|
|
Weird Question... How often do you count your money/assets?
07-12-2021, 08:05 PM
|
#1
|
Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 499
|
Weird Question... How often do you count your money/assets?
A friend want to learn about investment, retirement and finance in general. He pop the question "how often do you count your money?" Hmm... caught me off guard and got me thinking.
I find that as I get older and closer to retirement, I obsessively check on retirement account, asset sheets, then calculate retirement needs and FireCal ... something like 2,3 times or even 4 times a week.
Am I nut or is this normal? I know my Buddies check on their stocks everyday because we're on a group chat and lots of "stock tips" exchanged every hour.
Just wonder if you can share your thought. : )
Enuff
|
|
|
|
Join the #1 Early Retirement and Financial Independence Forum Today - It's Totally Free!
Are you planning to be financially independent as early as possible so you can live life on your own terms? Discuss successful investing strategies, asset allocation models, tax strategies and other related topics in our online forum community. Our members range from young folks just starting their journey to financial independence, military retirees and even multimillionaires. No matter where you fit in you'll find that Early-Retirement.org is a great community to join. Best of all it's totally FREE!
You are currently viewing our boards as a guest so you have limited access to our community. Please take the time to register and you will gain a lot of great new features including; the ability to participate in discussions, network with our members, see fewer ads, upload photographs, create a retirement blog, send private messages and so much, much more!
|
07-12-2021, 08:13 PM
|
#2
|
Moderator
Join Date: Nov 2014
Posts: 9,070
|
I check my brokerage accounts pretty much daily. It’s an app on my iPad and it takes about a minute. However, at each quarter’s end, I enter everything into a spreadsheet, takes about 15 minutes, and I compare it to past balances to see how things are going.
__________________
Every day when I open my eyes now it feels like a Saturday - David Gray
|
|
|
07-12-2021, 08:17 PM
|
#3
|
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 35,712
|
I let Quicken count for me everyday, after all MFs have reported their NAV.
And I usually click on "download all accounts", in order to have Quicken download any dividend payouts, any trade I made, plus any charges that are incurred on my bank cards, payments my wife made off the checking account.
So, I guess you can say I count my money daily. No need to do any expense planning or budgeting, as I have been retired for quite a few years and there's no change in expenditures other than they keep going down.
__________________
"Old age is the most unexpected of all things that happen to a man" -- Leon Trotsky (1879-1940)
"Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities Can Make You Commit Atrocities" - Voltaire (1694-1778)
|
|
|
07-12-2021, 08:17 PM
|
#4
|
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Aug 2016
Location: Northern Virginia
Posts: 7,515
|
Pretty normal I think. I formally tally everything monthly but I look at the market and investments most days.
But it may be a bit of an outlier. Looking does not make me nervous or cause me to needlessly trade.
|
|
|
07-12-2021, 08:32 PM
|
#5
|
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: SoCal
Posts: 1,285
|
Once every month or two.
|
|
|
07-12-2021, 08:50 PM
|
#6
|
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Mar 2016
Posts: 8,968
|
I look at the paper statements as they come in monthly and then replace the old with the new in a 3 ring binder.
|
|
|
07-12-2021, 09:39 PM
|
#7
|
Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Jul 2013
Posts: 87
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jerry1
I check my brokerage accounts pretty much daily. It’s an app on my iPad and it takes about a minute. However, at each quarter’s end, I enter everything into a spreadsheet, takes about 15 minutes, and I compare it to past balances to see how things are going.
|
This is what I do but only check brokerage accounts once or twice a week.
|
|
|
07-12-2021, 09:46 PM
|
#8
|
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Oct 2020
Location: Sugar Land, Texas
Posts: 1,185
|
Mint app. Once a day.
|
|
|
07-12-2021, 09:49 PM
|
#9
|
Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: Redmond
Posts: 891
|
I would have to admit that I check daily. I have projected cash flow/tax payments/income streams which I count on timing and like to confirm. Nope, not really needed. I like the daily confirmation of my investment strategy, which I adjust on trends. It is something you can feel you control, when so much of life is random.
|
|
|
07-12-2021, 09:51 PM
|
#10
|
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Jun 2021
Posts: 1,464
|
My goal is to log into my account at the end of the day and update my spreadsheet. I skip some days when I get busy. Going up or down a percent or two does not faze me because our WR is fairly low. But it always feels good when the market is up.
|
|
|
07-12-2021, 09:55 PM
|
#11
|
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 1,659
|
I can see activity and balances easily on my phone so usually take a look most days. Especially when the market rises.
I update a spreadsheet monthly but not sure I really need to anymore.
|
|
|
07-12-2021, 10:13 PM
|
#12
|
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: SoCal, Lausanne
Posts: 4,408
|
I download transactions monthly into my financial software and balance my accounts. At that point I can generate various financial reports (what I have, where I spent money by category, etc...). I also download statements and retain soft copies for my records. I back up my financial data every 3 months onto offline storage.
|
|
|
07-12-2021, 10:29 PM
|
#13
|
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Sep 2017
Posts: 1,110
|
I look whenever the market hits a new high and update my spreadsheet. That way our accounts always only go up. We’re at 100% in firecalc, so I figure this is as good a mind game as any to not let me stress out when things are down. DH is much calmer about the ups and downs, so he checks more often.
I have all of our outflow in quicken, which I update and go through at least once a week. The irony is that while DH could probably ballpark our monthly spend I think he could easily be off by +/- 20%.
Eta, I just asked DH how much he thought we spend on a monthly basis. He was off by -30%. . It’s a good thing we each focus on our respective strengths.
|
|
|
07-12-2021, 10:41 PM
|
#14
|
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 2,395
|
A timely question... I just came up from the counting house... lifting all those gold ingots isn't doing my back much good as I get older!
Naw, I summarize once a month. The possible actionable item, which is pretty rare, is if it shows I've met a rebalancing trigger.
__________________
-- Telly, the D-I-Y guy --
Two fools dancing on the hands of time
|
|
|
07-13-2021, 12:00 AM
|
#15
|
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: May 2008
Location: No fixed abode
Posts: 8,764
|
Wow! I guess I'm not as obsessive as I thought. I probably see my net worth on a monthly basis, but even then I don't pay that much attention to it. I'm more concerned with my spending. I know the general vicinity of how much we have, but the market moves around so much it seems silly (to me) to care what the number is on any particular day. Whatever it is today it will probably be about the same tomorrow. And if something huge happens I'll see that.
__________________
"Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement." - Anonymous (not Will Rogers or Sam Clemens)
DW and I - FIREd at 50 (7/06), living off assets
|
|
|
07-13-2021, 02:25 AM
|
#16
|
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 12,566
|
For some reason, I'm picturing Uncle Scrooge in his Bobcat, tossing around buckets of loot in his money bin.
__________________
If you understood everything I say, you'd be me ~ Miles Davis
'There is only one success – to be able to spend your life in your own way.’ Christopher Morley.
Even a blind clock finds an acorn twice a day.
|
|
|
07-13-2021, 04:16 AM
|
#17
|
Dryer sheet aficionado
Join Date: Jul 2021
Posts: 27
|
Twice a day.
|
|
|
07-13-2021, 04:45 AM
|
#18
|
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: Austin
Posts: 1,369
|
Daily - I have a spreadsheet I've had for years that I use to keep up with things and I update it daily. It's the first 15 minutes of my "me time" in the morning before anybody else in the house wakes up. It includes a lot of pre-canned calculations including "how much could I withdraw if today was the day I retired" based on a PMT calculation in Excel or a fixed % of portfolio value. Other things include YTD growth of each account and total portfolio, a calculation of an RMD as if I were 72, how long could we live on the bond portion of our portfolio till it ran out, and some other stuff. There are some things that I update once a month like monthly returns of individual funds I own.
But you need to know yourself. There are many people I know who are worried that if they look too much, they may tend to act on their investments in an emotional way. They probably need to look much less frequently.
There are reasons to look occasionally
- If you're making regular contributions, a lot of people like to direct new dollars in such a way that, after the contribution, they are closer to being back at their target asset allocation
- Lumpy contributions (proceeds from RSU's, ESPP, bonuses) would be handled similarly as above, but they usually happen less often
- People who use rebalance bands to determine whether to rebalance need to determine how often they want to take a look to make that determination. Doesn't need to be monitored all that often, either.
On the flip side, I also know some retirees that look only once a year and that's when they make an annual withdrawal.
It's more about what you intend (or not intend) to do with the information you get by monitoring frequently, rather than the frequency of monitoring itself.
Cheers.
|
|
|
07-13-2021, 04:54 AM
|
#19
|
Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 244
|
Wow real outlier here
At the end of the calendar year, I update the annual net worth statement, that's it. I do glance at statements as they come in monthly, but some are online and I often dont bother with those. As we move into the year, and there has been a major market move like this year, I may estimate in my head that we now have x since the market has moved up y% since the start of the year. But unlike you guys, who have a picture daily, I can easily be hundreds of thousands of dollars off until I do the next net worth calculation Dec 31.
|
|
|
07-13-2021, 04:54 AM
|
#20
|
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Washington, DC
Posts: 11,313
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by big-papa
Daily - I have a spreadsheet I've had for years that I use to keep up with things and I update it daily. It's the first 15 minutes of my "me time" in the morning before anybody else in the house wakes up.
|
Ditto. My spreadsheet uses Google functions to load the COB prices from the evening before. I check the actual accounts every 3 months or so to update changes from dividends. Like big papa, I don't freak out when prices crash so checking daily is not a problem.
__________________
Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre -- Albert Camus
|
|
|
|
|
Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
|
|
Thread Tools |
|
Display Modes |
Linear Mode
|
Posting Rules
|
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
HTML code is Off
|
|
|
|
» Recent Threads
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
» Quick Links
|
|
|