How often do you check your net worth?

[JKG]

I used to do this about every quarter using excel, it was somewhat motivating and rewarding to see our assets get larger and liabilities smaller. Now I'm using Personal Capital, which calculates it everyday when I monitor my accounts. It can tough during a correction or bear market to see the big drop in value, and it can be nice during a prolonged bull to see the big rise. However, I think I'm disciplined enough to tune out the short term noise. I compare where we are now to where we were just a few years ago when we still had a negative net worth, and the long term view comes closer into focus.

How often do you check, and what tools do you use?

[nyu04]

Personal Capital as well.  It's really nice being able to aggregate everything in one spot.  I check it more than I should lol

[PhysicianOnFIRE]

nyu04 wrote:

Personal Capital as well.  It’s really nice being able to aggregate everything in one spot.  I check it more than I should lol

Click to expand...

Same here.  I check it most days.  I find it interesting to see how my portfolio stacks up against the S&P 500.  You can see it for the day, month, 90 days, year-to-date, custom, etc...

 

[wideopenspaces]

I made a spreadsheet in excel that tracks our total yearly extra mortgage payments, end of year mortgage balance, emergency savings balance, end of year retirement acct balances, net worth and savings rate. I just started it this year and I calculated it all out for the first time at the end of december. It was really fun and made me excited about setting new financial goals for this year.

I probably check the retirement account 3-4 times a year.

[Dicast]

I get paid monthly, so I check it monthly using mint.com.  My excel spreadsheet has a tab for end of year net worth that I plan to record on an annual basis from now on.  I was using mint for historical lookups but it is all screwed up these days and only good for the moment I check it.

[kiloaxe]

Does anyone have a generic excel spreadsheet layout they would be interested in sharing, in regards to net worth, but in general finance as well.

[Zaphod]

I have tons of excel sheets, from debts, budgets to income/taxes/bills/invest/etc...sheets. I just googled and downloaded one for the net worth and I update it only yearly as I do the overall debts sheet. Its exciting to flip between the tabs and see how we've tackled the balance sheet. Daily, monthly, etc...seems a bit much, but if you just started tracking I think everyone is like that for a while.

[jfoxcpacfp]

kiloaxe wrote:

Does anyone have a generic excel spreadsheet layout they would be interested in sharing, in regards to net worth, but in general finance as well.

Click to expand...

Since you're just beginning to track, it would save you a lot of time if you would use a free app such as Mint.com, Personal Capital, or YNAB.

[jz]

once yearly on July 1.  I include liquid assets only.

[Alan10km]

I am only 6 months out of residency and I check it monthly.  I second the notion that it is satisfying to watch your assets grow and your liabilities shrink.  I used Mint in residency and as I started investing I ran into personal capital and it has a lot more functions and actually makes keeping your asset allocation in line with your actual investments.  Hopefully I will check it less in the future but currently I am still adjusting my personal financial plan based on the more I read.

[Hatton]

Currently I use Personal Capital.  I like that you can include property easily. I check it frequently when I know the market is up and infrequently when it is down. Theonly reason to check in a correction is to harvest tax losses.

[Jenn]

For yucks I check it, time permitting, when there is a newsworthy market shift so I can tell spouse "We just lost/gained $100,000!" I made an excel sheet- pretty easy- but it doesn't selfpopulate with up to date values so I unput those at year's end with statements or when I log in to the sites to transact or curious. Probably check every few months. Doesn't matter except if we are thinking about withdrawing from principal and whether that would affect our longterm plans.

The value never affects my actions (aside from opting to retire when we did) so no need to monitor.

[Toshi]

I update a spreadsheet each month with Mint's best estimate. This has been easy in the renting era but now I'll have to get trickier to account for mortgage's amortization schedule.

[Seroma]

I check mine monthly with excel spreadsheet

[Lindley]

Several times a week, even if I don't want to.   It is on the screen every time I log into Mint.com.  But since Jan 1, we started using Quicken "Home & Business" software, which is really just a more sophisticated version of Mint.com as far as I can tell.   We were having difficulty separating business from personal when it came to trending spending and setting budgets.