Tracking investments and finances

mr jbb wrote: ↑ What do people use to track their investments and various financial matters (mortgages, etc)? I currently use excel but not so happy with my template.

-How do other people manage their investments?
-Do people actually write up the investment accounts or do they just go according to the bank/investment website numbers?

To track my day to day spending to assess spending habits, I use "Squirrel" which is no longer available on the mac store. I basically use it as a general ledger and categorize all of my spending. You can do the same in excel, it just takes a bit of time to set things up.

To track investments, I use the statements from my various brokers to input into a separate excel sheet to track performance. All of this takes a bit of work, but it's worth it.

mr jbb wrote: ↑ What do people use to track their investments and various financial matters (mortgages, etc)? I currently use excel but not so happy with my template.

-How do other people manage their investments?
-Do people actually write up the investment accounts or do they just go according to the bank/investment website numbers?

Why would you not be going by these numbers? All money is these days is a arbitrary number on your computer screen.

And, Mint.

mr jbb wrote: ↑ What do people use to track their investments and various financial matters (mortgages, etc)? I currently use excel but not so happy with my template.

-How do other people manage their investments?
-Do people actually write up the investment accounts or do they just go according to the bank/investment website numbers?

I use bogleheads google docs sheet to track my investment returns. Starting it is a bit time consuming as you need to input historical data. I take the number from my monthly statements and it takes about 5 minutes a month. Its useful as I have 9 accounts and it give me an accurate IRR across everything combined.

https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Calcula ... al_returns

I don't track the day to day that closely but I have a general idea of what I'm spending.

Microsoft Money for a great and free option. Or use excel for the customization. There are online options as well, such as Mint but I prefer to keep that info offline.

For investments... excel.

Two lines when buy or sell:

eg. Buy 150 shares of XYZ Corp. at $10 each with $7 commission [the 1.00 is exchange rate in case buying in one currency and settling in another]

Acct Date XYZ Corp. 150 $10 $7 1.00 $1507 Confirm #

Acct Date Cash XYZ Corp. ($1507) Confirm #

eg. Sell 150 shares of XYZ Corp. at $15 each with $7 commission [the 1.00 is exchange rate in case buying in one currency and settling in another]

Acct Date Cash XYZ Corp. $2257 Confirm #

Acct Date XYZ Corp. (150) $15 $7 1.00 ($2257) Confirm #

Can then filter by cash and date to reconcile cash to monthly stmts.
Can filter by Company name and date for gain/loss calc... say bought 150 shares in Year X and sold in Year Y... the filter would show 150 and (150) shares which offset and difference of $1507 and $2257 is gain
Any non offsetting shares amount is part of current holdings

Once start it's quite quick and nice way to assist in CG/CL calcs

I'm probably over complicating it but like to exercise the mind like this!!

Chance7652 wrote: ↑ I use bogleheads google docs sheet to track my investment returns. Starting it is a bit time consuming as you need to input historical data. I take the number from my monthly statements and it takes about 5 minutes a month. Its useful as I have 9 accounts and it give me an accurate IRR across everything combined.

https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Calcula ... al_returns

I don't track the day to day that closely but I have a general idea of what I'm spending.

This is really great!

lhsonic wrote: ↑ Why would you not be going by these numbers? All money is these days is a arbitrary number on your computer screen.

And, Mint.

I want to be able to see all of my assets and debts on one document and for tracking income and expenses the numbers sometimes aren't always accurate such as when there is return of capital.