cost around $4000, minimum. Then you've got a couch, a bed, bedroom furniture, coffee table, chairs, kitchen table...it's all adding up. And we haven't even gotten to the two complete wardrobes for upwardly mobile young professionals.

I think the real answer is probably somewhere between our two guesses. $10,000-$20,000 maybe? I have no idea. I guess that's the insurance company's job.

The reason I'm wondering about this stuff publicly is that right now I don't include any of it in my net worth calculations. If the insurer decides I've got $30,000 lying around in my couch cushions, I'll consider including it in future months. But for now, I don't want to artificially skew my numbers like that.