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Old 07-13-2021, 10:15 PM   #61
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...Do you add the value of the house to your net worth? It looks like some of us here are doing that, but I'm only adding what we've paid for...
we do. NW = assets minus debt.
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Old 07-14-2021, 12:12 AM   #62
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I started my first net worth spread sheet when I retired from the Air Force so I could see when I could really retire. Over time I have added several features. It started out as a single sheet and expanded to several supporting sheets which link back to the main sheet. I use it to calculate quarterly tax payments, net worth, life insurance totals, taxable and non taxable totals, values in various insurance accounts. I used to keep track of how much I spent in various categories and projected ahead for several years but found that to be too tedious. The most useful is the goal seek in excel which I use to determine quarterly tax payments. I used to use quicken but dropped it when it required me to go on line to start up the program. Everything is done off line and the computer is rebooted after I save the files off line.
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Old 07-14-2021, 05:17 AM   #63
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...Do you add the value of the house to your net worth? It looks like some of us here are doing that, but I'm only adding what we've paid for...
Yes, the only asset I use in our net worth, and only what it cost to build it. A true NW calculation seems like a lot of work (and meaningless to me).
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Old 07-14-2021, 06:20 AM   #64
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On the FIRE/SIRE spectrum I'm about 23%/77%. While I did focus on my investments, I have never really measured and analysed NW, other than a mental estimate snap shot.
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Old 07-14-2021, 07:10 AM   #65
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Yet another vote for Quicken. I started tracking everything in 1989, the first year I started working. I would say that the detailed tracking was a key component in helping me get to FI and ER.

Everything goes into Quicken, and I use the one step update feature to update my entire investment portfolio nearly every day. The planning tools are great for giving you a basic idea of how your retirement would play out given various scenarios that you can change.
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Old 07-14-2021, 07:40 AM   #66
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Do you add the value of the house to your net worth? It looks like some of us here are doing that, but I'm only adding what we've paid for...
This thing about how to look at RE comes up often on this forum over the years. Strictly speaking, of course RE is counted in one's net worth. Still, many people do not pay attention to theirs, because they do not use or need the info in the management of their finance.

I don't bother to put the value of my homes in Quicken, even though together they add up to a 7 figure, and I do not have a mortgage. It's because I am an active stock investor, and need to know how I am doing with my investable accounts. I do not actively manage RE like people with rental properties. Having my home values in Quicken simply distracts me from the up/down movements of the other assets that I need to be aware of.
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Old 07-14-2021, 08:37 AM   #67
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I have Google sheet for tracking my net worth. Nothing is automated because I like the feeling of logging into each bank/retirement account to check the individual performance / investment returns and any potential mistakes.
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Old 07-14-2021, 09:15 AM   #68
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Regarding adding the value of your assets (usually mostly house), I track two numbers:

Actual Net Worth which is everything you own - everything you owe, so add house, substract mortgage. Possibly add car substract car loans, or boats or any larger assets, but also all bank accounts minus outstanding balance on credit cards (even if you pay monthly)

And "investement portfolio" which to me is any 401(k), IRA, Brokerage account, Govt Bonds, and long-term cash (I do count my ER in that number, but it has to stay in cash-like instruments. currently liquid iBonds). I don't count my current checking account or bother with any current balance on credit cards

As either NW or Protfolio increase, small bank accounts and current credit card balance and even cars, etc... can become such as small difference that they can easily be ignored
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Old 07-14-2021, 10:48 AM   #69
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I've kept a quarterly networth spreadsheet since 1994. I include my estimate of current real estate values, including our home, but ignore the future tax liabilities of pre-tax retirement accounts. As IRA balances compound, that is becoming a non-negligible issue. I've added various calculators and modeling tools over the years when they were needed also. Initially the spreadsheet was a motivator for saving and investing. Then it was a tool for deciding when I could retire. Now it's just a scorecard and way to periodically check that nothing funny is happening in any of our accounts.
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Old 07-14-2021, 01:25 PM   #70
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Calculating Net Worth started for me as a sanity check while owning our first couple of homes in California. Those mortgages were so big and for so long, it created a mental discomfort for me. So I often wanted to put bonuses towards paying down our principal (my first mortgages was at 11.25% in 1986). So doing a NW calculation every couple of years was a tool to validate that we were on the right track.

Once time, savings, and appreciation gathered enough momentum and we out-paced our debts, the cycle became a virtuous one. Still a part of me never got fully comfortable with having $200+K balances on those mortgages.

The other piece I never fully believed were the balances in IRAs and 401ks since they were tax deferred and, until recently, inaccessible without additional penalties. Now that we've passed the age threshold, I know it's (mostly all) mine if I take from the the accounts at the right pace.

Real Estate NW never felt very tangible until we moved out of California. 17 years of payments and appreciation on that house meant we could pay cash in Utah, be debt-free, and still put a sizeable chunk into our investment accounts.

I still do NW calculations regularly, primarily focused on our investment accounts. I still include the value of our home, vehicles, and RV to have a true total.

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Old 07-14-2021, 02:59 PM   #71
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Originally Posted by BlueberryPie View Post
Regarding adding the value of your assets (usually mostly house), I track two numbers:

Actual Net Worth which is everything you own - everything you owe, so add house, substract mortgage. Possibly add car substract car loans, or boats or any larger assets, but also all bank accounts minus outstanding balance on credit cards (even if you pay monthly)

And "investement portfolio" which to me is any 401(k), IRA, Brokerage account, Govt Bonds, and long-term cash (I do count my ER in that number, but it has to stay in cash-like instruments. currently liquid iBonds). I don't count my current checking account or bother with any current balance on credit cards

As either NW or Protfolio increase, small bank accounts and current credit card balance and even cars, etc... can become such as small difference that they can easily be ignored

Prior to using Quicken, I used MS Money to track investable accounts for many years, but never bothered to set up my banking and credit card accounts. I only started that when I switched to Quicken when MS Money was discontinued by MS.

Then, I discovered what I was missing all those years. Now, for doing very little extra work, I can look up anything that I need to know. How much did I pay for umbrella insurance? What is the total cost of my DIY solar+battery storage system, and how much did it reduce my electric bills? How much did we pay for travel in 2018? All these information is available to me, with just a few clicks. No need for any spreadsheet.

My WR is low at less than 1%, but I still want to keep track of expenses after-the-fact. If there's any fraudulent charge on any of my accounts, I should be able to spot it without too much delay.
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Old 07-14-2021, 03:37 PM   #72
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as long as you feel comfortable with having fintech magic accessing all your accounts, I highly recommend the free Personal Capital tools.

I will automatically show NW, portfolio, and all kinds of other stuff



In addition to general amount you can dig into all kind of ways to slice how you look at your investment, eg, Asset Allocation, then drill into how your bonds are allocated and which ones of your ETFs hold what, etc...



If you do you must run their "fee analysis" tool as it will automatically show you what each of your funds/ETFS fee is. Their Retirement Planner is similar to what FireCalc does but not as good I think.

(those are pics from Google, not my accounts )
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Old 07-14-2021, 10:04 PM   #73
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as long as you feel comfortable with having fintech magic accessing all your accounts, I highly recommend the free Personal Capital tools.
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.
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Old 07-15-2021, 09:57 AM   #74
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I only tried SigFig briefly, maybe I can revisit it, but at the time it was only able to import portfolios from the major brokerage firms (Fidelity, Vanguard...) and was not able to import my 410(k) data, my HSA data (used as an investment vehicle), and of course not the credit card or loan since it is a portfolio tool, not a net worth tool.
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Old 07-15-2021, 10:08 AM   #75
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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
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Old 07-15-2021, 11:09 AM   #76
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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.
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Old 07-16-2021, 12:03 PM   #77
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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.
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Old 07-16-2021, 01:47 PM   #78
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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.
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Old 07-20-2021, 10:09 AM   #79
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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.
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Old 07-20-2021, 10:31 AM   #80
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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.
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