Tracking Net Worth and Compound Interest Calculating

[Ian S]

I went back to take a look at SigFig and it still has the same limitations as far as being able to import my 401(k). I do see the ability to download a CSV for computer import, it would be nice to have than on Personal Capital.

I tried their "retirement" tool and hated it:
- its "we estimate you'll need $XXX in retirement" is $150% what I think I will need which is already quite generous (slightly higher than what I spend while working and still paying a mortgage).
- is says Social Security should provide around $1300 because it states the US average rather than some even simple ballpark for what the SSA says I should get
- it doesn't even asj you when you want to retire, assumes 67
- only concludes that you "may" get there with your current portfolio, but that they can get you to $1500/mo higher if you sign up with them.


This guarantees I will never sign up with them as an advisor, too many red flags

Edit: you can edit the assumptions for retirment after their initial estimates, but their starting point is still ridiculous

I haven't had any interest in the Sigfig retirement calculator or having them as an advisor. I guess I was lucky as they include my brokerage retirement accounts including even VALIC which not terribly common. I use it mainly for monitoring my portfolio performance and like I said, I like to be able to download the csv file for use in a spreadsheet. I wish P.C. had a download option like that. I see where P.C. which used to use Zillow to monitor your house value no longer does that. Maybe I should give Mint another look.

 

[Lagniappe]

I guess the drawback Personal Capital has is there's no way I can find to download all your data in a spreadsheet friendly form. That's why I use Sigfig instead although I do check things on P.C. occasionally.

I download all of my transactions from Personal Capital monthly. I download as a csv file, open in Excel, then run a pivot table summing the amount spent by category.Each months worth of transactions becomes a sheet in my master excel spreadsheet, so I can go back and find any transaction I need, or analyze in any way I please. It's super simple, and takes about 3 minutes per month.

 

[BlueberryPie]

Ah, i see you can download transaction history.
I had never noticed and not sure what's I'd do with that exactly, between banks, retirement accounts brokerages and credit cards i probably have 20+ accounts linked and PC already arranges the data in so many ways, combining with each fun's value and composition, but good to know the option exists.

 

[beernutzbob]

I'm 62 and until maybe five years ago I had no idea of my net worth, not even approximately.

Then I finally woke up, became a zealot, and now I track my net worth multiple times per week. I log into my bank all the time anyway but also to 2 retirement accounts and Schwab.

I don't have a wide range of investments so at least once a week I'll copy and paste individual investment asset market values into a spreadsheet to get an exact asset allocation--currently 55 equities / 45 fixed income.

It is kind of a hobby in that I enjoy doing it.

 

[BlueberryPie]

For those who monitor several time a day/week, what do you do with that "information"?
My NW swings by thousands every day, I was done $35K from my monthly high yesterday, made up $12K today, who knows tomorrow...

I'd be worried that by looking too often I would worry about normal swing, or even the advent of a bear market and let emotions/fear take over, even you don't sell or change anything, will you sleep better or worse?

I like to track my budget/spending throughout the month, but avoid looking too closely at NW.

 

[REWahoo]

For those who monitor several time a day/week, what do you do with that "information"?

Nothing.

 

[pjigar]

I download all of my transactions from Personal Capital monthly. I download as a csv file, open in Excel, then run a pivot table summing the amount spent by category.Each months worth of transactions becomes a sheet in my master excel spreadsheet, so I can go back and find any transaction I need, or analyze in any way I please. It's super simple, and takes about 3 minutes per month.

I have been doing this with the Bank of America's "My Portfolio" since 2007 so I have the raw transaction data for over 14 years! I have another google sheet where I enter Networth from "My Portfolio" every month. I manually calculated Networth in an excel sheet since 2001. Seeing how the money flows and grows from the early age (20s) has helped me immensely to build up the Networth.

 

[pjigar]

For those who monitor several time a day/week, what do you do with that "information"?

The Networth data: Mostly nothing, other than eye ball the log chart of Networth and see if we are on the right trajectory. Graph also kind shows when can we reach the finish line.

The transaction data pivot tables: Helps me keep tabs on spending. If we see a category spending go out of line for a few months then I drill down and see what we have been spending on. We don't necessarily have a budget but this kind of analysis feedback has helped us keep the personal inflation down compared to income "inflation" over the longer term. Which IMHO is the key of rapid build up of our Networth. YMMV.

 

[HenryD]

For those who monitor several time a day/week, what do you do with that "information"?
My NW swings by thousands every day, I was done $35K from my monthly high yesterday, made up $12K today, who knows tomorrow...

Tracking closely means that I won't be shocked or surprised at the end of the quarter. All yesterday's action did for my model was shave off a chunk of the current overage between where I am and where my long-term model says I should be and still be on track. My year-end projection didn't change at all, and I didn't need to rebalance at all, but I would have if I'd needed to. I do expect to pay less attention to it when I am in withdrawal.

 

[RetiredHappy]

For those who monitor several time a day/week, what do you do with that "information"?
My NW swings by thousands every day, I was done $35K from my monthly high yesterday, made up $12K today, who knows tomorrow...

I'd be worried that by looking too often I would worry about normal swing, or even the advent of a bear market and let emotions/fear take over, even you don't sell or change anything, will you sleep better or worse?

Nothing. It is just something that I do each day, or at least try to do each day. When the market goes significantly down, it confirms why we diversify, with some of our money in deferred income annuities. Technically, we can get by just with our SS and annuities. We do have about 35% of our budget as discretionary spending, and RMD funds that. We don't manage our own money which separates investment decisions from emotions or knee jerk reactions to the market. Having a money manager is definitely right for us.

 

[CardsFan]

Nothing.

Nothing.

Another vote for nothing.

 

[beernutzbob]

Another vote for nothing.

Same here, nothing.

I take my blood pressure a lot too but I don't necessarily do something as a result of seeing the readings.

 

[CardsFan]

Same here, nothing.

I take my blood pressure a lot too but I don't necessarily do something as a result of seeing the readings.

Well, that one I might pay attention to, if it keeps going up.

 

[RetiredHappy]

Well, that one I might pay attention to, if it keeps going up.

 

[BlueberryPie]

Exactly nothing. So why do you look exactly?

 

[CardsFan]

Exactly nothing. So why do you look exactly?

Entertainment?

Seriously it is to keep me aware of the ups and downs, so that I DON'T take action. I don't record anything daily, I just compare one day to the next, realizing that on a big day we could lose, or gain, more than a year's spending, BUT:

It Just Doesn't matter:

 

[teetee]

For those who monitor several time a day/week, what do you do with that "information"?
My NW swings by thousands every day, I was done $35K from my monthly high yesterday, made up $12K today, who knows tomorrow...

I'd be worried that by looking too often I would worry about normal swing, or even the advent of a bear market and let emotions/fear take over, even you don't sell or change anything, will you sleep better or worse?

I like to track my budget/spending throughout the month, but avoid looking too closely at NW.

My monthly NW gain figures go into building a nw gain vs month curve chart with linear regression line to indicate how good this year's forecast is based on exiting months performance.

It is probably a waste of time but I feel calm whenever I see the end-of-year nw projection.

Imagine when the daily NW change is in the range of millions. It takes time to practice on not caring about the market fluctuation.

 

[Floridaman10]

I have been tracking my NW on Quicken since 1987. I find it interesting and motivating. In 2015 I started using Personal Capital too. I look at it monthly but there are times that I don’t look for many months. My dad got me started when I graduated college in 1986, he was an engineer and did everything on spread sheets.

 

[Retire2023]

Exactly nothing. So why do you look exactly?

Being an accountant, I guess it's in the DNA. Been doing it for years. The charts created from the data were good for tracking the ups and downs of the market swings. Seeing the declines from the Great Recession and following the recovery, validates that if you don't panic and sell, you will reap the rewards of staying the course. Same with last year's temporary meltdown.

I keep two NW numbers one with, one without house value based on assessed value. No real reason, just do.

Like others, I like being able to find any purchase at a moments notice using Quicken. How much did we actually spend on that gym project anyway? Oh, here it is...$XX. Works for us and will keep it up until it doesn't anymore.

 

[Austin704]

Let's be clear on the net worth calculation.

Net worth = all assets - all liabilities. Excluding assets (like RE) or liabilities (like mortgage debt) is not a net worth calculation. Net worth and owner's equity are synonymous. Fudging the calculation by picking out this or that is simply fudging.

Agree. Not sure why anyone would not include their home value in the calculation, especially if it's securing a mortgage. Real estate owned, whether lived in or rented out, is an asset--and one that can be reasonably marked to market. It's called an appraisal. Short of that one can also estimate $/SF by looking on Redfin at recent sold houses in the neighborhood.

 

[Eastfolk]

Agree. Not sure why anyone would not include their home value in the calculation, especially if it's securing a mortgage. Real estate owned, whether lived in or rented out, is an asset--and one that can be reasonably marked to market. It's called an appraisal. Short of that one can also estimate $/SF by looking on Redfin at recent sold houses in the neighborhood.

Technically you're correct that net worth is defined as all assets less all liabilities, however, for most folks on this forum I believe the intent is to reflect net assets that can be used towards funding retirement. For most people, a house will not provide funding towards retirement. Of course you'll say there are some that will downsize and use the excess proceeds but I think that is more the exception than the norm. Using your technically defined term, I guess you would also include value of car, laptops, furniture, or anything that you could sell on ebay/craigslist? The other issue (at least for me) in including the value of a house is the volatility of it's value especially in current times. Seems to artificially inflate net worth for me.

I know this is a bit of a hotly debated topic on this forum and it seems like the compromise I've seen is to differentiate between net worth and investable assets. But again, I think most people tend to simply reference net worth, excluding RE, because of the intent of the metric in this forum.

 

[mpeirce]

Technically you're correct…

I simply keep track of both numbers. I have items in my spreadsheet for total net worth and financial net worth. I like to know both.

It’s not really important to me what the words are since the only person I ever discuss this with is my DW. We both know what the terms refer to.

 

[BlueberryPie]

Stocks are volatile too, so hard to argue that volatility is a criterion on what to count.

But I'm in the camp of tracking investable assets separately from true NW and I would count it as a "windfall" if i sold my house on a profit. I don't use it to gauge retirement readiness, just like i don't count on inheritance or the like. I am fully aware that it's very subjective, i probably take other things for granted (like some amount of social security) than are no better guarantee.

And I do count my emergency fund in investable assets even though I have no plan to invest it further...

It's not like it's an exact science

 

[cyber888]

I use to look at Total Networth frequently. Once I got beyond Seven figures, not much. Since I'm staying in my house for quiet some time, it didn't even feel real that my home value increased by around $130K-$150K in the last few months due to the housing price appreciation.

I shifted to monitoring my liquid investments, which excludes the house, cars, and all material assets. I also shifted to monitoring my mortgage (my only debt) and focus on reducing that debt.