New release today
Surprise, surprise, there is a new release out. This release has a couple small things in it that were among the most commented on in the feedback coming in. Here’s the details:
- Split Real Estate: Many users have debated whether or not to include your primary home’s equity when calculating net worth. Now, we give you the option by separating your home from other real estate. I still encourage people to include their home, I do and the vast majority of users do, but if you’re philosophically opposed, you have the choice. More importantly though, I think separating it out gives a more accurate picture of your finances.
- Net Worth Help: Previously, there was no guidance on how to calculate the different categories. Tooltips have been added next the entry fields to try to help a bit. Please comment if any of these can be improved. You can also see the descriptions on the new net worth FAQ question.
Thanks to community for keeping the site going strong despite the lack of updates. We’ll be welcoming our 5000th user in the coming days and while the site isn’t going to take on the giants of Web 2.0 in terms of popularity, it’s encouraging to see the consistent growth.
November 13th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
Any tips for determining value of personal possessions (not the car)?
i have a houseful of stuff but no idea how to go about making an educated guess.
November 25th, 2006 at 10:32 pm
I have in the past put together detailed statements of net worth before (I am a CPA.) I realize that we want to make things rather simple here, but I also think that it would be easier for users of this program to track things if there were a few more categories in the asset side of the net worth statement. Net worth statements are generally divided into three main categories: 1) cash/cash equivalents, 2) invested assets, 3) use assets. Sometimes another category is added for collectibles (such as coin, doll, or stamp collections)
Cash & equivlalents can also be further divided into checking, savings, money market, short term CD’s and cash value of life insurance
Invested Assets can be subdivided into stocks, bonds, annuities, precious metals, long-term CDs, retirement assets, stock options, investment real estate, ownership interest in closely held businesses, and fine art. It might also be nice to have a category for college savings.
Collectibles does not have to be subdivided
Use Assets can be subdivided into residence, automobiles, boats, recreational real state, and personal effects
Please think about perhaps adding some of these additional categories. Perhaps a survey of members is in order?
Thanks,
FinanceMom
December 4th, 2006 at 9:47 pm
RE: Value of personal possesions
Good question. I know there are many opinions on the topic. If you choose to include them, try to figure out the market value of them, perhaps using something like eBay.
December 4th, 2006 at 9:51 pm
Hi FinanceMom, thanks for the great comment.
I think a poll/survey is a good idea, it’d be great to get the categories nailed down sooner rather than later. I’d like to keep them, like you mention, simple at the high level with the future ability to create custom categories. But, by keeping consistent top-level categories, the comparisons can be more valid. With so many current entries, I’m hesitant to change to too much, but I’d like to have them correct.
December 17th, 2006 at 5:22 pm
As a NetworthIQ user, I generally don’t include personal posessions because:
a) I use this to track networth with the intention of growing wealth, so the corrolary is I track what has value or gains value over time. With Car being the unique large dollar item which depreciates, it’s the only one which I include.
b) generally I don’t include other personal items because I have no intention of selling any of it. Most of the stuff I only donate or throw away over time when it’s worn out or out of style. (take a tax deduction, or as others have done, “ebay” it.)
c) If you’re really intent on determining the value of personal posessions, I’ve found out by accident there’s a good program which comes with turbo tax called “It’s Deductable” Like the name implies, the software determines realistic values based upon average values of similar items sold on ebay. (categorized in 3 or 4 buckets: new, used, old..something like that) It might take several hours or days depending on how much “stuff” you’ve got, but it’ll have values for just about everything you can imagine.
MrSmith