In my opinion, savings are incredibly important, even if you do have debts. (Although I'd rather have some kind of “equity” in case of inflation.)

At any rate, the notion that net worth is somewhat irrelevant is one I have to agree with. As a lender, we look at things like net worth to give us an idea of monthly cash flow and then we look at someones DTI and NDI to determine if they qualify for a loan. But, what bugs me about this is that we're not always factoring in the little stuff that doesn't show up on a credit report. For instance, someones NDI might be $1200 a month, so adding a payment of $750 may seem like an alright thing to do. They've still got $450 a month to spend. But, the responsible lenders ask the questions, how much is your grocery bill, your electric and water bill, your personal expenses? Can you reasonably cover all of those with $450? I'm just throwing out general numbers here, but you can see why looking at someones networth doesn't really help a lender to make an adequate decision about a person's ability to repay a loan. As you've said, you've got a great networth but no income. Eventually the latter will deteriorate the former if you don't reach the middle ground. I always try to keep this in mind when considering a loan application.

I am in favour of the one step at a time approach to things. So we will work towards our current goal of being debt-free (although I concede we don't include the mortgage in that) then rework the goals when we get closer.