John Nash is back at work at the Exxon station. That's the first reaction I got on the original thread, and I'm rather fond of it. Partly because XOM is a big part of the increase in my wealth over the last year and a half.
I wasn't happy with my old method of holding the cards in. The plastic tracks were salvaged from an accordion file folder, so the cards now slide in. Not perfect but better than what I had. I can now move the board without the cards going every which way. I also fidgeted with the presentation a bit. Below the date, the rows are:
- Net worth and change on the year
- Monthly spending implied at a 4% withdrawal rate and the change from the previous month end (naturally, this is the change in both net worth and withdrawal amount)
- Actual expenses incurred during the month and implicit withdrawal rate for that amount
- High-water mark in net worth and date
Generally blue will denote good things (total amounts of money possessed, increases in same, withdrawal rates under 4%) and red bad things (spending, declines in net worth, WRs above 4%, high-water marks occurring in the past). However, I don't have enough cards and digits for a complete set of blue and red so there will be exceptions.
Expenses will be net of work, rental and similar procured income but not of investment income such as interest and dividends. They will typically cover the calendar month, although I may fudge stuff around month-end and/or decide it's just easier to use credit-card cut-off dates. These are changes from my previous accounting method, so the WRs will look higher. I try not to take too much stock in month-to-month withdrawal rates, but every alternative is worse:
- Using YTD expenses and annualizing is bad because my expenses have considerable seasonality, being back-loaded in the calendar year
- Don't like using a running 12-month rate as I keep calendar years mentally separate
- Smoothing out large purchases is too much math for this kind of exercise