Family Wealth Assessment

You're both earning.
Are you building wealth at the rate you think you are?

Most dual-income families are running three financial plans — retirement, education, the house — without ever doing the unified math. The sequence matters more than the amounts. Getting it wrong compounds quietly for years.

  • ✓Your combined net worth consolidated — every account, both incomes, one number
  • ✓Your goal sequencing checked — retirement, education, and housing in the right order
  • ✓Your life insurance coverage benchmarked against your current income, not the salary you had three jobs ago

Four questions. One unified picture of where your family actually stands.

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40%
Higher net worth by 55 for dual-income families who plan all three major goals together
Federal Reserve 2022
#1 error
Funding college savings before maximizing retirement account contributions
T. Rowe Price 2023
23%
Average gap between perceived and actual combined net worth among users who completed our family assessment
NettWorth assessment data
From the NettWorth Research Library
The Family CFO
The Family CFO
Why dual-income households need a single financial decision-maker — and how to structure that role without the conflict.
Life Insurance as a Financial Tool
Life Insurance as a Financial Tool
The right amount of coverage for a dual-income household — and why most families are systematically underinsured.
Income vs. Wealth Guarantee
Income vs. Wealth Guarantee
Why a high household income is not the same as financial security — and the number that actually matters.
Questions & Answers

How should dual-income couples prioritize retirement vs. college savings vs. a home?

The sequencing that maximizes lifetime wealth: (1) capture 401(k) employer match in full — this is a guaranteed 50–100% return; (2) build 3–6 month emergency fund; (3) pay off high-interest debt; (4) max IRAs; (5) max 401(k)s; (6) 529 college savings; (7) taxable investing or additional housing savings. Home purchase competes with steps 5–7. Most dual-income families fund 529s before completing step 5, which costs them significantly over a 30-year horizon.

How much life insurance does a dual-income household actually need?

The standard formula is 10–12× gross income per earner. For dual-income households with children, model each income independently: if one disappears, the surviving spouse needs to maintain household expenses, fund education, and eventually retire on a single income. Each earner typically needs 10–15× their individual salary in term coverage. Whole life insurance is rarely appropriate at this stage; term is almost always the right product.

How do we know if we're on track for retirement as a dual-income couple?

T. Rowe Price benchmarks: 1× combined household income saved by 30; 3× by 40; 6× by 50; 9× by 60. For a household earning $190K combined, that's $570K in retirement accounts by 40. The key error: most couples measure individual accounts rather than combined household net worth, and exclude equity, home equity, and other assets from the calculation. Your wealth-to-income ratio — total net worth divided by annual household income — is the single most predictive metric.