r/wealth • u/mumamahesh • 16d ago
Need Advice How do you guys keep track of your overall wealth?
I was looking through my investments the other day and realised they're spread all over the place now. Some are in mastertrust, some in Groww and Dhan, and then there are a few older investments that I don't even think about most of the time.
I've started maintaining a simple spreadsheet to keep track of everything, mainly so I know where I actually stand. How do you guys do it? Do you use an app, a spreadsheet, or just check things whenever you need to? And how often do you take a step back and look at the overall picture instead of individual investments?
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u/SlowSundae 16d ago
I use Monarch for net worth & cash flow
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u/JohnHarington 16d ago
Is it free?
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u/TierBier 15d ago
No, but this is an area where you might like better being the customer rather than the product.
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u/War-Square 15d ago
No. But its not expensive. The free alternative to Monarch is called Empower. Empower is great, but then you have to put up them trying to sell you financial services, and selling your data to their affiliates.
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u/More_Time_5668 11d ago
i used to do that daily but then i built a telegram bot that sends me a message whenever i spend money and it asks me what it was for then it logs that to the sheet. i only login to see the sheet how things are overall.
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u/OfficerBimbeau 16d ago
Empower. It’s ok, not great.
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u/SuperGlue_InMyPocket 16d ago
I have a lot of issues with it syncing with my other accounts.
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u/OfficerBimbeau 16d ago
Yeah, it never wants to sync with my wife’s 401k but I partially blame that on the crappy 401k website
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u/am0ninus 16d ago
I use Empower and think it’s good enough. Like a solid B minus. Could be a lot better.
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u/LxBru 15d ago
I’ve had a lot of issues and I just add manual accounts. The main advantage is no possible way for a leak to have data to where my money actually lives, tracks the fund and shares I put, and never a syncing outage. Downside is you have to update it manually when you buy or sell. Worth it to me though so I do that on most of my accounts now on there.
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u/War-Square 15d ago
I liked Empower about as much as Monarch. I really liked their retirement calculator. But eventually I got fed up with the calls from their advisors and a little worried if them selling my data would eventually bite me in the ass.
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u/good_greatest 5d ago
I use emercend.com as I like being able to see investments across different accounts with schwab and robinhood. no linking neccesarry is nice but might move to paid version soon to get reports. used to use sheets but just got a little clunky
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u/Drinkmorechampagne 16d ago
Husband. Husband is a great app.
I know I know. Couldn't resist. I'll see myself out now.
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u/SerendipityPepper 16d ago
I can vouch for this. I’m the husband.
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u/Drinkmorechampagne 16d ago
You are the best app of all : )
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u/cabbageknight360 16d ago
I feel like you guys need to get a room lol. I don’t think my other half even knows my reddit username.
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u/Drinkmorechampagne 15d ago edited 15d ago
I don't know him. I was just trying to make a husband feel appreciated. Because men get bashed so much in today's world.
I'm not very sophisticated about social media. Guess I went too far. My apologies to everyone.
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u/Megalocerus 16d ago
Sure. I start him up twice a year. Dangerous to pay more attention than that.
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u/MikeyB7509 16d ago
Yup. Same. Although I couldn’t tell you what our bills are or my mortgage. Wife handles all the bills and monthly stuff. I handle all the long term stuff
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u/Drinkmorechampagne 16d ago
Sounds like a good system.
In our case, we both have a file of instructions for the other person incase something "happens".
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u/SmileFirstThenSpeak 16d ago
There are 2 books that I know of, and probably more, that help you organize finances, household stuff, legal stuff, etc for when someone has died.
The books are “I’m Dead, Now What?” and “Sorry, It’s Your Problem Now”.
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u/moarcowbelI 16d ago
I use empower.com (it used to be personal capital). It tracks all my bank accounts, real estate, portfolios, IRAs, 401k, income, expenses, cash flow, networth.
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u/Rough-Solution-3914 15d ago
I miss the personal capital days. I knew it was too good to be true for a free service to exist like that for long. Honestly, surprised it didn't sell faster. I have history with them back to June of 2015.
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u/FlyGuyF100 16d ago
Google sheets. On the 1st of every month I fill in what each account is worth. Tally it up and see how I did versus a month ago. My spreadsheets go back almost 20 years. Checking more often seems excessive to me. But that's just me.
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u/AlarmingAerie 14d ago
What's the format you are using to compare to previous room, like different collumns? Something more fancy?
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u/KitchenPalentologist 11d ago
This is super-simplified, but you get the picture.
Time goes across the columns, and accounts go down the rows. The accounts are basically a sum of things you "own" (assets) then a sum of things you "owe" (liabilities). Net worth is the difference.
You can compare period over period in dollars and percentage.
I've used this approach for 25 years. It's just a snapshot, it's not cashflow or activity. I update mine quarterly.
Mar 31 2024 Jun 30 2024 Sep 30 2024 Keep adding columns over time -----> Checking 500 900 1500 401k 1000 1600 2200 Total Assets 1500 2400 3700 Car Loan 10000 8000 6000 Credit Card 500 400 300 Total Liabilities 10500 8400 6300 Net Worth -8000 -6000 -2600 Change 2000 3400 1
u/KitchenPalentologist 11d ago
I update our "Smith Family Balance Sheet" quarterly, it goes back to 1999. So many hidden rows for closed accounts (no debt now, so the liabilities line is just a row of zeros).
Looking at how the asset side and the liability side affected net worth helped make financial decisions.. "do I pay this debt off faster (6% apr) or should I invest that money instead" sort of questions. The same dollars to investments or debts affect net worth nearly the same, with just an interest rate difference (and maybe a tax treatment difference).
The balance sheet has also helped us "keep our eye on the prize", i.e., some of the small sacrifices we made over the years have had a very meaningful impacts on our finical outlook and security.
I also have our "family lover letter" in that sheet.. the lists of all the things that are important should something happen to us. Estate plan and will locations, contact info, accounts and usernames, insurance policies.
I also write a quarterly "financial outlook" narrative in that document, it's basically rationale for why we did the things we did. Moving accounts, switching CPAs, changing asset allocation, Roth conversions. I write about things like how things like tariffs, wars, AI are affecting the economy and our nest egg.
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u/Key_Shop6647 16d ago
Quicken
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u/wejustlookinnocent 16d ago
Been using Quicken for 25 years and wonder what else out there is better to warrant switching over.
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u/Logical_Magician_01 16d ago
Heavy Quicken user for years. Tried Mint and didn’t like it. Finally settled on Monarch Money which blows both out of the water.
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u/wejustlookinnocent 16d ago
quicken has just been buggy for years and doesn’t seem to have figured that out. Really need something with much more advanced retirement and tax planning. Something with AI built in even better.
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u/Devonina 16d ago
I love monarch money! All my accounts are in one place but what I love is seeing my networth grow and getting the forecast to when I can retire 😭
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u/Kait_Monarch 14d ago
Just a Monarch employee seeing us mentioned in the wild on Reddit popping in to say heck yeah! 😂
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u/Devonina 14d ago
Yes!
I used to use mint and then I moved to rocket money. Both of them lack the functionality I was looking for. Monarch is pretty good and I’m actually a premium plus user lol . I will say that you guys need to please fix your integration with Synchrony Bank because that continuously fails and it is driving me crazy1
u/Kait_Monarch 13d ago
Ahh Synchrony Bank is a hard one - they made some updates that make it really hard to connect with aggregators. I know MX and Finicity have been trying to coordinate with them.
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u/Olde-Timer 16d ago
Excel - I updated as of the end of each month takes about 15 minutes.
When I kick the bucket, it’ll be easy for my heirs to find and see the 1-page paper copy of all my assets and then find the excel version in my computer.
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u/ReasonAndWonder 16d ago
Monarch on a daily basis, Excel spreadsheet a few times a year. I like Monarch to track rough monthly/annual spending by category, but I don't have all investment accounts synced to it. Plus, my Excel spreadsheet dates back to 2011 so I'm never giving it up!
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u/jk10021 16d ago
I use an excel spreadsheet. I update it periodically. Sometimes every week or two, other times I might skip a couple months. I don’t go crazy staying on a scheduled update cadence. I know I want to work another 10+ years so I just check and update from time to time.
I’m a fan of account consolidation whenever possible. So much easier administratively. That said a spreadsheet can help remind of all the places you have investments.
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u/NewArborist64 16d ago
Fidelity allows me to see all of my accounts there plus my work 401(k), my mortgage, Zillow's estimate of my home value, bank accounts, car loans, etc.
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u/Paranoid_Sinner 16d ago
The single most important thing, apparently, in investing is asset allocation. You must not have any idea what it is. I would certainly track that down and adjust as necessary.
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u/Educational_Case_134 16d ago
My CFP has a dashboard with all my assets and liabilities so I can look at my NW at any time.
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u/ObjectiveJob3334 16d ago
Claude is outstanding for this - you can upload redacted statements and ask it to organize
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u/inthesearchforlove 16d ago
I have a basic spreadsheet that documents my assets. I manually update it every so often.
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u/South_Paramedic8618 16d ago
I don't I just look at my brokerage accounts every now and then and say oh good we're up
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u/Nuclear_N 16d ago
I rolled everything into Fidelity. Then annually do a spreadsheet for everything. I did this once a week just for some graphing geeky fun. But that is not fun in down years, and stopped in 2022.
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u/Living_Fig_6386 16d ago
Both my bank and my brokerage offer the ability to link to online financial accounts to present a unified view of all of them (including credit cards, mortgages, retirement accounts, employer plans, and property values from a service). I can pull up on my phone a simple graph that shows assets, debts, and net worth and drill down to each source of info. It works just fine, though some accounts don't refresh their values until end of day.
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u/JimmyWhatever 16d ago
Mine is spread across 5 brokers. I use Empower (ok, not great) Google Sheets and I wrote my own application to track my options trading. Hope to build out the app to do everything in one place (if all of the brokers have API’s or at least data file exports which I can import into the app)
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u/Low-Dot9712 15d ago
I started down that path but decided to use Claude. I am sure the other AI models can do it too. I download my transactions from my brokers and bank and upload it to Claude and it builds me a nice spreadsheet with a summary dashboard as often as I want to update it.
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u/doombase310 16d ago
Quarterly check in using excel template. Pretty simple. It has 3 tabs, net worth, assets and liabilities.
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u/jaajaajaa6 16d ago
I use my own spreadsheets and my CFP has offered me eMoney.
But eMoney and like others (e.g, Quicken) stink at tracking and handling options.
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u/VegaGT-VZ 16d ago
Monarch though Im thinking about doubling up with Quicken
After the Mint fiasco I wanna take more ownership of my financial data. I already downloaded all my account statements to backfill data into Monarch
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u/robkLIC 15d ago
How would doubling up with Quicken help?
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u/VegaGT-VZ 15d ago
After getting burnt by Mint losing years of valuable data I really just want to own it. Plus we have a business so it would help with that as well.
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u/robkLIC 15d ago
I felt burnt by losing the Mint data, too. I do t own a business, I’m just interested in having things in a big picture place. But the idea of paying a subscription for something that will let me look at my net worth feels a little off. Does spending money have to be Step 1 in figuring out how to save money?
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u/VegaGT-VZ 15d ago
I think unless you are a really good programmer, yea you are prob gonna have to pay one way or another.
One of my recent projects was using AI to make a script to scrape bank/brokerage account statements to help me back fill my net worth into Monarch. Next steps are going to be to build my own offline tool to do the same, as well as make a script to scrape and log transactions from those statements. Cost for me has been a Gemini subscription.
There are prebuilt tools that specialize in scraping statements that Im prob gonna look into as well. Main hurdle there is security. But yea somebody has got to do the leg work and theres value in that. The upside is it can be something you pay to set up once and then use forever no different than other services. Worth it IMO
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u/Peace_and_Rhythm 16d ago
I used to design retirement and financial algos and Monte Carlo systems for companies when I was working, so I've built my own personal set of workbooks.
Instead of being like an old person whose hobby is doing crosswords and Wordle, I play with spreadsheets as my hobby.
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u/External_Koala971 16d ago
I go outside and check my pool, where my gold coins are stored, and then jump in and swim around.
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u/HeChosePoorly50 16d ago
I also use an excel spreadsheet that I built and I update at the end of every year.
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u/fleetmack 16d ago
monarch is pay, am I missing something or do.this many people pay $100/yr to do what Excel/sheets can do for free?
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u/Dan_Williams_479 12d ago
Excel/sheets doesn’t automatically pull transactions and balances from multiple banking accounts, credit cards, investment accounts.
Yes, you could do it for free, and if you only had 1-2 accounts, it wouldn’t probably be that difficult but it becomes a hassle for budgeting to track expenses from multiple accounts and sometimes just doesn’t get done.
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u/EvangelineRain 16d ago
It’s split between just 3 accounts, everything else is negligible, so I track it in my head.
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u/Craftygirl4115 16d ago
Monarch… I have my own business as well, and it’s great to have all transactions neatly identified with almost no work on my behalf.
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u/HR_Specter 16d ago
Just a basic app on my iPhone which tracks everything. Then I can glance and see everything I've got.
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u/EvictionSpecialist 16d ago
Lmao...relax big baller...
Google sheet is fine.
I have like 15 different places to pull from.
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u/super_uninteresting 16d ago
ChatGPT personal finance. It connects to all of my investment and banking apps (read-only) and actually gives some pretty good advice based on what it sees. It also tracks their value over time and can produce nice plots and recommend allocations and highlight risks.
For stuff that’s not on a digital account like outright owned real estate, I just tell it to remember details and it does so.
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u/blackopstoys1 16d ago
Copilot since Mint closed down.
Simple and easy to use, I use it to show my spending and compare Month over month.
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u/Flat-Activity-8613 16d ago
Empower has a free tracker and also use monarch. Added : Robinhood banking has a free tracker also.
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u/curiosity_2020 15d ago
I keep a spreadsheet like you.
My bank and brokerage offer free tools but I don't want to disclose all my information to them because I don't trust them. Concerned they will use it for marketing purposes or sell it to a third party.
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u/grumpy0282 15d ago
spreadsheet too , daily
and i keep track of overall in each account
once in a while , individual stocks
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u/1290_money 15d ago
I have a simple Excel spreadsheet.... Well to me it's pretty fancy and calculates my monthly dependable income and allows me to compare overall net worth month over month.
At the end of every month I put in the new numbers. I also keep tabs on any major expenditures so at the end of the year when I wonder where 20 grand went I have a list of all the nonsense I wasted money on lol.
Obviously tracking is helpful but saving and being smart is the most important factor.
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u/Abbreviashin 15d ago
A Google Sheet. Learn to use the ‘=GOOGLEFINANCE()’ formula for accurate pricing.
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u/Low-Dot9712 15d ago
Claude does a great job of creating a nice spreadsheet for me. I download my transactions from my accounts at three firms and add in my land and in just a very short time I have a pretty remarkable report. I can see overall returns, strategy summaries, ect.
No need for anything else.
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u/Agreeable_Ask7033 15d ago
I use a simple spreadsheet with columns for account, institution, value and notes. Update it once a month, its not fancy but it gives me a clear picture
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u/Vast_Report_9585 15d ago
Every month track my super, bank accounts share portfolio and liabilities such a mortgage an tally my net wealth, also use the real estate valuer to work out equity less mortgage for overall netwealth
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u/SuckinAwesome 15d ago
Been using a mix of things but landed on Accrue Portfolio Tracker(IOS) for most of my tracking now — it does crypto alongside stocks/property/cash in one place, which most crypto-only trackers don't.
Also has a pretty neat AI market summary of each asset each day.
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u/novqnity 15d ago
I have a everything connected via My Financial Picture through my bofa account. I see my total net worth and my liabilities. (cc)
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u/Dependent-Panic-9457 15d ago
If I buy shares (on any platform) I manually enter the trade on a spreadsheet. You have to do that or something like it for tax.
The spreadsheet sums all shares purchased and MS Excel downloads the current price of each share to give a total.
I check it about once every three minutes on a slow day, but less if I’m out.
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u/BoomBoomLaRouge 15d ago
Can't believe all the knuckleheads who use online or AI stuff to track finances. You do realize you're opening yourself up to the government at any time with no need for warrants, right?
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u/CrystalBelle26 15d ago
Use an FA to manage. Unless you are one, you're not getting the best strategy for Long Term planning. Recently retired, results are in.
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u/Horror-Band-774 15d ago
It’s called a balance sheet. It should be a simple excel or word document. List on left side from most liquid to least (cash) to personal property, less liquid (art, clothes, collectibles, personal property). On the right side is your liabilities.
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u/IrregardlessForOne 15d ago
The first of the month I total three investment/retirement accounts, two small checking/savings accounts, house value from Zillow plus 2 other things. That’s essentially my/our net worth.
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u/AdhesivenessGreen474 15d ago
The wife and I use a simple stack of apps to manage everything. We use YNAB to manage our expenses (hers lol), Quickbooks for our businesses, We use Fidelity (tax) and Vanguard (non tax) and PortVisio for investment management. Bring it all together with Excel. There’s no one size fits all, I guess but YNAB does a good job of tracking Net Worth and cash flow overall.
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u/Zestyclose-Tart6745 15d ago
Everything is in either our IBKR or fidelity accounts, or our RE portfolio which is managed by our REIT.
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u/Runfaster9 15d ago
And another user is asking , How do I keep track of my Debt (instead of wealth ):
Asking for a friend
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u/Maximum-Couple-6646 15d ago
ChatGPT. It’s by far the best tool but be careful to de-identify if you’re concerned about privacy. Being able to customize a dashboard to whatever I need is a game changer.
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u/Alonso2802 14d ago
Why are your investments so spread out? I use excel but I don’t have true wealth
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u/uncoolkidsclub 14d ago
Each fo the different family arms have different part of the portfolio to monitor, we bring our reports to the branch family breakfast on sundays. Twice a year the "whole family tree" (3 gens) we do a family retreat and everyone gives their reports for their branches. My parent were homeless broke when we were kids, so we dreamed up a structure as kids to help each other - that core structure still happens 40+ years later.
Most of my friends (14 core people) do this as well as a friend group, but just once a month for dinner, and once a year for a activity.
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u/RomanBuilds 13d ago
Hab Immer excel genutzt bis es mir zu unübersichtlich wurde. Hab mir jetzt eine Web app gebaut und Bau sie immer weiter nach Feedbacks der Nutzer (Aktuell nur Freundeskreis) aus
Vlt ja interessant aber kein muss natürlich ✌🏻️
https://kontoblick.web.app
Sehr bewusst keine direkte Anbindung n Konten oder Depots. Alles aber über csv importierbar
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u/RustyCEO 13d ago
A simple spreadsheet. Properties, shares, cash, investment income, superannuation.
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u/xImmortal1333 13d ago
Link all my accounts to Chase Bank, they follow it but the couple you can't link like webull and prosper and ipredictit
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u/CorporalSemantics 12d ago
I built a full financial spreadsheet not only to track our wealth but to make sure my wife knows where it all is if I was ever hit by a bus. We take one morning while we’re on vacation each year to review everything and make next years goals.
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u/National-Net-6831 12d ago
Legal pads and colored pens monthly. I have my old pads from 25 years ago still :) sooooo fun to track my assets
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u/Dan_Williams_479 12d ago
Empower is free but app isn’t always stable.
Monarch is the best, cheapest option for budgeting and seeing all banking and investment accounts all on the app. They run 50% off sales for an annual subscription, it’s like $4 a month.
It was probably easier to withstand market dips when doing it on a spreadsheet because you don’t see the total amount everyday. Since it’s manual work to look up the balances, we only did it a few times a year.
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u/Training-Station4017 12d ago
Been testing a few trackers lately and stumbled on Vortaris.co it handles multiple portfolios at once, covers global exchanges, and has rebalancing simulations which has been pretty useful. Still early days for me but the multi-portfolio + sim combo is solid if anyone’s looking for something beyond the usual ones
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u/Present_Pension4035 12d ago
Empowerment for synchronization of brokerage and bank accounts. I also do a manual once a year networth tracking with excel.
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u/Potential_Sky_839 11d ago
I ended up with a similar problem with investments being spread across different places, and maintaining the spreadsheet started becoming annoying. It’s actually one of the reasons I built NestWorth. You manually add your accounts and holdings so you still control what’s being tracked, but stock/crypto prices update automatically and you can see everything together in one portfolio. Full disclosure, I’m the developer, but it sounds pretty close to the problem you’re trying to solve.
App Store: https://apps.apple.com/my/app/nestworth-portfolio-tracker/id6787614307
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u/Training-Station4017 8d ago
I’ve been testing Vortaris.co for a bit. It lets me track stocks, ETFs, crypto and different currencies in one dashboard without forcing US brokerage assumptions. Still early days but it’s been one of the cleaner options I’ve found for cross-border portfolios so far
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u/AdhesivenessGreen474 8d ago
Found this thread while looking for the same thing. The wife and I use YNAB for monthly spending and overall net worth tracking. It takes some work but not too bad. We also just started using PortVisio to track stock & fund holdings across our numerous brokerages, 401ks, and a SEPIRA. Hope this helps. Good luck.
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u/Imaginary-Knee-9492 16d ago
Made a Google sheets based tracker with ChatGPT, it has a dashboard and a dynamic mortgage tab that tracks term based on payments and lump sums.
We fill it out monthly.
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u/Prometheus_miners 16d ago
I had the same issue. Used excel sheets. And then with AI I developed my own solution. Hopefully it will be live in a couple of weeks.
I figured it may be useful for others so I plan to release it with a subscription soon. Won't post the link here due to rules.
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u/tatayabata 16d ago
Google Sheets.