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

I almost never tally all financial assets across accounts in a precise way. I do keep the checking account in balance and review all monthly financial statements. I sometimes check brokerage accounts a few times per week but sometimes go for months without logging in if I am not interested in buying or selling something.

Due to the daily fluctuations in the market I tend to discount the gains, especially new highs, and mentally tally using very round numbers that are not precise and represent some lower level that is closer to bear market territory.
 
Net Worth Tool

Almost Daily. I have all my assets, bank accounts, retirement accounts and debts in www.personalcapital.com 's "net worth" screen. I just log on, let it refresh, and the current numbers show up. From that point, if I want to know more about something I can drill in and look at holdings, performance, etc.

I don't pay Personal Capital for this service - its free to anyone who wants to sign up. For about 2 years I paid them to manage my retirement accounts, but I switched to someone else for that service, because it wasn't working out for me with Personal Capital. But their web site "Net Worth" tools are pretty good.
 
During bear markets I only check once a month, but during bull markets I check every day almost. Bear markets are tough to swallow, especially deep ones. It hurts to look.
 
UnrealizedPotential said:
During bear markets I only check once a month, but during bull markets I check every day almost. Bear markets are tough to swallow, especially deep ones. It hurts to look.
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+1 This is what I tell people; when the market is going up I watch and I'm a happy guy. When it's going down I'm a long term investor. But "watch" means the daily headline numbers. Serious watching is basically an annual event.

The only valid market forecast was J. P. Morgan's (probably apocryphal): "It will fluctuate." Watching on a short term basis is simply watching noise.
 
I check the balances in all our account on first of every month to track the returns of the portfolio with our benchmark.
We keep 5 years expenses in short term treasury bond funds and another 5 years expenses in Vanguard Intermediate treasury bond funds.....so no need to look at portfolio balances daily.
I do look at the daily price movements of the trading stock portfolio which is 3% of our total portfolio......this satisfies my urge to tinker with the portfolio
 
Once a month for me as for my NW and investment performance. I go into Mint and convert all the Canadian money to USD (Mint thinks $ from Canadian account as if it's USD), and graph the whole thing. As for the investment, I have to go to each investing site and put the numbers in my spreadsheet to calculate the YTD rate of returns...
 
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Monthly, as far as documenting, mostly to compare my investments to what my FA has of mine. Then just a look see throughout the month or if I want to take advantage of something.
 
I do daily checks with Quicken, weekly with Personal Capital and also linked external accounts in Vanguard and do it maybe 2 times a month.

I feel that in addition to knowing what's going on I can catch any unusual activities early.
 
I review the big picture with the wifey pretty much monthly. She's a basic, big news kinda gal.

I'm the daily, spreadsheet nerd who likes to do different perspective sheets for just about anything. It's my real life Monopoly game.
 
I know many people use Personal Capital app to consolidate their accounts by linking to their accounts in other systems. It is ripe for the accounts to be hacked into. I spent a significant part of my career in information security and it makes me nervous as hell and no way I would use their system.
 
I just check the S&P 500 recreationally a few times a day, if it's going up or at least sideways. I stop it I get scared.

I do a net worth rollup monthly and download important statements since I have to complain within 60 days if something is amiss. I wouldn't be comfortable checking less often, but I don't see a point in checking more often since I'm a passive-aka lazy investor.
 
RetiredHappy said:
I know many people use Personal Capital app to consolidate their accounts by linking to their accounts in other systems. It is ripe for the accounts to be hacked into. I spent a significant part of my career in information security and it makes me nervous as hell and no way I would use their system.
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Thanks for the perspective based on insider experience. I don't known anything, but I'm always reluctant to hand over the keys to the ENTIRE kingdom too. I try to firewall/compartmentalize as much as possible.
 
I know this is in contrast to the conventional wisdom that says "set it and forget it" and don't check your balances often, but I believed it actually helped me to check my Roth IRA, Roth 401K, and 457B balances daily, especially in the beginning. It has been motivational to see my earnings rise much more quickly than they ever would have been able to with even the best CD or other "safe" account.

And when corrections occurred, and my portfolio valuation went down, it was good training to see that balance go down, but not panic and stick with my plan, also seeing how my money during those times was purchasing more shares, and I think training myself not to panic in the early days of my investing has helped me so far to not panic when there is a more significant downturn than what I have since since I first started around 8 years ago.

I think seeing this, but also seeing the trajectory be overall positive when I actually charted out my balances over time was helpful in understanding how a small investment could grow. My balance is still small compared to so many here, but I'm in a so much better situation than many who don't save or invest at all and keeping close tabs on it has given me motivation to stick with it.

Take what I say cautiously because I wasn't one of those folks in the unfortunate position to be ready to retire during a bad downfall, like the Great Recession. I wasn't even investing at that time, so take what I say with caution as what worked for me with an overall upward market with a few small corrections and "mini recessions" here and there.

I am simply not natured to just forget about this and not be informed of what is going on with my investments.
 
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I download from Quicken pretty much every day, except when I am on the road traveling for work 2-3 days per week. Not so much to monitor investments (but there is that!), but to also log and monitor spending as I prepare for retirement.
 
We are on Quicken daily and enter NW # M-F. We use the property tax statement to get a "true cash value" which we use for the places - means every year around November we have a big change in NW. Incoming rents and loan payments, outgoing expenses, quarterly taxes, various lumpy expenses make substantial NW changes and the market wanders up and down but we enter the total stock value and NW M-F with yellow highlighter on new all time high days. It's been a very yellow week.
 
I'm curious as to why anyone would check everyday. It doesn't seem actionable.
 
Thought It Was Just Me

Thought I was the only one who did this. I seldom make changes, but I do follow the market and when the market does well, I update the spreadsheet.

Over the years we have found that oftentimes doing nothing works well.:dance:
 
travelover said:
I'm curious as to why anyone would check everyday. It doesn't seem actionable.
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I do it quickly as part of my morning/coffee routine. Unless there has been a big market down day, then I hold off. I do check my checking account every day.
 
bltkmt said:
One reason to check often is for security purposes - checking that balances are at the level you expect them to be.
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Have you detected any problems this way?

FWIW I have been reconciling our accounts every month, starting about 30 years ago and don't remember ever discovering any problems. Maybe there have been forgettable small ones, but certainly none that would motivate me to check every day.
 
wildsun said:
Almost Daily. I have all my assets, bank accounts, retirement accounts and debts in www.personalcapital.com 's "net worth" screen. I just log on, let it refresh, and the current numbers show up. From that point, if I want to know more about something I can drill in and look at holdings, performance, etc.

I don't pay Personal Capital for this service - its free to anyone who wants to sign up. For about 2 years I paid them to manage my retirement accounts, but I switched to someone else for that service, because it wasn't working out for me with Personal Capital. But their web site "Net Worth" tools are pretty good.
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Both Vanguard and John Hancock have a similar free service and I use them both. I may not be checking every single day but at least a few times a week. I like to verify my contributions every week after payday.

I also like to compare the balances between each service to see if there are any anomalies between the two to make sure all my accounts are updating correctly.

I've been checking Vanguard more frequently lately as I'm getting close to a seven figure balance just in Vanguard and once you accumulate seven figures you become a Flagship™ client. Not that I ever used the services offered when I became a Voyager Select™ client a few years back. But it will still be a nice milestone and another sense of accomplishment for me considering 20 years ago I was just beginning to focus on retirement and had only $12K in my 401(k) account when it switched over to Vanguard after a buyout of my previous employer.
 
travelover said:
I'm curious as to why anyone would check everyday. It doesn't seem actionable.
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Looking at my "net worth" spreadsheet numbers getting larger and my spending spreadsheet numbers staying steady reminds me that I can blow some of that dough. That's certainly an actionable item. If things reverse, I can go back to regular spending. My VPW plan will cut it more if need be.

Also, it's fun, especially when the left most number increments.
 
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