net worth spreadsheet

[Martha]

For several years, I have used Yahoo finance Money Manager (a free service) to keep track of our net worth and as a listing of what we have. If you own mutual funds or individual stocks or bonds it will automatically update their value. Also, you can enter any other assets you have and their value. It is very easy to use and I favor it over John Galt's napkin approach to figuring net worth.

This past week Yahoo said that it is eliminating Money Manager in February. What programs do people use to keep track of their assets? Is there anything free? I need something easy to use. I confess I don't know how to use spreadsheet software like Excell. And anyway, it wouldn't automatically update stock/bond/fund values.

 

[ESRBob]

Martha,
If you are a vanguard client (?) you can use the Cash Edge feature of their site to automatically have it log into all your other accounts at other financial institutions each night, then consolidate everything together into one tally. You can even manually enter a few assets that are not online or otherwise hard to calculate, e.g. I-bonds or private equity.

Can't let it become an obsession, but it sure saves a lot of time. Knowing this info might have made me want a less volatile portfolio - might be a good PhD thesis for somebody one day to look into. (It can yank your head around to have the totals rising and falling too dramatically every day-- in the old days I would spend a few hours updating the calculations every few months -- not knowing how badly I got hit after a series of bad days made it easier to wait it out, I think).

Looking back, in the first few years of having Vanguard CashEdge, I think I probably traded too frequently, panic-sold a few times -- its probably a risk of these systems. Now I've got the Bernstein annual rebalance religion, with a less volatile asset-allocated portfolio and things seem to be working much better.

I think cash-edge lets you download into a spreadsheet if you want to do further calcs -- I haven't used that feature

 

[Martha]

We do have one mutual fund through Vanguard---my husband generally has a dislike of mutual funds. I will look at their site. I have long forgotten our Vanguard password though and probably will have to get a new one.

Actually, I had more problems with volatility before I kept track of the net worth. Once I started, I got used to the general ups and downs of the market. My husband who is primarily responsible for the investment decisions doesn't watch the net worth total near as much. Maybe it is my way of checking up on him.

 

[JohnP]

I use a variety of methods to keep track of stocks, funds, net worth, etc.

The Quicken.com portfolio does a good job of tracking both stocks and funds; give it a symbol, and number of shares and it will give you your balance whenever you want it. I don't like any system that knows any of my actual account numbers so I will not use the auto updating functions.

I manually transfer the quicken.com data into Quicken basic 2005 and it has a great net worth report that I've tracked since 1998.

I also manually transfer the quicken.com data into my own homegrown excel spreadsheet which has week-end values since 1998 so I can do my own custom charts. Lately I have been thinking about buying and selling based on whether today's value is over or under the past 100 & 200 day averages for instance- I am interested in seeing how the data trending from 2000-2003 would have given buy-sell hints that can be valid today.

By the way, this is the time of the year to get checkbook, etc programs cheap - both Intuit and MS offer a buy-fed-tax software and get state-tax, accounting software, and maybe one or two others free-after-rebate. Intuit and Microsoft are both very fast at returning your rebate $ so you are not out of pocket for usually more than a month - a big improvement over most of the rest of the rebate offers.

JohnP

 

[johnblake]

I use MS Excel and update the values manually. The thing I like about it is that I can keep everything in one place, and it's very easy to use. I track asset allocation, trades, average cost basis, and annual return.

 

[malakito]

I use Quicken and MS Excel. I copy the data manually from Q to E at least once a payday. I've always meant to set up an E macro or something to do it for me.

Q will give me the right NW number and lots of cool graphs to look at and I use it for certain things. I use E to track my insurance requirements, progress on college and retirement savings, and a few other things.

malakito.

 

[MooreBonds]

I've used Excel for a number of years, and love the ability for me to get the exact information I want in a format that I want.

For those who have a large number of stocks/mutual funds that they track you can use the Portfolio feature of Yahoo! finance to create a portfolio of all of your holdings. I think you can even put in Canadian stocks and American Mutual Funds (but you just have to use a special format when you enter the symbol in the porfolio list....check their FAQ for the details). Then, when you are viewing your portfolio, you can click on a link at the bottom right under your portfolio that says "download to spreadsheet format", where it opens up a new browser window with an Excel format.

You can then simply copy and paste the price values column from the Excel window into your Excel spreadsheet. In just 5 seconds, you can copy, paste and update 1,000 stocks/mutual funds in your portfolio in your Excel spreadsheet.

Peter

 

[Richard]

If you use Excel 2002 or 2003 you can download an add-in "MSN Money Stock Quotes" which allows you to update all stock quotes at a click of a button any time of the day or night.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...D8-9305-4535-B939-3BF0A740A9B1&displaylang=EN

 

[FunGoals]

I use yodlee oncenter:

yodlee.com
click on OnCenter (formerly "My Yodlee") User?
Sign In »
click on register now

It also retrieves email & news. Which is all I use it for due to having too much information in one place. It scrolls down the page forever. Email, news & other services can be eliminated & it can be used for finance only.
I have a account at Wachovia bank which has a service called One Step which is tied to yodlee that I use for finances.

 

[JLP]

MS Excel 2003 has a feature that will automatically update stock quotes and mutual fund quotes. You just have to know how to use it.

JLP

 

[BUM]

What programs do people use to keep track of their assets? Is there anything free? I need something easy to use. I confess I don't know how to use spreadsheet software like Excell. And anyway, it wouldn't automatically update stock/bond/fund values.

Martha_M,

Being a die hard DIY'er, I couldn't find a spreadsheet that I liked or was simple. My Vanguard acct. obviously does auto updates and so do the various yahoo portfolio mgrs. But I wanted the net worth report to be detailed, accurate and easy to maintain but not real time. Mine is easy to maintain so I dont mind updating values periocally. Stock/bond/fund updates are only a part. Other values need updating as well e.g. debt service (if any ), bank account balances, real estate, insurance cash values, auto, art, jewelry, etc. I also add personal info like names, ssn, atty, cpa, kids info and ssn. I try not to get carried away with furniture, appliances, and other small potatoes.
This probably sounds like too much info but its not...for me. I update 4 - 6 times/yr. And its doesnt take a 1/2 hour as long as I have the bank statements at hand.

The format is a rip off of the Bank of New York personal income statement! Theirs is in the form of a balance sheet... I like that. They used to make me update their form regularly when my biz loan was outstanding and I hated their relentless updates. So I "Excelled" it and just updated it when asked, printed signed and mailed it. It worked so well for me (and them) that I still use it... now mostly as a report to Mrs. BUM.

If you want a copy I'll sanitize it and email it to you. If you've listed your email I'll use that or you can PM me and I'll respond. Just plug in your numbers and let Excel calc it for you.

BUM

 

[wzd]

BUM - Thanks for the inspiration. I have been wanting a "project" to learn perl/web tools, and your post made me think of one. I'm going to play with writing a spider/scraper to pull info from my financial web sites. Not sure of details or what can be done, but something to play with.

Just an old hacker at heart....

 

[wzd]

Martha - You may also want to check out whatever brokerage your DH uses. They may have an online view that you may like. Some places even have a varient of a "total view" system where they will access other accounts and present the full picture.

Wayne

 

[BUM]

wzd,

Have at it and have fun. Here are the line items I list:


Personal info - name, add, tel, ssn, employ info
Kids info
Atty/Cpa

Projected Ann Income Est Ann Exp.
salary, bonus, int, div taxes, mort, tuition, insu

cash accts
marketable securities
closely held (401k) securities
cash value of life ins
RE
Corporate assets
IRA s
Art/jewelry
Autos
Contingent Liabs (cosigned loans, HELOC,etc)


Anyway now I'm getting carried away...you get the picture. Establish the income and asset colums on one side and the expense on the other. I list all accounts and funds then "lump" the subtotals to the balance sheet section where the liabilities are subtracted from the assets and the net worth is prominently displayed!

Mine is manually updated . Its not possible to autoupdate except stocks/bonds/funds and maybe a bank acct .

Let us all know how it comes out

BUM

 

[John Galt]

I posted this before. It happens to be true

Take a used envelope out of the trash (any size, but
one side should be blank). Shake off the coffee grounds
and cigarette ashes. List assets and liabilities.
Subtract. This is your net worth. It should be a plus. If not, go back to work at once. Discard envelope
and repeat process as desired.

JG

 

[Jarhead*]

I posted this before.  It happens to be true  

Take a used envelope out of the trash (any size, but
one side should be blank).  Shake off the coffee grounds
and cigarette ashes.  List assets and liabilities.
Subtract.  This is your net worth.  It should be a plus.  If not, go back to work at once.  Discard envelope
and repeat process as desired.

JG

JG: You are probably more main-stream with that system than most people on this board.
It was apparant to me, after observing for a few months that this board should be re-named the Retire Early Board for Engineers & Computer Employees.
By training and personality, they are comfortable with applying a mathematical formula to solve any problem.
That being said, with a good shovel, and a little patience, I have found a few ponys since coming on board.
We're all different, and that's what makes a horse-race.
In my real world, I know of no one that I am acquainted with that spends the amount of time and effort on the smallest detail that seems to come naturally to most of the posters on board.
Or it could be that I am just an old phfart that has not changed with the times.

 

[Calgary_Girl]

I have to admit that I prefer John Galt's method myself

I have my own spreadsheet that I usually update quarterly with the current value of our assets and liabilities. I'm happy that it's going in the right direction and have no desire to track it down to the penny.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I'm a computer guy but I have an even easier method than John.

Debt: 0
Assets: House+cars+household goods+portfolio+bank balance

Didnt even need the envelope, and I can do the addition in my head with only 1/4 cup of coffee in me 15 minutes after the dogs woke me up.
8)

 

[refff]

Check out MSn Portfolio. Its great and free.

 

[unclemick]

Don't count house, cars, household assets - live in fish camp beyond levee protection - hence these are pain in the ass expenses/throw away items. Portfolio plus bank balance count. I usually check once a year around tax time - like between now and 4/15.

I haven't balanced my checkbook since 1966. I did however during my working years - plot my 401k/IRA on a single sheet of engineering graph paper with a number two pencil. The sheet got kinda ragged and grotty after 15 years or so.

 

[uncledrz]

Schwab has a portfolio tracker feature which allows entry of all assets and updates the values daily, as well as providing an asset allocation evalutaion.

 

[garstud]

www.Yodlee.com is the source service for many financial websites for account aggregation. They also allow users to use their service directly. It gives a good one page networth summary and has bill reminders.

 

[TargaDave]

MS Money 2005 (Portfolio Manager). Use .Net Passport feature to update prices.

 

[youbet]

I posted this before.  It happens to be true  

Take a used envelope out of the trash (any size, but
one side should be blank).  Shake off the coffee grounds
and cigarette ashes.  List assets and liabilities.
Subtract.  This is your net worth.  It should be a plus.  If not, go back to work at once.  Discard envelope
and repeat process as desired.

JG

What I like best about John's method is that there is no updating/refreshing of asset values.  Simply SWAG with your best recollection of the value of equities, real estate, etc., and add it up.  If your best recollection/knowledge of the value of your home is what you paid for it ten years ago, so be it!  Just write it down and add 'em up!  Keeps it simple.

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

I am an engineer and I still use JG's method. EZ. Almost all of my equities are with Vanguard for simplicity and I enjoy looking at the graph of asset value from time to time (useless when making new contributions; it should be able to do a DCF, but it doesn't). I will look at that new feature.

Ed