Passive Income: Creating my own tool
It’s impossible to manage, grow or improve what you don’t know. I am a data addict and having a comprehensive view of my investments is the best way to plan ahead and stay on track.
It’s great to talk about new investment strategies, what’s new and how to get “more”. However, what is equally (if not more) important is to fully understand where you are in your wealth journey, what is and what isn’t working and how your investments and bets are performing.
In this post we will focus on the data aspect of the equation.
There are a plethora of tools out there that let you aggregate your data, some very simple while others are very complex. Personally, I have tried several, but without a lot of success (maybe it was just me). The more complex your portfolio is, the harder it is to find a “one fits all” solution. Most will do a good job of integrating with your bank, but will not offer support stocks, real state or crypto.
So, what is the solution? Since I am a developer (or at least used to be) I ended up creating my own tool, based on the need and the joy that comes with creating something new.
My own tool
I wanted to start very simple, but build something flexible that would allow me to add more complex things down the line. If you love numbers as much as I do, then you will most likely love Excel. Let’s be honest, there is nothing like it. And if you know how to use it, you can do whatever you want. Based on this, I opted to create the app with Google Sheets, so that it can easily be shared and always be up to date.
Integrations / Data Source
As we mentioned, the key is data, as much as you can get. That data will be located in different sources, so the first step for me was to create an integration to external systems in order to gather my data in one common place.
So far my tool supports integrations with the following systems:
- Banks (US and International)
- Paypal
- LendingClub
- Stock Market (stock prices for every stock)
- Robinhood
- Uphold
- Heleum
- Airbnb
- Expensify
- Crypto prices (e.g. BTC price)
- Crypto wallets (e.g. how much is in your ETH wallet)
- Shopify
As you can see there are a decent number of integrations supported. In most cases I had to develop those from scratch, but it’s fairly easy to include new ones and I will be happy to, if there is a need.
Demo
This is what my current tool looks like, but once in a while I update it or move things around. If you want to, you can of course set it up in a completely different way.
Yes, that looks like a lot of numbers, but don’t get overwhelmed. The idea is not to analyze them one by one, but instead just to give you a glimpse of what the tool looks like.
In this very concentrated view I have:
- Real time data on how my day is progressing (are my stocks going up or down, is crypto moving, have I received any payment over Airbnb, what is the current balance in my bank account)
- Comparison vs yesterday. Today vs Yesterday
- Day indicators and month indicators
- Different colors for different confort levels
- Total capital progressing from the last x years
- And a lot more
All condensed into one view, that gets updated every few minutes and that is emailed to me automatically every morning at 6:30 am.
Why?
I have been working on this for more than one year already and it has dramatically changed how I analyze investments and how I define my strategies. The current state is mature enough where I feel confident sharing my work.
For now, only a few friends and I are using it since it is not even a product. But if you believe that this may be helpful for you, please let me know and we can chat.
Master view
Because all of the previous integrations will give you access to a very large amount of your data, now it’s time to put that together and display it in the most useful way.
In the demo above, I showed the current template I’m using which adjusts to my needs and my key metrics, but of course you have full control and can change anything (remember that this is running in Google Sheets so basically you can use any excel function).
Historical data
Knowing the current state is great, but being able to see where we are coming from is also very powerful. Therefore, the tool stores the current values in a historical data table every night, so you can go back in time and see the progression.
Notifications
If you have investments from different sources, I assume that you spend some time every day looking at their performance (how the stock market is doing, have I sold anything on my web site, do I have a new reservation on Airbnb, etc.).
A nice addition to the tool is that it sends out a daily email providing you with the most current snapshot of your wealth. Plus additional indicators so that you can always be on top of things with the right info, without spending a lot of time opening several websites.
Accurate data
The tools updates automatically every few minutes, which means that it is constantly connecting to your accounts and external systems in order to get the most accurate data.
Also, there is a button that allows you to do a full refresh in case you want a complete sync.
Final note
Regardless of the tool, the most important point is that knowing and understanding your portfolio is the best way to progress and make the right decisions.
As always, any feedback is more than welcome. Thanks for reading.
