What do you measure and why?

Thrugelmir

AndyT678 wrote: »

Totally agree in a business environment but less relevant to my personal finance situation. I trust that I will be paid each month so cash conversion isn't an issue. My only significant asset that isn't pretty instantly tradeable with a known current value is my house. As long as I don't go nuts and wildly overvalue it I think my balance sheet is pretty accurate.

Whether it's business or personal. You can never plan for the unexpected. When the unexpected happens the impact can be devastating. That's one thing that I've learnt over the years in my particular vocation. As a consequence I don't get hung up on worth.

lawriejones1

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Whether it's business or personal. You can never plan for the unexpected. When the unexpected happens the impact can be devastating. That's one thing that I've learnt over the years in my particular vocation. As a consequence I don't get hung up on worth.

Great post. When you need the money what something is supposedly worth and what it fetches can be wildly different. I used to make a point of buying from those in financial difficulty, the price was always an awful lot cheaper. Glad those days are over, I hate dealing with upset people!

Scarpacci

Apart from the usual tracking of net worth and expenses, perhaps my favourite figure is in my spreadsheet for my dividend portfolio. It's the dividend growth rate of the portfolio and the amount of money that would otherwise have been needed to be invested in the portfolio to add the equivalent amount of income.

My portfolio's still at the stage where the actual increase in income each year isn't all that impressive in absolute terms, but seeing how much capital would have been needed in the absence of dividend growth brings home how meaningful that growth actually is, especially in the context of a portfolio where I am regularly adding capital anyway.

jimjames

mgarl10024 wrote: »

and this has led to ever more complex spreadsheets and a manual process that isn't scaling well (i.e. me!).
I often have dreams of writing software to track it all and never quite get there...

I find Microsoft Money still does the basics very well and even better, is now free to download.
You can set up all the accounts and then automate monthly interest being added to them or transfers etc which would reduce the need for manual entries in a spreadsheet.

webnibbler

As well as tracking the usual net worth, monthly spending, income and savings rate. I've added checking my credit score on one of the free sites available now.

Last year my brother in law had credit cards and gambling accounts opened in his name and address without his knowledge. Keeping a close eye on my credit score should help to spot any activity that I haven't initiated, hopefully.

Bazofts_Revenge

I keep a track on all available cash and investments minus pension and have spreadsheets which show me how much I would have to spend each month if I retired right now, at 50, at 55 upto when I can claim my DB pension. I would aim to live off of the natural yield but if I got annoyed at work and decided to walk out it is great to know I have sufficient cash to not need to find another job. I also like to see how much my investments have gained over a rolling 12 months (Dividends, Capital gains + new money).

george4064

george4064 wrote: »

Im probably very basic compared to others.

Regarding my S&S ISA I take a snapshot each month to calculate the month end unit price for my portfolio fund, by unitisation. I use this to calculate performance of my portfolio as a whole.

I keep a loose eye on my 2 current accounts, occasionally dripping new money into S&S ISA.

Reading other posts, i should probably include my bank balances info in my portfolio unitisation spreadsheet. As i get older, get a mortgage etc im sure ill improve my spreadsheet to track more things.

Tomorrow I need to calculate my portfolio's month end unit price, got to do it in the morning before the market opens.

Eco_Miser

george4064 wrote: »

Tomorrow I need to calculate my portfolio's month end unit price, got to do it in the morning before the market opens.

Why not do it tonight, after the market closed, as I'm about to do?

Alice_Holt

Annually:
Opening value of investments and savings (exluding the mortgage - free house)
Plus - My Income (annual pension & part time earnings)
Less - My recurring expenditure
Less - Any exceptional expenditures (i.e infrequent house maintence, car purchase, etc)
Less - Gifts to family members

Then I sub-total these numbers.
I then calculate my closing year end investment and savings valuation.
The difference between the two gives me my annual investment increase (or decrease!).

I express this increase as a % growth on my opening investments and compare it against RPI.
This helps me monitor if my investment strategy (and allocation) is on track.

To get accurate numbers, I log expenditure & income monthly.


I also do a projection for the next 10 yrs or so (using estimated interest %'s, investment growth %'s, inflation %'s, income growth %'s).

I started this anaylsis when I took redundancy / early retirement some years ago and thought I may need to draw on savings.

george4064

Eco_Miser wrote: »

Why not do it tonight, after the market closed, as I'm about to do?

I can't quite do it tonight because my portfolio has 1 unit trust with a midday valuation.

I know that typical funds priced at midday usually release the daily price around 4 or 5pm, but it only updates on the platform at midnight.

So I'll wait till the morning...

I take it your portfolio has no funds then?