Saturday, April 24, 2010

Response to Comments - Part 2

So what did Ron Lieber want to talk to you about? Please make sure you link the article if he writes about you!


I did speak with New York Times financial columnist last week. He is working on a piece for the N.Y. Times weekly magazine to be published in mid-May.

He was interested in speaking with me because I am one of the most "active" users of NetWorthIQ.com. Which means that I have data for every month going back to 2003. I actually have been tracking my net worth going back to just after college so I have more data than I could input on NetWorthIQ.com. He was interested in why I (our net worth is tracked as a couple but it really is me and not my husband who does all the tracking) keep close track of our net worth, what other tools I use (Quicken, Excel spread sheet, this blog, GRS, etc.) and whether it is healthy, not health, helpful, etc.

Mr. Lieber seemed especially interested in whether I was using all my tracking tools so that I could compare myself to others, whether it was a competition.

For me the tracking, especially the net worth tracking, is a tool to help me compare me to me (or us to us). I recognize that the net worth numbers are somewhat illusory (you can't really know what your house, real estate investments, or stock investments are worth until you sell them) and I don't get too worked up about them. My net worth tracking is more big picture and my goal is to keep that chart going up (Ron pointed out that our chart doesn't track the market chart or the other NetWorthIQ.com user charts). Using Quicken and the other tools helps us to stay on track from month to month.

I'll keep you updated if any of my quotes make the article and will link it whether I'm quoted or not.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Probably you know this, but this article is now available--just clicked over from nytimes.com!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/magazine/16Worth-t.html?hp

L. Marie Joseph said...

seems like they posted it