Every fall, we ask every client to take a snapshot of their net worth. Chris and Scott spend this episode on why, and on how you can do the same thing yourself without us.
We see our clients in a five-week window each October and November, and this is the meeting we most want everyone at. By now three quarters of 2026 are behind you, which is enough real data to look at. There's still time to change something before the year ends. December is hard to use for this: the kids are home, the holidays arrive, and the new year hangover follows. We'd rather you started thinking about 2027 now.
Chris's version is the thirty-thousand-foot view. You get out of the day-to-day, where it's easy to miss your own progress, the way you don't notice a friend's haircut until someone who hasn't seen them in a year points it out. On a page or in a spreadsheet, list what you own, personally and through your corporation. List what you owe. Subtract. What's left is your net worth. Money inside your corporation is counted before the tax it would cost to take it out, so treat your net worth as a before-tax picture.
This year we're asking clients a different question. Not just whether the number went up or down, but why. How much did you pay down? How much did you build in cash? How much went into your long-term accounts? And how much of the change was the markets?
You didn't control that last piece, but it matters. Chris's point is that seeing it for the first time, even on a smaller balance, is when you feel what it means to be rewarded for investing, and the money working for you whether you're watching or not.
Then there are the big decisions behind the number. A house. A trip you saved two years for. Chris's own example is a trip to New Zealand last fall that probably dipped his net worth for the year, and he doesn't worry about it for a second, because it was intentional. A number that goes down for a reason you chose is a different thing from one that goes down and you don't know why.
Scott's caution is to not treat it as a scoreboard. Julia Chung said it best on the Future Proof episodes (Part 2, EP 052): your great-grandchildren aren't going to say, look at grandpa's tax return. The same goes for your net worth. It's a number on a page. What matters is the life it's connected to.
This is where the snapshot turns into a plan. If you own a practice, look at your own books for 2026 so far: average monthly revenue, average monthly operating expenses, and what's left after you've paid yourself a fair income for the work you do. Are those where you thought they'd be? If something's off, why? A lease that renewed higher, a cost that crept up, a change nobody flagged.
Scott sees too many newer doctors who only look at their numbers when their accountant walks them through the year-end. If that's you, this is a good year to start looking quarterly.
And Chris's reminder: you don't have to do your own bookkeeping. You should have a report sent to you with the jargon stripped out. Here's where you are, here's where you were this time last year, here are the numbers that matter.
Then look at your life. Do you feel pinched? Comfortable? Is something coming in the next twelve months, like a home purchase in 2027, that you'd rather plan for now than react to? With the data in hand, you can start deciding what to do about it.
Chris adds three questions about your own pay and tax. What has your pay been so far this year, and what is it made of: salary, dividends, or a mix? Have you set aside what you'll owe on it? Salary has tax taken off at source, but dividends don't, so with dividends it's on you. And do you know when each payment is due, for you personally and for your corporation? The answers depend on your corporation's year-end and on what you've already paid in, so take them to your accountant and your planner. Pay counts toward the calendar year in which it's paid to you, so the time to look is before 31 December.
A clarification on the tax timing in this episode
Salary and dividends count as your personal income for the year they are paid to you, so 31 December is the practical cutoff for changing what you take out for 2026. The "five, six months" remark was about the 30 April 2027 personal balance due date. If the CRA requires you to pay income-tax instalments, those fall due on 15 March, 15 June, 15 September and 15 December, with interest on any that are missed or short. Your corporation's own tax balance is due two or three months after its fiscal year-end, which can be before 30 April. Your accountant can tell you which dates apply to you.
This is episode 53, and the start of our second year. One ask: if the show has been useful to you, send an episode to one chiropractor friend who'd get something out of it. We're talking to a small, specific group of people, and that's how it reaches them.
We close with Chris, who's running a backyard ultra this weekend, one lap on the hour, every hour. Next week, he'll tell you how it went.
The one thing: a net worth number tells you nothing until you can say why it changed.
General education, not personal tax advice.
Listen to episode 053 of The Chiro Money Show →
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