Want to Look at My Old Net Worth Spreadsheet?
It’s like discovering an old diary!
When I was digging up the costs of my previous smartphone and internet plans for yesterday’s post on whether I could find cheaper internet, I came across this old budgeting spreadsheet that I used to use.
It was essentially DIY Mint; every week, I’d input my expenses by category, by hand. But the interesting part is the front-page rollup:
A couple items of note:
First, it looks like I pasted a bunch of cells into Column G and forgot to change “Net Worth January 2011” to “Net Worth January 2012,” etc.
Second, the reason my estimated earnings and Wellness Benefit info are not calculated for 2012 is because that was when I left my Executive Assistant job at the think tank. My earnings were in flux for a while, so I stopped trying to estimate them.
Also, my net worth dropped that year, due to those fluctuating earnings.
The reason my actual earnings are greater than my anticipated post-tax earnings in both 2010 and 2011 is because, in addition to my full-time job, I was also making money as a musician. I left my Executive Assistant job in 2012 to figure out what would happen if I did the musician thing full-time, which was probably a mistake, but I ended up here and I have no regrets.
The real question is how much these figures have changed since 2012.
My 2016 post-tax income… well, now that I’m a freelancer it’s a little more complicated, but my gross income was $88,062, my business income minus loss was $77,177, my adjusted gross income was $68,836, and my taxable income after deductions and exemptions was $58,486.
Either way I have improved my financial status a bit in the past five years. Also my career. (Again, no regrets.)
My current net worth, according to Mint, is $54,695.64. This number represents:
- $43,633.46 in my TIAA 403(b)
- $6,006.75 in my Roth IRA
- $7,562.39 in my cash accounts, $924.66 of which technically belongs to my next estimated tax payment
- Minus the $2,506.96 on my Chase Ink business credit card that I’m going to pay off within the next week
So my net worth has gone up between 2012 and 2017. By just over $15,000.
Mint can also help me answer the “this year I have spent” and “this year I have saved” questions:
In 2016 I spent $73,337.41, although Mint includes tax payments and debt payments in that spending roundup; if you’re interested in seeing a more thorough breakdown of that data I’d be happy to siphon out how much I spent on debt repayment, how much I spent on overhead costs, how much I spent on restaurants, etc. Let me know.
In 2016 I saved $5,700 (for an end-of-year savings account balance of $9,304.81) and put an additional $5,500 in a Roth IRA.
Whenever I peek into my old diaries, or read old blog posts, or even look at stuff like my How Wizards Do Money stories, it’s easy to see how much I’ve changed—but it’s even easier to see how I’ve stayed exactly the same.
I don’t know if you all feel the same way. Have any of you ever pulled up old budgets, just for fun? Did you learn anything about yourself in the process?
