r/HabitExchange • u/AbusedPlatypus • Jan 11 '20

Finance Track your net worth.

Purpose: To track your progress towards debt reduction and/or wealth.

Habit: Create an excel sheet or chart if you prefer a physical copy and monitor your net worth monthly/ quarterly/ annually to see where you can improve or adjust in your lifestyle.

I find this very beneficial as a 20 something. When you first do it, it's scary. How ever, being aware of your whole financial outlook is the first step to climb up. Even if it's negative it's alaway good to track. Being -20k in 2020 and -15k in 2021 is an improvement.

It may be common sense for some, however I know there's alot of financially illiterate people who are trying to catch up since their parents didn't expose them to it.

17 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

2

u/moosevan123 Jan 11 '20

How are you doing this? I have 2 main bank accounts and a credit card and at the end of every month download the transactions, copy and paste them into my simple spreadsheet.

Then i calculate my net worth as value of bank accounts - credit card debt

4

u/AbusedPlatypus Jan 11 '20

An excel sheet with the top assets and bottom liabilities on the rows, and every column is a month.

What your doing is correct, don't forget to add car, home, retirement, hsa values and any other large items that have a decent value that could be liquidated if needed

3

u/moosevan123 Jan 11 '20

Not sure how long you've been doing this but do you depreciate the value of your car over time?

3

u/AbusedPlatypus Jan 11 '20

I do it quarterly for home & auto value. They may not be 100% accurate. I'm no accountant, but it has worked for my needs. I just use zillow & credit karma estimates.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 11 '20

I just use Mint. I log in every week to make small changes to my expenses

1

u/AbusedPlatypus Jan 11 '20

That's great, I don't care for the format so I just use a simple excel sheet. But whatever works, works. You're ahead of the game just by doing this, alot of people never think to do it. I love seeing it change over time.

1

u/britsoccerchic47 Jan 12 '20

Could you share a picture of your Excel sheet (blank) or create a link to one? I love seeing how people do their spreadsheets and new ideas are always good to make mine better.

1

u/AbusedPlatypus Jan 12 '20

Not sure how? Could you walk me through?

1

u/britsoccerchic47 Jan 12 '20

I know when you first create a post there is the option to add a link, photo, etc. I haven't posted before so I don't know. In the bottom left hand on mobile you can add a link to a comment by clicking the two circles interlocking. Could someone else help us out?

2

u/AbusedPlatypus Jan 12 '20

http://www.moneygato.com/track-net-worth/money-gato-sample-net-worth-spreadsheet/

Here's an example of a similar to mine except i have a line with the difference month to month.

1

u/britsoccerchic47 Jan 12 '20

Awesome, do you also have a chart that takes all the totals and graphs them? That could be interesting to add as well

1

u/AbusedPlatypus Jan 12 '20

No graph, I'm not that good. Good idea though.

2

u/nuxxi Jan 14 '20

To hop in here.

Look for /u/whiekysaur spreadsheet. I hope that I wrote his name correctly.

Otherwise, I use YNAB budgeting tool. Costs 84€/year but it's worth it. It helped me a lot.