One in all my favourite films of all time is The Goonies.
And one in all my favourite moments is when Mikey finds One-Eye Willy’s treasure map (actually, it’s when Chunk drops the body) and the Goonies go on their quest to seek out his treasure.
We love treasure maps.
And we’ve one too – it’s a map of our treasure.
We’ve two Grasp paperwork that define our funds – Web Price Spreadsheet and the Treasure Map.
The Web Price Spreadsheet is a Microsoft Excel doc that calculates our internet price. It’s a month-to-month accounting of our monetary accounts and sticks strictly with numbers.
The Treasure Map is the qualitative rationalization of our monetary setup. It’s a Phrase doc that explains the aim of every account, the purpose of contact, and the way every of the items match collectively. Our treasure map begins with our monetary map – which is a drawing of how our accounts are interconnected.
Collectively, they provide you a whole image of our funds.
The Treasury Map reveals somebody the place our stuff is in order that it may be discovered if I’m unavailable (unreachable, useless, incapacitated, no matter). It’s taking all the data I’ve in my mind and dumping it right into a doc so somebody doesn’t must guess what I used to be doing.
And it’s written in a method that’s as primary as attainable, making no assumptions on the a part of the reader.
It has 5 sections:
Desk of Contents
Treasure Map Legend
The Treasure Map is an easy doc however something will be misinterpretated so I maintain a legend on the entrance explaining what it’s and what yow will discover in it.
Plus, every time somebody will want this will likely be a demanding time… so I attempted to make it so simple as attainable.
It explains how all of the sheets are associated, what updates the place, and somebody studying the doc will be capable to proceed the accounting (not that they may). This additionally acts as a reminder for myself in case I overlook how I set one thing up.
That is the place our monetary community map is included.
Financial institution Accounts
We clarify the aim and reasoning behind every account.
Somebody trying on the spreadsheet and at our listing of financial institution accounts goes to marvel why we’ve so many – so this part plains the way it suits collectively.
For instance, we’ve a complete of 5 banks and every one performs a particular function:
- Checking account that offers us a strategy to deposit money and get doc signed/notarized.
- Our essential on-line checking and financial savings account.
- Enterprise checking account.
- On-line excessive yield checking account that permits free wire transfers
- One account that acts as a firewall for different fee accounts (Money app, Paypal, and so forth.)
It additionally explains how they’re all associated and any particular account info you might must entry them.
Funding Accounts
We’ve simplified our funding life into two brokerage accounts and this part explains the aim of every.
The investing technique part is extra detailed than the banking, with my goal asset allocation in addition to how these property are distributed inside every of the accounts.
I exploit Vanguard as one in all my custodians and I’ve a Rollover IRA, Roth IRA, and a taxable brokerage account. One of many difficult issues about these several types of accounts is that it’s typically a problem to get your asset allocation proper. It’s even more durable to reverse engineer what I used to be doing when you begin with simply the accounts.
The doc explains what’s what. For instance, I don’t put our bonds into our Rollover IRA, which is a tax-deferred retirement account. The overall rule of thumb is that you simply put bonds in a tax-deferred account as a result of bonds generate earnings and also you’d be taxed on that earnings if it had been exterior of a tax-deferred account.
Bonds have had low yields not too long ago and so it’s really higher to have shares in these tax deferred accounts, however that’s not why we do it. If we would have liked to entry our funds shortly, we’d liquidate our bonds first as a result of they’re the least unstable. In the event that they’re in tax deferred accounts, we’d take an enormous penalty. That’s the #1 cause why… the way it’s extra tax environment friendly proper now, as a consequence of low yields, is solely a bonus.
OK in order that complete rationalization is just not attainable until I write it out in a Phrase doc.
Direct Investments
For some time I made a number of direct investments, or angel investments, in corporations. I don’t do this anymore however we nonetheless have a number of legacy investments held in other places.
This part of the doc incorporates all of the contact info of every funding, who was the lead investor, my relationship, who to name you probably have a query (in case it’s not the lead investor), in addition to anything that would present readability on the deal.
A few of these are offers that don’t exist exterior of authorized paperwork. You may’t log in someplace and see them. With out this and the itemizing within the spreadsheet, it might be troublesome for somebody piecing it collectively to even discover them as a result of they wouldn’t know the place to look.
For others, they’re managed in Carta.
Insurance coverage
Fairly easy right here – a listing of all of the totally different insurances we’ve, ranges of protection, and the corporate we’ve them with. Ours are all with one firm so it’s fairly straightforward to know.
If yours is barely extra difficult, attempt to put in as a lot element as you’ll be able to. For instance, you probably have time period life insurance coverage from a number of corporations (it’s not unusual to get $1,000,000 from two corporations at $500,000 every), listing them and their particulars.
Keep in mind to Replace It!
When you could replace a internet price spreadsheet regularly, you would possibly overlook to replace your Treasure Map just because your state of affairs won’t change all that a lot from month to month. I make it a degree to overview it each quarter or so and this examine typically simply takes a couple of minutes.
If there are updates, like new accounts or new investments, I shortly jot down notes so the handbook is full and updated. I feel that updating it on an annual foundation is ample until you make plenty of modifications and assume it’ll be laborious to recollect.
Whereas having an outdated copy is best than having nothing, an up to date one is greatest.
Do you’ve a Treasure Map or one thing comparable?
How would you increase or enhance mine?