Budget app and net worth tracker

Fidelity is the most-recommended brokerage firm for US investors for good reason. On the desktop version of website, their "Full View" tool is free.

I tried Monarch recently and I didn't like it. I have been using YNAB for about 10 years, but thought I would like some of the features and reporting in Monarch and I didn't. It did give me an idea of how to use YNAB differently, so I thought I would share my new setup. I have never tracked investment accounts in YNAB, because the tracking accounts didn't seem that useful to me in the budget software. YNAB allows you to create multiple budgets, so I created a second budget for Investments, and created my various investment accounts. I then imported the actual transactions (exported from brokerage account as CSV) and classified them as Buy, Sell, Dividend, Withdrawal, etc. Now I can look at the actual breakdowns with the transactions, without them confusing with my regular budget (one of my complaints with Monarch). I then create a reconciliation adjustment in YNAB quarterly which will be the gain (loss) in the account. I only just started using this system, but I like it so far, and it will give me more detail than I was getting from my excel sheet historically.

I'm a big fan of YNAB.

Check out tiller.com this is a very good budgeting and net worth website that uses Google sheets or Excel depending on your preference and will Auto link to all your banks

I have really enjoyed using Quicken SImplifi after Mint closed down. It's not the best budgeting tool but I like it for net worth tracking and expense allocation. I think it's better in both of those areas than Mint was. I still use Empower for investment tracking, mostly just to see asset allocation at a glance. However, expense tracking and budgeting I've always thought is terrible on PC/Empower.

I have happily used YNAB for 5+ years and the Money With Katie Wealth Planner for 3+ years in combination. YNAB for tracking spending and giving dollars a job (their terminology for budgeting which I have come to appreciate) and the Wealth Planner for monthly review of spending + income + saving and investing tracking (I manually input all of this using inputs from YNAB and my investing/banking apps). The Financial Independence and Net Worth Tabs + the year in reporting built in are really great!

Would absolutely recommend Monarch. Been using it almost two years and it has gotten even better in that time. I also lost all my data after Mint shut down which was a bummer but I like Monarch even better than Mint!

The Morgan Stanley app can link external accounts and show total real time net worth. I’ve been happy with it. If it can’t link something (like crypto cold storage), it lets you enter the value manually. I guess you’d have to have at least one account with them to use it.

I’ve used YNAB for years. There’s a learning curve and it does more than just tracking net worth but I have all our investment accounts linked as tracking accounts and can update the balances as frequently as I want.

I've used monarch money since mint went defunct. It's not perfect, but works pretty well and they're continuously adding improvements. Is not free but the cost is worth what I get out of it.

I still haven't found a way to log in via the website but their new phone app works for me and still has all my data. That being said, due to the chronic downward trajectory of the site in general, I moved to using Vanguard's "track outside investments" feature prior to this current mess and it has been working well for me. It's slightly less convenient because I have to manually update my shares once a month, but it's less bothersome than I thought it would be. I only have one outside account to add though.

It’s not an app, I’ve always just used a composition book and a pen. I’ve got all my FI data in there since I started in this path in 2022 and it’s fascinating to look through.

Same issue - seems like they just moved everything to

ira.empower-retirement.com

I also downloaded the other EMPOWER app on my phone, all my info was still there.

You can track stock prices in Google Sheets using the GOOGLEFINANCE function, which can be set up to automatically pull current data. To create a portfolio tracker, list your stock tickers, shares, and purchase prices in a sheet, then use formulas to calculate value and gains/losses. For a quick view, use conditional formatting to color-code your gains and losses

You can track real-time stock prices in Excel 365 by converting stock symbols to the "Stocks" data type in the Data tab. Once converted, you can easily insert columns for various data points like current price, previous close, and 52-week high. To get started, list your stock symbols in a column, highlight them, go to the "Data" tab, and click "Stocks" to convert them, then add additional data by clicking the "Add Column" button that appears.

Personal Capital was officially renamed Empower in February 2023, following its acquisition by Empower Retirement in 2020. With the latest change they appear to have broken the free Empower Personal Wealth dashboard functionality. Alas, when you are not paying for the service, YOU are the product.

Your brokerage firm likely has a tool that aggregates all your external accounts and can serve as a net worth tracker.