Project number one is that DH asked me how much we had made through the years. Was surprised to discover we could go back to 2003 with only having to recreate 2 years of income. Mind you, this is only adjusted gross that we were able to track but its only recently that there has been a significant difference between gross and adjusted. It was interesting to see that tracked next to the net worth increases. As I remembered, 2008 was a high point before a significant dip in income which lasted the next three years. Nothing too shocking, just a reconfirmation that its how much we spend more than earn that dictates our net worth increases.
Project number two was importing all our information into mint. I wasn't very impressed with it at first because some of the imports took work to get mint to find the right website and their budgeting and goal making is on a monthly basis whereas some of our bills are more periodic as are our goals. But it did have two areas that won me over. Actual income over time data (useful when the swings in your income are huge) and having all the investments in one spot. I will still keep my old fashioned excel spreadsheet but the mint website has some fun tools that I think will compliment what I am already doing.
On an amusing note, my DH is becoming highly invested in my long term goals for the household. I had decided I wanted to make sure he understood my goals and plans so that he could have input and own the process despite not being the one who takes care of the financial picture (he always been on board with saving, but he tends to vague whereas I work on specifics). With him working with other peoples financial data all day, he has no real interest in messing with ours.
So I did a number of projections using data we had already generated in order to show him what was doable. Obviously, lots can and will happen between now and retirement but a lot of this is occurring despite any setbacks. Main thing will be reminding him its okay to live in the meantime as well. He loves going full bore on challenges so sometimes moderation is difficult for him. I figure this year probably will be full bore simply because so many debts are close to their ending point and the more we stash now, the less we have to stash later.
Two new projects
January 29th, 2013 at 02:20 pm
January 29th, 2013 at 04:46 pm 1359477974
January 29th, 2013 at 06:20 pm 1359483624
January 29th, 2013 at 06:59 pm 1359485987
Where would you like your net worth to be by January 2014? January 2018? I arbitrarily decided to try to boost Net Worth by 8% each year. Some years have been a disaster but most years at least tickle 8%. I figure it's important to set a goal and reach. What do you think?
January 29th, 2013 at 08:15 pm 1359490516
Ceejay and Jenn, I know what you mean. It was a bit awkward for budgeting and while you can delete their categories, you feel locked into groupings that don't really work for most items.
Oh and Ceejay, it took a decent amount of fooling around with search terms to bring up our 401k websites. If you have websites for your assets and debts you can get them in there, otherwise its a waste of time because the manual assets and debts don't work very well. That sort of surprised me because you would think they would better acknowledge that not all accounts have websites.
February 4th, 2013 at 04:26 pm 1359995180
Jerry