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Suggestions Wanted

January 17th, 2007 at 06:24 pm

In the entry below this one, in the comments, I ask a question about how to include investment income from IRAs, 401ks, etc on a graph that shows income, expenses and investment income. I'd love to get some input on this. Otherwise, my investment income graph is ridiculous, as the bulk of our saving efforts go towards longterm goals (retirement, college). But the whole point of the retirement investments is so that we *can* be financially independent someday. I just don't know how to work that into a graph.

Thanks in advance.

Posted in Savings, Retirement | 9 Comments »

9 Responses to “Suggestions Wanted”

  1. miclason Says:
    January 17th, 2007 at 06:45 pm 1169059528
    1169059528

    hmmm...do a stack bar chart instead of a line chart? ...or maybe a cascade bar??
    Where are the Excel experts??? HELP!

  2. DivaJen Says:
    January 17th, 2007 at 06:51 pm 1169059901
    1169059901

    Oops, I'm not making myself clear. It's not the actual construction of the graph that has me stumped, it's figuring out what income to include from investments. I know how much interest I earn on savings and such because it's right there in a statement each month. But that isn't the case for the 401k, STRS, 403b, and IRA. How can I include some sort of income from those accounts?

  3. tinapbeana Says:
    January 17th, 2007 at 07:53 pm 1169063596
    1169063596

    well, if it's a spreadsheet where you have control over the arrangements, i'd go for something like

    IRA Previous Balance - 4000
    IRA Contributions - 333
    IRA Current Balance - 4417

    IRA current balance - IRA previous balance - IRA contributions = IRA earnings (or in this case, 4417 - 4000 - 333 = 84

    i have an excel sheet which is somewhat like this if you'd like a copy

  4. DivaJen Says:
    January 18th, 2007 at 12:45 am 1169081121
    1169081121

    That might work. I guess I wasn't sure if that kind of growth was appropriate to use. I'm making up my own spreadsheet and could easily set that up. Thanks for the idea.

  5. baselle Says:
    January 24th, 2007 at 04:39 am 1169613594
    1169613594

    I think that you'll have a bit of trouble with most equities - you can guess that stocks would basically give you, on average, 6-8% return...in a sense, that's the reason why most financial planners will run tracks. - what happens when you earn 4%, 6%, 8%, etc ... Aim for 4% and everything else is gravy.

    However if you can figure out how much of your 401K, 403B, and IRA mutual funds have dividend producing stocks, dividends are to stocks what the interest rate is to a fixed income instrument.

  6. DivaJen Says:
    January 24th, 2007 at 04:52 am 1169614339
    1169614339

    I think I'm going to just play around with conservative return rates and go from there. Thanks for the comments - it is helpful to hear from others.

    The real reason I'm doing all of this is because no matter what we save, I never feel like we're saving enough. I need to be able to see some real data and get a real sense of where we're at. Vangaurd has some nice tools for making projections, but I'm feeling like I need to see the investment income right there alongside the expenses, to get a good idea of where we stand.

  7. Aleta Says:
    January 24th, 2007 at 04:55 pm 1169657722
    1169657722

    Something that I do once a month is to find out what the IRA's are worth at the end of the month. Whatever, their price per share is at the end of the month times the amount of shares that you own. I do this each month to see where we are. I also go to zillow.com to get an estimate of my house. Note: that this is just an estimate but they will show you the houses in your area and what they have sold for so you can get an idea about yours. I also check out my savings bonds as well on-line. Most of everything that you need in on-line.

  8. LuxLiving Says:
    January 25th, 2007 at 12:34 am 1169685297
    1169685297

    Would tracking your net worth help you?

  9. DivaJen Says:
    January 25th, 2007 at 02:41 am 1169692892
    1169692892

    No, I don't think that's the direction I want to go in. Among other things, our net worth is great when you look at the value of our home, but we're most likely retiring in this home, so the increase in the home's value doesn't really help us. I need to see concrete cash flow month in and month out.

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