4 ms·

I generally only care how much my net worth has increased. I've found that I taking the time to enter every single receipt and expense outside of my personal b

I generally only care how much my net worth has increased. I've found that I taking the time to enter every single receipt and expense outside of my personal business accounting is largely a waste of time. For me, the most meaningful info is a markdown doc where I quarterly asses all of my investment accounts / assets and come to a "current net worth total". I've found a personal correlation between trying to minimize and track minuscule expenses and a decline in my mental health or happiness at work. I'm frugal by nature and trust myself enough to not worry too much about day to day spending.

reidjs 6y ago
Same here. I got started with ledger but found it too tedious to log every expense and didn’t really see any benefit. I already know I spend too much on eating out but it doesn’t affect my net worth in any significant way so I continue doing it. Schwab is able to tie in your other accounts and give you a big picture of your net worth.
joshuakelly 6y ago
A simple solution to this is to apply these principles only to accounts of a meaningful size and to exclude "petty cash". Tracking capital assets with double entry accounting systems has a ton of benefits for someone in your position: * Tracking the cost basis of your capital assets * Tracking fees related to transactions involving capital assets * Calculating taxes * Analyzing allocation of capital assets into categories * Tracking drift from a target
- koolk3ychain 6y ago
  I literally don't care. I'm going to Acknowledge My Privilege TM (Hacker News Edition) and again state that these types of expenses aren't worth my time to worry about. I pay an accountant to worry about book-keeping and taxes, well worth the $400 a year to cover both my business and personal taxes. I'm not going to adjust tens of thousands of dollars of capital assets because the management fee moved 0.05%... Who do you think I am, Elon Musk? I'm glad you enjoy using your time to do track these kind of things, but I gladly choose not to learn my accountant's job.
  - tunesmith 6y ago
    How on earth do you find an accountant to manage both your books and your taxes for only $400 / year? Even LTPs are more expensive than that.
  - BeetleB 6y ago
    It sounds like you're paying the accountant only to do your taxes? If so, your finances are probably not complicated, and you could probably do your own taxes in 1-4 hours. Of course, how much that is worth to you is up to you. If you're paying an accountant only for taxes, and not general finances, chances are your financial life and investments are very simple. Either that or you're not managing them well :-) Some people have multiple investments - some liquid (stocks), some illiquid (properties). They have side businesses (e.g. rental income). They have to allocate money for repairs on their rental properties. They have to set money aside for vacancies and property taxes, etc. You're likely not going to find an accountant who'll do this for a mere $400/yr. If you have rental income and are not managing this, sooner or later you'll lose a lot of money. I guarantee it. Also, most people who have properties do not make that much net profit (typical is $100-200/month per unit), so paying, say, $2000 to an accountant could wipe away the net profit from one unit for a whole year. No one is trying to tell you that you should use these tools. Many high income folks do fine without them. But if you have side businesses, you either need to spend a lot more on an accountant or get more disciplined. Most people will choose the former if they can afford it (which is probably a good idea).
    - koolk3ychain 6y ago
      Okay, I can clarify here. I meant to say, my accountant fees range from about $1200 - 2800 a year. $400 was an off the cuff estimate and admittedly way off. You got me ;) I would still happily pay $3500 to not spend hours a year entering innocuous expenses into a fucking text editor.
      - BeetleB 6y ago
        > I would still happily pay $3500 to not spend hours a year entering innocuous expenses into a fucking text editor. Fair enough. If your expenses are at the level of mine, I'd gladly take your $3500/year to do it for you. :-) And given that several commenters have said they spend about an hour a month on it, after all automation is in place, I'm sure many would take that money from you. It comes to about $300/hour. Certainly some people are earning a lot more than I am, and paying $300/hour is worth it to them. I'm not a hard core ledger user, but I have a simple solution: I don't enter anything into a text editor. I enter it into a fairly nice money management SW (using a GUI), that autofills a lot of stuff for me, and lets me import from my bank/CC. And then I simply run a script to convert its data format to ledger. I'm sure I spend more than an hour a month, though. I haven't automated most of my data sources.
- esoterica 6y ago
  I mean, your brokerage will do most of those things automatically for you.
  - BeetleB 6y ago
    My brokerage always gets the cost basis wrong for SPP. Always. The company sends out annual notices to the employees informing them that the brokerage's statement is wrong.
andruby 6y ago
Same. I keep a spreadsheet that I update once a month with assets, liabilities and net worth. Takes me about 5mins and is a good check to detect unexpected spending or trends.
jabroni_salad 6y ago
Im in a similar low-stress situation and I am grateful for it. I have an e-fund that can handle anything, and was from a lower income family for long enough that my natural inclination towards any impulse purchase or lifestyle creep is 'probably not'. Aside from some fairly basic goal tracking, boring boglehead investing, and making sure nothing stupid is being transacted, I really don't do a lot and everything seems to be working. Dont @ me about my warhammer addiction though...
esoterica 6y ago
I just put all my expenses (except rent) on a single credit card. Chase generates a spending report that categorizes transactions for you, so you can see how much you spent on food/groceries/travel etc. each year with zero legwork put in.
icedchai 6y ago
I do similar, except on a monthly basis. I use a google sheet, and record the balance of all bank and investment accounts at end of month. I also track my crypto holdings there as well.
- koolk3ychain 6y ago
  What crypto holdings fellow non-us citizen ;) ?
  - icedchai 6y ago
    I am an honest tax payer. I report all my crypto transactions. It's not worth being audited.
snicker7 6y ago
I take the same viewpoint. But that is, admittedly, a position of privilege. Tracking "net worth" is out of reach for the vast majority of people who live paycheck-to-paycheck.

reidjs 6y ago

Same here. I got started with ledger but found it too tedious to log every expense and didn’t really see any benefit. I already know I spend too much on eating out but it doesn’t affect my net worth in any significant way so I continue doing it. Schwab is able to tie in your other accounts and give you a big picture of your net worth.

joshuakelly 6y ago

A simple solution to this is to apply these principles only to accounts of a meaningful size and to exclude "petty cash". Tracking capital assets with double entry accounting systems has a ton of benefits for someone in your position: * Tracking the cost basis of your capital assets * Tracking fees related to transactions involving capital assets * Calculating taxes * Analyzing allocation of capital assets into categories * Tracking drift from a target

koolk3ychain 6y ago
I literally don't care. I'm going to Acknowledge My Privilege TM (Hacker News Edition) and again state that these types of expenses aren't worth my time to worry about. I pay an accountant to worry about book-keeping and taxes, well worth the $400 a year to cover both my business and personal taxes. I'm not going to adjust tens of thousands of dollars of capital assets because the management fee moved 0.05%... Who do you think I am, Elon Musk? I'm glad you enjoy using your time to do track these kind of things, but I gladly choose not to learn my accountant's job.
- tunesmith 6y ago
  How on earth do you find an accountant to manage both your books and your taxes for only $400 / year? Even LTPs are more expensive than that.
- BeetleB 6y ago
  It sounds like you're paying the accountant only to do your taxes? If so, your finances are probably not complicated, and you could probably do your own taxes in 1-4 hours. Of course, how much that is worth to you is up to you. If you're paying an accountant only for taxes, and not general finances, chances are your financial life and investments are very simple. Either that or you're not managing them well :-) Some people have multiple investments - some liquid (stocks), some illiquid (properties). They have side businesses (e.g. rental income). They have to allocate money for repairs on their rental properties. They have to set money aside for vacancies and property taxes, etc. You're likely not going to find an accountant who'll do this for a mere $400/yr. If you have rental income and are not managing this, sooner or later you'll lose a lot of money. I guarantee it. Also, most people who have properties do not make that much net profit (typical is $100-200/month per unit), so paying, say, $2000 to an accountant could wipe away the net profit from one unit for a whole year. No one is trying to tell you that you should use these tools. Many high income folks do fine without them. But if you have side businesses, you either need to spend a lot more on an accountant or get more disciplined. Most people will choose the former if they can afford it (which is probably a good idea).
  - koolk3ychain 6y ago
    Okay, I can clarify here. I meant to say, my accountant fees range from about $1200 - 2800 a year. $400 was an off the cuff estimate and admittedly way off. You got me ;) I would still happily pay $3500 to not spend hours a year entering innocuous expenses into a fucking text editor.
    - BeetleB 6y ago
      > I would still happily pay $3500 to not spend hours a year entering innocuous expenses into a fucking text editor. Fair enough. If your expenses are at the level of mine, I'd gladly take your $3500/year to do it for you. :-) And given that several commenters have said they spend about an hour a month on it, after all automation is in place, I'm sure many would take that money from you. It comes to about $300/hour. Certainly some people are earning a lot more than I am, and paying $300/hour is worth it to them. I'm not a hard core ledger user, but I have a simple solution: I don't enter anything into a text editor. I enter it into a fairly nice money management SW (using a GUI), that autofills a lot of stuff for me, and lets me import from my bank/CC. And then I simply run a script to convert its data format to ledger. I'm sure I spend more than an hour a month, though. I haven't automated most of my data sources.
esoterica 6y ago
I mean, your brokerage will do most of those things automatically for you.
- BeetleB 6y ago
  My brokerage always gets the cost basis wrong for SPP. Always. The company sends out annual notices to the employees informing them that the brokerage's statement is wrong.

andruby 6y ago

Same. I keep a spreadsheet that I update once a month with assets, liabilities and net worth. Takes me about 5mins and is a good check to detect unexpected spending or trends.

jabroni_salad 6y ago

Im in a similar low-stress situation and I am grateful for it. I have an e-fund that can handle anything, and was from a lower income family for long enough that my natural inclination towards any impulse purchase or lifestyle creep is 'probably not'. Aside from some fairly basic goal tracking, boring boglehead investing, and making sure nothing stupid is being transacted, I really don't do a lot and everything seems to be working. Dont @ me about my warhammer addiction though...

esoterica 6y ago

I just put all my expenses (except rent) on a single credit card. Chase generates a spending report that categorizes transactions for you, so you can see how much you spent on food/groceries/travel etc. each year with zero legwork put in.

icedchai 6y ago

I do similar, except on a monthly basis. I use a google sheet, and record the balance of all bank and investment accounts at end of month. I also track my crypto holdings there as well.

koolk3ychain 6y ago
What crypto holdings fellow non-us citizen ;) ?
- icedchai 6y ago
  I am an honest tax payer. I report all my crypto transactions. It's not worth being audited.

snicker7 6y ago

I take the same viewpoint. But that is, admittedly, a position of privilege. Tracking "net worth" is out of reach for the vast majority of people who live paycheck-to-paycheck.