Join me as I go through the process of my money date for the month of January. I calculate my debt, assets, net worth, and check up on my credit score. Come talk money with me!
Transcript
Hi everyone, welcome to Spondulix! A podcast cast where I share the tidbits of financial information I am learning on this journey.
It’s a Saturday night. I do not know when this episode will drop; it may not be on a Saturday, but it is a Saturday night and we are living in the middle of a pandemic. Whereas ordinarily I would try to be out on a Saturday night having dinner, or dancing with friends and things like that, I am not doing too much of that these days. What I am doing since we have started the New Year is trying to do a once monthly money date. I want to set up an hour with myself, once a month to just go through my finances. I want to look at my assets and what they are worth or what I owe on them. I want to look at my debt. I want to make sure that all of my bills for the previous month, or the current month, have been paid or are set to be paid since I do not automate my bills (because I like to watch my money very closely).
So I am sitting down tonight to just do my money date. To just take a look at my finances, to take a look at where things are monetarily, write those numbers down and call this my January financials. A big part of this for me is calculating my net worth. I will be looking at my debt and assets and coming up with a number for my net worth. I want to do this for every single month of the year so that at the end of the year I can calculate how much my net worth changed, and hopefully how much it increased.
So what I am doing is opening an Excel file, I am making a column which I am calling debt and a column which I am calling assets. I may toggle with this and change it because there may be some things which are assets but which I owe money on which need to be put in the debt category.
In the asset column, I am including my checking account, savings account, high yield savings account (I like to count this separately because that is my emergency fund and it has a higher interest rate so I like to see how it is growing), and 401K.
Switching over to debt, if you have a mortgage it should be included here (and the value of your home should be including in your asset category), student loans. I have federal student loans, which I have not had to pay for a few months now. Some people have taken advantage of this time to pay more on their loans or just catch up on their loans, I have not been paying my loans during the moratorium, during the time that the federal government has said that there is zero interest and zero obligation to pay (due to the pandemic). I have taken that money and made other sorts of investments. Moving on with the debt category, I am including all of my bills and utilities. If you have a car loan you should also include it here (along with including what the car is worth in your asset category).
Is there anything I am missing? Yes! Going back to my asset category I should also include my investments. By this I mean stocks and ETFs that I own separately from my 401k. I am think about my stock portfolio, how much is in there and how much it’s growing. I also have a Health Savings Account (HSA) and through that HSA, I also have an investment account so that will be included here. Looking at this number also helps me to see what my planning can look like for the year.
In setting out this numbers, I will get the total of my debts and the total of my assets. I will then subtract my debt from my assets to get my net worth.
This money date is also a great time for me to ensure that my bills, like my Wi-Fi are covered since my bills are not automated. This keeps my bills on my radar and ensures that everything is being covered.
The very last thing I do on my money date is checking my credit score. I do this through Credit Karma. I do this pretty frequently but I am going to do this on my once monthly financial date. I want to be able to track this number throughout the year to see if anything changes. I like to check this number frequently just to ensure that everything is up to snuff and no one is claiming that I made a late payment, and that things look how I expect them to look.
That is my financial date! That’s it. This will be the first year that I am starting this process and at the end of the year I will be able to see how it changed month to month. This will be very helpful in my future planning and figuring what sort of moves I need to make to maximize my net worth.
I hope this encourages your to sit down and do a money date. Very often with money, it is so helpful to track. It keeps you aware of your obligations and the ways in which you are growing.
I hope you enjoyed this date and I will catch you a later. Bye!
The information provided in the Spondulix podcast, is provided for informational and entertainment purposes only. The information provided in the Spondulix podcasts and other affiliated posts is not intended to be, and does not constitute, financial advice, investment advice, legal advice, or otherwise. You should not make any decision, financial, investment advice, legal, or otherwise, based on the information provided in the Spondulix podcast without consulting your financial advisor or attorney.