debt-payoff

Net worth is the single number that measures financial progress: everything you own (cash, investments, home equity) minus everything you owe (credit cards, loans). It can start negative — that's normal when debt outweighs savings — and the whole game is to drag it up and to the right until it crosses zero and compounds. The harder question for most beginners isn't 'how much should I save' but 'where does the next dollar go?' There's a widely-taught answer, the financial order of operations: (1) build a small starter emergency fund so a surprise doesn't put you deeper in debt; (2) capture any employer 401(k) match — it's an instant, risk-free 50–100% return you can't get anywhere else; (3) attack high-interest debt like credit cards, whose 20%+ rate is a guaranteed loss no investment can reliably beat; (4) finish a full 3–6 month emergency fund; (5) fund tax-advantaged accounts (HSA, IRA, the rest of your 401(k)); and (6) invest the rest in a regular taxable brokerage. The logic is simple: each dollar should go wherever it earns or saves the highest guaranteed return first. The simulator shows a beginner's version of this — a starter buffer, then high-interest debt, then the full fund, then investing — and draws net worth as a stack: debt below the zero line shrinking to nothing, cash and investments stacking above it, and a bold net-worth line climbing from red into black and then compounding. The big lessons: pay off high-interest debt before investing, because you can't out-earn a 20% interest rate; a 401(k) match is free money you grab before almost anything else; and once the debt is gone and the buffer is built, time and compounding do the heavy lifting — the gap between what you put in and what you end with is growth working for you.