Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Why I love Personal Capital.com: Mint.com For Rich People


PersonalCapital
If you have been searching for an app that focuses on investing: retirement, asset allocation, and tax impact your wishes have been answered. The application is Personal Capital, sign up is available through personalcapital.com.

If you have already used Mint, Pageonce, or some other personal finance software you will already be comfortable with sharing your finances with a aggregation site. If this is a new concept, personal capital is extremely secure. In fact, each time you login from a new device or computer the site forces you to validate via email or phone. This is well beyond what your actual bank asks for. Once you have signed up adding accounts to Personal Capital is easy, all you need to do is select or search for the bank, credit union, credit card, or investment management firm you want to track data for and then enter your current login information for that entity. Personal Capital will then log in to the site and begin aggregating your financial data. If the financial site you’re connecting to requires additional authentication information, like your mother’s maiden name or the first elementary school you attended, personal Capital can handle this too, without any problems.




Key Features
  • Universal Checkbook – Deposit checks via their mobile app. Take a picture of your check and the funds are deposited.
  • 401(k) Fee Analyzer – Find out how much your retirement plan is costing you.
  • Tax Optimization – Are your investments fully optimized for taxes? Though currently Personal Capital does not understand the difference between taxed differed accounts and taxable accounts (another planned feature).
  • Investment Checkup – Are you meeting your retirement goal? It is simplistic compared to other planners, but a good starting point.
  • Asset Allocation Target – Are you overweight or underweight in any of the major equity categories? This currently lacks customization with adjusting allocations and is currently hard coded to their formula (additional future feature).
  • Fund Costs – How much in taxes and expenses does it cost you with each fund you own? Currently it does not understand taxable, and tax differed accounts.
  • Stock Option Tracker – Track the value of stock options and exercising from the company you work at.
What's the downside?
Personal Capital is a registered investment adviser and the hope is that you’ll like what you’re getting for free enough that you’ll hire Personal Capital to manage your finances. In order to be a a potential customer you must have assets that exceed $100,000. If you do, you’re assigned an investment adviser who will make some initial contact with you. Interestingly, once that contact is made, there is no hard sell for these services. If you want more guidance you are welcome to contact the adviser with basic questions about your finances, but the onus is on you to pursue Personal Capital if you want them to manage your assets.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Net Worth January 2013

This was a very good month in regards to Net Worth increase. I am up almost 9k. Debts are down 3k and assets popped 6k.


















Just the facts:

Assets are up to $97,471.56 from $91,127.43 and debts down to $40,302.88 from $43,366.52 for a new net worth of $56,463.34 up $8,998.24 from $47,812.61.

All in all I am still paying down debts at a good clip and still saving at a good rate as well.

Assets are composed of: $62,758.23 in investment/retirement accounts and $34,713.33 in cash.

Debts are $41,008.20 in student debt. Other liabilities include $705.34 in credit card debt that is paid off in full each month.

Thanks for reading.

-educated debt