Personal financial check-up

I spent an hour yesterday doing a personal balance sheet check and analysis. I call it my personal financial check-up. I try to do this at minimum every quarter, but sometimes will do more often. This helps me accomplish a few things.

It allows me to get a snapshot of where things sit right now and evaluate performance over the last month(s). I review how much I saved and how much the market moved in some of my assets.

The first thing I check for is my savings rate compared to the last period. I knew this going in, but the last few months were expensive months for Sophia and I. We’ve had trips to Maine, Europe, New Mexico, Seattle, and Arizona so far this summer. Despite that, we were still able to invest in our liquid accounts on schedule so I’m fairly pleased.

After checking my savings rate, I decided to put in for the sale of some stocks in my liquid portfolio to rebalance a bit. Fortunately, some of my stocks have grown quite a bit this year, and it was a good time to start trimming the positions. I also needed to get some liquidity to pay off some of the summer expenses.

Last, I set-up a new savings goal and stretch goal for myself and Sophia for the rest of the year. My lifestyle creep is something I’m constantly trying to get in check. It’s been especially hard with the last few months with us trying to sneak in as much travel before the baby, and of course some baby expenses. But I find that if I set hard but attainable goals, I pay much more attention to my spending.

For next time, I’m carefully watching my crypto positions as they are starting to get outsized in my portfolio. I also may want to start shifting some of my individual stocks back to my managed funds account as I find myself with less and less time to review my portfolio.