Weird Question... How often do you count your money/assets?

[W2R]

This is something that I like to do. I probably do it every day or two, at the same time when I record my recent spending.

 

[Toocold]

Weekly - Transfer funds to pay off credit card balances and pay off bills.

Quarterly - I update our net worth statement.

When the market shoots up, I look at personal capital, which has a proxy of our assets, to make me happy.

When the market falls down, I don't ever look.

After RE and most things are on auto, I don't look at my finances as much.

 

[Markola]

I start every morning with coffee and You Need A Budget to wake up my brain by reconciling the charges that appeared overnight. It’s like Tetris. I enjoy creating order.

At the end of each day, yeah, I look at Personal Capital to see the big picture calculated on one page. We have our AUM at Vanguard, so there’s no danger of making any moves.

I was an economics major and enjoy following the macro and my micro economy in various ways, including these.

 

[Charlotte]

I look at the S&P and Dow most days to see what it’s doing, but I only do a tally of my assets once per month.

 

[pacergal]

Daily--update checking account
Monthly look at online retirement/investment accounts and rebalance if out of safety bands.
Prior to retirement, I only got quarterly statements on investments and that was fine.

 

[kgtest]

I update my spreadsheet mostly daily as the data is real-time...so I just add a new row for the day...and paste in the EOB value into it...the date auto updates with functions so its super easy for me to keep maintained.

I actually login to accounts and such maybe once a month to true up my actuals...

I should login more often to credit card accounts and bank accounts but maybe once a week or two to check on things.

I've seen what happens when people start to stray away from the responsibilities of managing wealth and building wealth. My ole man "lost" 90k earlier this year as he just tossed mail aside... missing that his old employer's plan had been rolled over.

Alas, it was rolled over from an anchor to a solid fund and when he did find it...it had grown a bit in his favor. The angst of trying to figure out what happened for a day or two was real though. I think all of that could have been avoided tbh.

 

[friar1610]

I track all assets on the Vanguard web site. VG updates all their mutual funds (the only place I have equities) daily. I manually update non-VG fixed-income assets (I-Bonds, CDs, cash) at the end of each quarter after receiving statements from those institutions. Generally check the balance/AA daily, realizing that it’s not completely accurate (although quarter-to-quarter changes in fixed assets are insignificant.)

 

[rodi]

I use quicken - but sometimes I get busy and so don't do it every day. Maybe three times a week. I use it more to track my spending than to 'count my money'... but the Update All function imports both types of data.

Before I started using quicken it was a monthly statement kind of thing. And even after quicken my 401k was institutional funds through Northern Trust - so not available for download - but I could log on to see daily totals... I did that more frequently when the market was going up, less frequently when it was going down... on average about once a week.

 

[OldShooter]

Annually, during the week between Xmas and New Year. Some years we even decide to make a trade.

That said I reconcile all accounts in Quicken once a month, including investment accounts, but I really don't pay much attention to the account values except to make sure they match the statements.

I see the market news daily, but for me that is a little like being in one of those "sports" bar/restaurants where each of the TVs silently shows different bunches of people running around, usually somehow involved with a ball. I don't know who they are. I often don't know what game they're playing. But the action is distracting enough that I can't resist the temptation to look.

Interestingly, multiple behavioral finance studies have shown frequent checking of accounts to be negatively correlated with investment results. The hypothesis is that humans' risk aversion causes the seeing of frequent "down" events to have more impact than the "up" events, leading the investor to sell when they shouldn't. I have also read that Schwab's robot will monitor customer logins and may warn customers something like "successful investors don't monitor their accounts as closely as you have been checking." So I guess Schwab has the data, too.

 

[iloveyoga]

I check my Vanguard account and my checking account almost daily while I am drinking my coffee. Have done so for years. Only takes a few minutes.

 

[38Chevy454]

Net worth, never. It just doesn't make a difference to my life.

Retirement savings, 1-3x per week. Log into my Fidelity account and see the numbers. Check AA and see if I decide to make changes maybe 1-3x per year.

Spending, adjust checkbook balance as spending occurs, usually 1-3x per week. Make withdrawal or transfer decisions on monthly basis.

Watching the market, several times per day check to just see how it is doing and to monitor my "play account" where I do a little stock gambling, err trading, err investing. It is a small portion of my total and it satisfies my curiosity to try and beat my index funds.

 

[Dd852]

When DW and I started with nothing we trued up daily - we literally would empty our pockets before going to bed to gauge what we could spend the next day. We’re more relaxed now! But the ritual of checking weekly has never left us - total the YTD spending and compare with one and five years prior; total the investments and cash. Then we discuss any one off buys or special plans…

 

[N02L84ER]

When we are home, I update daily. Otherwise, I have no problem waiting a few weeks until I get back home.

 

[ownyourfuture]

2/3 of my assets are at Fidelity.
I log in there once or twice a week.
I add everything up every 1/4.

 

[CardsFan]

I look at it almost everyday, just because it only takes a few clicks. Quarterly I look at AA. As long as I am between 50% and 60% equities, I do nothing. I do not re-invest int/div/cap gains (except in Roth) so that tends to keep the equity side in check with a rising market. That cash is usually put into CD's.

I don't recall the last time I made trades to re-balance the AA. Maybe once every 5 years?

 

[jollystomper]

I look at it almost daily, because I use Quicken almost every day, even for a few seconds. But I do not really count it, the daily views are just numbers.

I track my cash flow monthly, so I count my cash on a monthly basis, to see its change and how it is tracking to plan.

Total assets are counted quarterly. That is when I consider any need to rebalance, invest dividends or "extra" cash, evaluate any large "blow that dough" opportunities, etc.

 

[FANOFJESUS]

I don't like to look often. I helps me when the market goes down like crazy.

 

[MrsHaloFIRE]

I looked yesterday <raises eyebrows>. Knew it would be a highwater mark and wanted to see it with my eyes before it dipped. Wont look again until I sense a disturbance and want to see how bad or good thing are going.

 

[TheWizard]

When we are home, I update daily. Otherwise, I have no problem waiting a few weeks until I get back home.

Have you considered getting a smartphone?
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Especially a smartphone with Google Fi...

 

[brokrken]

I actually update all my balances and spreadsheets every morning. Takes 10 minutes, tops

 

[Walt34]

About once a month or every six weeks when I think of it, or when we get a quarterly statement from Vanguard. We've yet to make any withdrawals, although RMD's will change that next year. We'll probably just reinvest the RMD's, or maybe spend a little bit of it.

 

[PaunchyPirate]

My every day morning routine is crawl out of bed, get a Diet Coke, and then turn on my computer. I spend 5 minutes reviewing any major overnight news topics.

Then I start my daily financial accounts review. First, I download any new transactions into Quicken which updates all account balances. Then, one by one, I sign into all my bank, credit card, and brokerage accounts and make sure the balances and transactions match up to Quicken. While in my banking website, I pay any bills that are due electronically. I pretty much pay every bill the same day it is presented to me. Most are sent to me via email or I see it is due when I sign into my accounts.

Finally, I update a Google spreadsheet that I use for tracking my asset allocation and net worth and a few other charts. I prefer this spreadsheet to the charts and analysis that Quicken does because I can customize it as much as I want.

I do this all in about 20 minutes each day.

I love my morning routine. And my Diet Coke.

 

[N02L84ER]

Have you considered getting a smartphone?
��

Especially a smartphone with Google Fi...

I have the ability to update while on vacation or visiting family, I do not have the desire.

 

[travelover]

I just pulled the couch cushions today to check for coins so I have an exact count.

 

[CardsFan]

I just pulled the couch cushions today to check for coins so I have an exact count.

Did you check behind the dresser?