Tracking Investments & Assets

[Anonymous]

I track everything via my apps. And I do a cover sheet once a year for my accountant during tax time. Is it really that complicated?

[Anonymous]

I have a very basic and ugly spreadsheet that I update monthly, each column is one month. I start a new copy of this sheet every January to keep it organized per year.

In this column I have a section for cash assets, investable assets (stocks), and illiquid or physical assets such as house, cars, collectibles, etc. Another section for all liabilities. Then at the bottom it auto computes the net worth and gives liquid and non liquid NW values. Then I pull this value for each month into another spreadsheet with a graph that shows net worth over time.

This is all manual, only costs 10 min per month. Been doing this since starting my career in 2011. I don’t use apps that link your accounts together since they periodically have issues and lost data

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a spreadsheet but only update it once a year. Better to pay less attention is my motto

Set it and forget it.

I set it and forget it in terms of messing with my investments. But I update a spreadsheet the first of each month or sometimes when something crazy is happening and I’m curious to see the impact. I do not stress and don’t feel pressured to sell etc but I really enjoy seeing the growth over time. It’s very cool. I only started doing this a couple years ago. Wish I had started 20 years ago when I started investing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I track everything in YNAB and still meticulously budget despite an 800k HHI.

honestly sounds like overkill, but you do you!

It works for me and takes me less than 15 minutes a week. Most of transactions are auto categorized accurately, and I'm not insane if my Amazon purchases aren't perfect. But allocating all of my money to their various jobs has been a really important mindset change for me. It makes both saving and spending easier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a spreadsheet but only update it once a year. Better to pay less attention is my motto

Set it and forget it.

I set it and forget it in terms of messing with my investments. But I update a spreadsheet the first of each month or sometimes when something crazy is happening and I’m curious to see the impact. I do not stress and don’t feel pressured to sell etc but I really enjoy seeing the growth over time. It’s very cool. I only started doing this a couple years ago. Wish I had started 20 years ago when I started investing.

I do it pretty regularly as well. My investments are all on autopilot - I just think it's fine to track, and the longer you track, the more interesting it becomes. In the last five years, I added a column for "big events" like the "Iran War," just as a note to remember what was going on in the world at that time.

[Anonymous]

I think keeping track of spending and account growth helps keep spending down and investing/savings up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I track everything in YNAB and still meticulously budget despite an 800k HHI.

honestly sounds like overkill, but you do you!

It works for me and takes me less than 15 minutes a week. Most of transactions are auto categorized accurately, and I'm not insane if my Amazon purchases aren't perfect. But allocating all of my money to their various jobs has been a really important mindset change for me. It makes both saving and spending easier.

I definitely agree with you on this point. I'm just not tracking as closely as I did before. Somewhat like, weighing all your food for a period of time to get a baseline of calories but then using that prior knowledge and not worrying about actually weighing each individual item.

[Anonymous]

I don't track too closely but generally know what we have - vanguard 2.5, my 401 2.7, wife 401 1.25, fidelity 850k, banks 62k, ibond 100k

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I track everything in YNAB and still meticulously budget despite an 800k HHI.

honestly sounds like overkill, but you do you!

It works for me and takes me less than 15 minutes a week. Most of transactions are auto categorized accurately, and I'm not insane if my Amazon purchases aren't perfect. But allocating all of my money to their various jobs has been a really important mindset change for me. It makes both saving and spending easier.

I definitely agree with you on this point. I'm just not tracking as closely as I did before. Somewhat like, weighing all your food for a period of time to get a baseline of calories but then using that prior knowledge and not worrying about actually weighing each individual item.

DP. I want to know how much we spend every month vs income. It keeps me in check. I'm sure not everyone needs that, but I do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First roll all your previous emoployer 401ks into your current employer 401k.

Not always the best option. I'm not rolling my long-term TSP into my firm's crappy 401(k) that has high fees despite being terrible.

Just put them all somewhere together. People are paying excess fees and forget about them when it isn't consolidated.

[Anonymous]

Hello, Excel spreadsheet

[Anonymous]

I have a spreadsheet I fill out once a year. I note all my assets and then note all my liabilities, and figure out my NW.

I think I started in 2010 and now I know how long my money typically doubles.

[Anonymous]

I'm pp and I have a binder with my financial info, including accounts and logins and last statement (that I usually print out once a quarter in the event there is a hack/data breach/outage).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you have a system for keeping track of various investments?

All your retirement accounts for various jobs, brokerage accounts, bank accounts, etc.

I’d like to get more organized in this area.

Step 1 - Simplify; Consolidate like accounts. All 401Ks into the current employer, Brokerages accounts into one, etc. unless there's something special about one of those 401K or brokerage accounts (e.g premarital asset or inherited account) that you don't want to touch.

Step 2 - create a spreadsheet and record balance and cash each quarter. track change in value and compare against standard indexes.

Done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a very basic and ugly spreadsheet that I update monthly, each column is one month. I start a new copy of this sheet every January to keep it organized per year.

In this column I have a section for cash assets, investable assets (stocks), and illiquid or physical assets such as house, cars, collectibles, etc. Another section for all liabilities. Then at the bottom it auto computes the net worth and gives liquid and non liquid NW values. Then I pull this value for each month into another spreadsheet with a graph that shows net worth over time.

This is all manual, only costs 10 min per month. Been doing this since starting my career in 2011. I don’t use apps that link your accounts together since they periodically have issues and lost data

Me too. I'd rather use a basic spreadsheet and update it each month than use a third party program. And I agree with the other poster who says it feels really gratifying to see the growth over time. It took a long long time for our money to start looking like enough to retire on.

My husband managed our money until a few years ago and didn't see the point of tracking all these accounts at all. "Why does it matter? We're maxing out withdrawals and saving wherever we can anyway, aren't we?" No. Once I created the spreadsheet and started tracking, I stopped spending as much, started redirecting more into various investment vehicles, and I no long feel stressed out about money. It gives you a wonderful sense of control, even if we're all subject to the whims of the market, etc.