Whoopsies

[SecondCor521]

I'm interested in your stories if you want to share...

I just realized that my latest FIRE spreadsheet double-counts my expenses. I figure up a "FIRE net worth" and a "spending number" and take the ratio, and then project forward based on inflation, my contributions, my expected returns, etc., when that ratio will hit 4%.

One of the things I subtract from my "FIRE net worth" is the NPV of my future significant liabilities, one of which is the child support I must pay for the next ~13.5 years.

One of the things I include in my "spending number" is that same child support.

Whoopsies, I think I double-counted, yes?

Since CS is my single largest monthly expense and perhaps 25% of my total spending, this is a significant issue for me to correct.

The last time I made a mistake of this magnitude was when I was in college and I had all this extra money in my checking account and was getting pretty excited. Then I got curious as to why this month was different. Turns out I had forgotten to pay my rent.

2Cor521
A soon-to-be MBA who probably shouldn't claim any special abilities in accounting....

 

[Nords]

My favorite trick is getting sloppy with Quicken data entry.

Its 2005 incarnation is a little bossy in its investment-transaction formatting by forcing you to tell it the stock or fund dollar amount as well as the number of shares. Then it helpfully calculates the share price (based solely on your data entry) and immediately updates your portfolio value with that share price-- whether you think that's a good idea or not.

So if you slip a decimal or fumble the data entry, your mutual fund share value can skyrocket from $30 to $47.92186, or a money market can scream up from $1/share to $10/share. Good luck figuring out why you're so rich all of a sudden...

 

[SecondCor521]

Yep, I've had that happen before. It was especially helpful to me when Quicken calculated share price of my employer's stock -- of which I owned a large number of shares because I was in the ESPP -- based on my DRIP purchases of like 0.013 shares for $0.03 and coming up with a share price that was off by five or ten dollars.

As you probably know, you can go in and edit the stock price history and delete those prices if you don't want Quicken to use them. Click on the security name and poke around; you'll find it.

2Cor521.

 

[Nords]

As you probably know, you can go in and edit the stock price history and delete those prices if you don't want Quicken to use them. Click on the security name and poke around; you'll find it.

Killjoy. I'd leave it there and enjoy being a multi-decamillionaire until the next price-update download.