A warning: This post is going to be lengthy and full of text. Feel free to stop at anytime to take a break and pick up where you left off. I will try to to break this into sections to make it easier.

This sheet lists all my holdings in detail and shows

• Ticker. You have to input this cell manually
• Name of the company.
• Number of shares and the cost basis
• Current price
• Today’s Change in price (in $ and %)
• Total Gain/ Loss (in $ and %)
• Annual Dividend, Dividend Yield & Yield on Cost
• Account that purchases the stock
• Sectors and Assets Type
• Allocation of the stocks in proportion to the whole portfolio
• Real time currency conversion based on USD

The Layout

You should create your stock portfolio overview in a new sheet and it can look however you want it to look. Personally, I lay out my cells in the following way.

In this page, I only need to input

• Cash available in each account,
• Ticker symbol the first time the stock is purchased
• Account that first time purchases the said stock.
• 1 of 6 Currency available (converted from USD)

Everything else will automatically be populated by the spreadsheet.

A note about the currency conversion. All currency is converted from USD, so based on the currency chosen, every information in this page will be in the selected currency.

This is particularly useful when you are investing in the U.S stock market but your capital is from a different currency, like me.

Key Info Section

I put my cash balance and, total gain/ loss, annual dividend and income on the top of the sheet because you don’t want to scroll all the way down just to find key information about your portfolio.

Now for the header of the portfolio section, I include horizontally:

1. Name of the company
2. # of shares
3. Cost Basis
4. Total Cost Basis
5. Current Price
6. Today’s Change (in $ and %)
7. Gain/ Loss (in $ and %)
8. Total Gain/ Loss for that stock
9. Annual Dividend Income per share
10. Dividend Yield
11. Total Annual Income of the Dividend
12. Assets Type
13. Sector
14. Account that purchases the stock
15. % allocation to the portfolio for the stock

Since I am using screen shot, I am sorry for the quality of the picture but here goes:

The Formula

The Basic

A lot of the formula that I used is just designating the right cells for the formula to refer to in the equation, thus a basic understanding of how Google Sheets’ formula works will help in understanding the rest of this post.

=sumifs

A formula that tells the spreadsheet to sum specified cells IF a number of criteria is found.

‘Sheet name’!A1

The cell will go to sheet “Sheet name” and refer to that sheet’s cell A1

Name of the company

=googlefinance(B16,”name”).

B16 is the cell for the ticker that you want the spreadsheet to refer to when fetching the name. For example, if you put “AAPL” in B16, then this cell will refer to “AAPL” and produce “Apple Computers Inc.”

# of shares

=SUMIFS(‘Trade Log’!$E$1:’Trade Log’!$E$1000,’Trade Log’!$C$1:’Trade Log’!$C$1000,B16,’Trade Log’!$B$1:’Trade Log’!$B$1000,”Buy”,’Trade Log’!$D$1:’Trade Log’!$D$1000,W16)-(sumifs(‘Trade Log’!$E$1:’Trade Log’!$E$1000,’Trade Log’!$C$1:’Trade Log’!$C$1000,B16,’Trade Log’!$B$1:’Trade Log’!$B$1000,”Sell”,’Trade Log’!$D$1:’Trade Log’!$D$1000,W16))

‘Trade Log’!$E$1:‘Trade Log’!$E$1000 = Column E1 to E1000 of the Trade Log sheet where you input # of shares bought or sold

‘Trade Log’!$C$1:’Trade Log’!$C$1000 = Column C1 to C1000 of the Trade Log Sheet which is the column where you input your ticker symbol

B16 = The cell where you input the ticker symbol for the stock in the equation

‘Trade Log’!$B$1:’Trade Log’!$B$1000, “Buy” = Column B1 to B1000 of the Trade Log Sheet which is the column where you input the action relevant to the stock. In this case, you are telling the cell to refer to column B of the Trade Log Sheet to search for action “Buy”

‘Trade Log’!$D$1:’Trade Log’!$D$1000 = Column D1 to D1000 of the Trade Log Sheet which is the column where you input the account that holds the stock

W16 = The cell where you input the Account Name for the stock in the equation

Essentially, with this formula, you are telling the cell to look in the Trade Log Sheet for the ticker symbol (B16) and the Account Name (W16) that has the action “Buy” (Column B in the Trade Log Sheet) and deduct amount by the same ticker symbol and Account Name that has the action “Sell”, giving you the final amount of shares that you own.

Cost Basis

=((SUMIFS(‘Trade Log’!$H$1:’Trade Log’!$H$1399,’Trade Log’!$C$1:’Trade Log’!$C$1399,B16,’Trade Log’!$B$1:’Trade Log’!$B$1399,”Buy”,’Trade Log’!$D$1:’Trade Log’!$D$1399,W16))/(SUMIFS(‘Trade Log’!$E$1:’Trade Log’!$E$1116,’Trade Log’!$C$1:’Trade Log’!$C$1116,B16,’Trade Log’!$B$1:’Trade Log’!B$1116,”Buy”,’Trade Log’!$D$1:’Trade Log’!$D$1399,W16)))*$F$6

‘Trade Log’!$H$1:’Trade Log’!$H$1399 = Column H1 to H1399 of the Trade Log which is the column for the total price of the stock purchased/ sold.

If you follow along the explanations above, essentially this lengthy formula is telling the spreadsheet to sum up the total purchase price for a stock divided by the number of shares purchased (which the formula will validate from action “Buy”) giving us the average cost basis. We then multiply this number by the currency exchange rate (which the formula will find from cell F6)

Don’t worry about the currency exchange formula, as it will be explained in future posts.

Current Price

=GOOGLEFINANCE(B16, “Price”)*$F$6

Again B16 is the cell that has the ticker symbol we want the equation to look for

F6 is the currency exchange rate

Today’s Change (in $ and %) & Today’s Change Total

=googlefinance (B13, “change”)

This formula will return today’s change in $ of the stock ticker in cell B13

=googlefinance (B13, “changepct”)/100

By default, Google Sheets will returns this formula as an absolute value, for example 1% will become 100, so I divided by 100 to get the right value.

You would then go to Menu > Format > Number > Percent to get 1%

In order for you to get your Today’s Change Total, simply multiply the cell for Today’s Change (in $) with the cell for # of Shares

Gain/ Loss (in $ and %)

To get your gain/ loss of the stock,

=(Current Price Cell) – (Cost Basis Cell)

and to get the %

=(Current Price Cell) – (Cost Basis Cell)/ (Cost Basis Cell)

and to get the total gain/ loss for that stock, just multiply the cell for gain/ loss (in $) with the cell for # of Shares

Annual Dividend

Brace yourself, this will be one of the lengthiest section of this post. Here goes:

=iferror(iferror(if(B16=””,””,split(index(importhtml(CONCATENATE(“https://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=”,B16,””),”table”,9),7,2),”*”)),if(isblank(B16),,GETDIVIDEND2(B16,$N$9)))*$F$6,”-“)

B16 = The cell where you input the ticker symbol for the stock in the equation

N9 = The cell where you input your IEX Token Key

F6 is the currency exchange rate

With this formula, you are telling the spreadsheet to find the dividend yield from finviz.com (don’t worry about the table 9, 7, 2. That’s simply where the dividend yield information is located in finviz.com)

The iferror formula is telling the spreadsheet that IF the spreadsheet generates an error return when trying to get the information from finviz, it will switch to another formula where it will get the information from IEX Cloud. IF that also generates an error, then the cell will show “-“.

The formula to get the dividend yield from finviz.com is

=iferror(if(B16=””,””,split(index(importhtml(CONCATENATE(“https://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=”,B16,””),”table”,9),7,2),”*”)),”-“)

The back up formula is

=if(isblank(B16),,GETDIVIDEND2(B16,$N$9))

This is not a Google Sheets formula but a script that you need to create in Google Sheets. A custom formula so to speak.

In order to create this custom formula, you need to go to Menu > Tools > Script Editor like so:

You will then see a new screen like so

On the right side is where you are going to insert the code. Just copy and paste from this link, click save, name your code whatever you want and your formula is good to go.

Dividend Yield & Annual Income

To get your dividend yield, you need to input into the cell

= (Annual Dividend Cell) / (Current Price Cell)

To get your annual income from that stock, you would use

= (Annual Dividend Cell) x (# of Shares Cell)

And that’s it. You have just finished creating your Stock Portfolio Overview Sheet.

Pat yourself in the back, because this was a long tutorial and you have made it to the end.

As usual, leave a comment or hit me up if you have an suggestions on how you think I can do better or to show how you create your Trade Log.

If you can’t wait and you want to get your hands on the final product as soon as possible, this template is available to purchase from Gumroad.

Also, don’t forget, when you use my referral links, you will be able to claim your free stocks from Robinhood and WeBull. You will help support this blog and I’ll jump and click my heel in gratitude.

Honestly, nowadays since most brokers have offered free transaction fee, if you are not going to invest using margin, you can’t really go wrong with online brokers. Especially those that give you free stuffs upon signing up like WeBull and Robinhood.

I have been recommending WeBull & Robinhood to my friends and family, even those that are still on the fence. I figure, while they consider whether they should invest or not, by registering and getting free stocks, they already have 1 foot in. If they end up deciding not to invest, they can always sell the stock and make some money out of it.

Disclaimer: This is not a financial advice because currently, I have no plan in selling any of this holdings. I got them for free anyway and I am curious to see how they perform in the future.

If you are still on the fence on which broker to use, then I suggest you sign up for both WeBull & Robinhood while you decide and get your free stocks using the link below.

I, myself use TD Ameritrade as my main broker but I do keep my WeBull & Robinhood account as my “Hail-Mary” account. I am not going to sell any of my positions in those account because I am curious to see how they perform.

WeBull

WeBull is one of the 2 online brokers that offer you free stocks upon signing up and depositing. They also consistently have promotions where if you refer friends, you can get up to 5 stocks for free (valued up to $1,400) or if you refer 3 friends you can get up to 17 free stocks.

Personally, I have found WeBull’s app to look very good and my only gripe is that they do not offer DRIP (Dividend Reinvestment Program). Also, they could benefit from a speedier customer service.

However, their constant free stocks promotion make it worth it to at least register and deposit. There are many posts online where people actually get MSFT (Microsoft) or even TSLA (Tesla) as their free stocks.

For example, for the month of July 2021, if you register using my link below, you will be able to get 3 free stocks and I have been referring them to friends & family who are still on the fence about starting a portfolio.

S (Sprint)

I received a share of Sprint when I first register and open an account with WeBull. Ever since then, Sprint has merged with T-Mobile and since WeBull does not allow fractional share, the share is considered sold.

• # of Shares: 1 Share
• Valued at: $5.82
• Current Value: Sold due to the merger with T-Mobile at $9.26
• Gain/ Loss: $3.44 (59.1%)

ISBC (Investors Bancorp, Inc.)

ISBC is a banking company in all regards that you expect them to be. They deal with loans commercially and to individuals, insurance offerings and bank accounts.

• # of Shares: 6 Shares
• Valued at: $11.99 (Average over 6 shares)
• Current Value: $9.25
• Gain/ Loss: -$16.45 (22.86%)

I kept them in my account because they are a pretty stable company and they do give out dividend. I believe once the pandemic is over, the stock will rebound.

SNAP (Snap, Inc.)

SNAP is the company that created Snap Chat, Spectacle and Bitmoji.

• # of Shares: 1 Share
• Valued at: $18.23
• Current Value: $38.54
• Gain/ Loss: $20.31 (111.41%)

I am absolutely out of my depth with SNAP but like ISBC, I am planning to keep it and see how it goes. The fact that it’s been up 111+% doesn’t hurt

VG (Vonage Holdings Corp.)

Vonage is a telecommunication company much like AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint & Verizon.

• # of Shares: 1 Share
• Valued at: $9.14
• Current Value: $12.11
• Gain/ Loss: $2.97 (32.49%)

My only exposure to them was 2 years ago when I was in Europe and used their pre-paid SIM card. I had good experience using their SIM card and I had reception everywhere. They are also currently up and I am just going to let it ride.

AGI (Alamos Gold Inc.)

AGI is a Canadian gold and other precious metals mining company

• # of Shares: 1 Share
• Valued at: $9.48
• Current Value: $9.06
• Gain/ Loss: -$0.42 (4.43%)

I have absolutely no idea what this company does.

ZNGA (Zynga Inc.)

Zynga is the company behind the hit mobile games and Facebook games like Farmville and Words with Friends. I honestly don’t know how well their game styles will perform since I believe it lacks economic scalability.

I also think that their market tends to get bored with their games easily because their games are usually meant to be quick games and do not have high re-play value.

• # of Shares: 2 Shares
• Valued at: $8.66 (Average over 2 shares)
• Current Value: $8.14
• Gain/ Loss: -$1.04 (6%)

Robinhood

Robinhood is the other online broker that offers free stock upon signing up and depositing to the total of 2 free stocks.

Usually, I recommend everybody to sign up for WeBull and Robinhood because well, free stocks is free stocks.

In the end, it all comes down to which platform you are more comfortable with and you can’t really go wrong with either ones. Once you get your free stocks, you can either sell them or transfer them to the broker that you prefer.

Right now, if you click and register using the link below, you will be able to get 2 free stocks when you register and link your bank account.

BCRX

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals is a pharmaceutical company that develops oral drugs. One of their drugs is RAPIVAB which is used to treat flu symptoms.

• # of Shares: 1 Share
• Valued at: $2.97
• Current Value: $4.45
• Gain/ Loss: $1.48 (49.83%)

GPRO

GoPro needs no introduction as one of the first company in the world that develops and market action camera successfully.

Around 5 years ago, I wanted to invest in the stock market and despite research and recommendations, I did not want to invest in index fund. Instead I chose to invest in company where I like the products. GoPro was one of them and at the time, GPRO was trading at high $50.

I decided to purchase 100 shares of the company and a few months later, my $5,000 has plummeted to $800, which was when I decided to exit my position.

What did I learn from this?

A well-made product is not necessarily made by a well-run company.

• # of Shares: 2 Shares
• Valued at: $4.05 (Average over 2 shares)
• Current Value: $7.34
• Gain/ Loss: $6.58 (81.23%)

GME

GameStop. They. Are. Dying.

• # of Shares: 1 Share
• Valued at: $5.99
• Current Value: $12.06
• Gain/ Loss: $6.07 (101.34%)

Update #1 (June 2021): I know I said they are dying, but in February 2021, there was a short squeeze happening to GME that causes the price of the stock to skyrocketed to $300. I ended up selling all my shares at $265

PLUG

PLUG is a company that develops alternative fuel cells for use in equipment and vehicles. They have customers like Nike, Wal-Mart & BMW.

• # of Shares: 1 Share
• Valued at: $4.02
• Current Value: $25.00
• Gain/ Loss: $20.98 (521.89%)

Like SNAP, I am out of depth with PLUG but they have been up 521.89% so I am just going to leave it in my Hail-Mary account.

To Sum It All Up

Like I said above, my WeBull & Robinhood account is not my main brokerage account and I am not planning to sell any of my positions in these 2 accounts. I am doing this to highlight even though it’s free stocks, well, it’s still money, $187.68 to be exact.

Update #1 (June 2021): As of June 2021, I did made a profit of selling my $GME stock at $250 in February.

The trade log functions as the database for your tracker because this is where the spreadsheet will get most of its data to populate your other sheets.

I lay out my trade log like so.

• Date
• Action (Buy/ Sell)
• Ticker
• Account that purchase the stock
• Shares bought
• Price of shares
• Commission/ Adjustment
• Total Price
• Note

No need to go fancy because this is where you will manually input your transactions. In fact, it should be as simple as possible so that you can manually input each transaction as efficient as possible.

Action

For “Action”, I include the options Buy or Sell because later on I will use a nested argument in my “Stock Portfolio Overview” sheet (Don’t worry about it for now)

Commission/ Adjustment

I have this column because my broker used to charge me per transaction and I would like to include my transaction fee in my cost basis.

Now that most brokers offer free transaction fee, I leave this column in for adjustment. Sometimes when you enroll in DRIP (Dividend Reinvestment Program), the brokers will use 4 decimal points in their price for the shares reinvested but round up the total price to 2 decimal points which create a discrepancy in the cost basis between your sheet and their record. For example:

If I don’t include the $0.01 in the first row for SCHD, my purchase price for that transaction will be $8.96, however in my TD Ameritrade account, it shows my purchase price for the transaction to be $8.97, and so I have to add the penny.

You don’t have to do this, but I am a little OCD about having as close cost basis as possible to the data in my brokerage. If you don’t have this column, your cost basis will probably only differs around a few pennies with your broker’s.

Total Price

For the total price column just use the formula

=IF(B2=”Buy”,(E2*F2)+G2,(E2*F2)-G2)

B = Action Column

E = # of Shares Column

F = Price of shares column

G = Commission/ Adjustment Column

By inputting this formula, you are telling the cell

if B2 shows “Buy”, then (# of Shares) x (Price of Shares) + (Adjustment).

if B2 shows anything other than “Buy”, then (# of Shares) x (Price of Shares) – (Adjustment).

You don’t have to use the IF formula, but it comes in handy if you have a broker that charges you different rate whether you are buying or selling shares.

In the next post, I will show you how to create a Stock Portfolio Overview sheet that pulls data from the Trade Log that we have created.

As usual, leave a comment or hit me up if you have an suggestions on how you think I can do better or to show how you create your Trade Log.

If you can’t wait and you want to get your hands on the final product as soon as possible, this template is available to purchase from Gumroad.

Also, don’t forget, when you use my referral links, you will be able to claim your free stocks from Robinhood and WeBull.

Update #1: Continue to Part 3 (“Creating a Stock Portfolio Overview”) HERE!

The way I allocate my portfolio is called Lazy Core-4 Portfolio by Rick Perry and it consists of:

• 0% – 20% Total U.S Bonds
• 50% after bond allocation into Total U.S Stock Market
• 40% after bond allocation into Total International Stock Market (outside of U.S)
• 10% after bond allocation into Total U.S REIT Index

By holding these 4 index funds or ETFs (I explained about index funds and ETFs in this article), we minimize risk during economic downturn but our portfolio goes up with the economy when the economy is improving. At the same time, we will be able to collect monthly dividends as long as we own the portfolio.

The logic behind this portfolio is that, study has proven that even the best portfolio managers have not been able to consistently beat the market in the last 15 years (Source; you can google for more). Even the great Warren Buffett, himself stated that if he was to pass away, he will recommend his family to invest in the S&P 500.

If you are here reading this blog, you are probably not going to do any better than the portfolio managers mentioned above.

So, this portfolio allocation is meant to follow the world’s economy during its downturn and upturn to net you a gain of ~7%/ year spread over a long term period.

First Thing First, Get a Brokerage Account.

You need a broker if you don’t have one yet. Nowadays, most brokers offer free transaction fee which is good. The next thing you want to consider when you are getting a broker is whether they are FDIC insured. Do not be afraid to use online brokers if they are FDIC insured and offers free transaction fee.

If you are in the U.S, a few online brokers that have garnered quite a good reputation are M1 Finance, Robinhood & WeBull.

Robinhood and WeBull have also started offering free stocks (valued up to $1,400) when you register and fund your account through them. If this is something that interests you, you can click the below links to register for an account. Don’t worry, this post is not going anywhere. We’ll wait.

In this post, I will show you how I use Google Sheets to create an automated portfolio tracker that requires minimal input from the user.

I am planning for this post to be a series where I will break down the features of my spreadsheet in different posts and show you how you can create one of your own from scratch.

Why Have More than 1 Account?

Free stocks, that’s why.

In the past few years, investment brokers are starting to offer free stocks whenever you sign up with them and I am never one to pass up on free money/ assets.

For example, for the month of October, when you sign up for an account on WeBull using the link below and deposit $100, you will get 2 free stocks valued up to $1,600. Even if you ended up not buying any stocks and withdraw the $100, you still get to own the 2 free stocks

You will then repeat this process with Robinhood, where you can get a free stock when you use the link below.

So, in about 15 minutes worth of work, you just get 3 free stocks with virtually no capital.

Different Account Serves Different Purpose

Another reason is because you may have a tax advantaged account, retirement account and a regular tax-able portfolio account.

Just from the above reasons, if you are like me, you are going to already have at least 4 accounts which may belong to different brokerages.

Spreadsheet to the Rescue!

Anybody that knows me knows that I am a huge spreadsheet nerd. So, when I couldn’t find a portfolio tracker that ticks all the boxes like I need it, I decided to create my own using Microsoft Excel at first and later, Google Sheets.

I knew when I started my portfolio tracker, I wanted:

• Low maintenance (preferably once a month or once a quarter) and requires minimal input
• Cost Basis for my stocks after DRIP (Dividend Reinvestment Program)
• Number of shares after DRIP
• Dividend Tracking
• Deposit/ Capital Tracking
• The ability to access the spreadsheet anywhere

Portfolio Dashboard

The first page in my spreadsheet is my portfolio dashboard where I can see key information of my portfolio in a glance:

• Portfolio Value and total gain/ loss
• Cash available to purchase securities
• Average dividend yield of the portfolio and the yield on cost
• Annual income from dividend

I also included key charts and graphs because I like colorful things and charts and graphs allow a different visual perspective of my portfolio.

Charts and graphs include:

• Holdings by sectors
• Holdings by companies
• Monthly dividend income year to year

There is absolutely nothing that I need to input in this sheet and this sheet is strictly for aesthetic value and when I just need to look at key infos.

Capital

The next sheet is the capital page and where I keep track of how much I have invested into the accounts.

Every time I inject more capital into my portfolio, this page is where I record the entry, whether or not I purchase anything with said cash

Stock Portfolio Overview

This sheet lists all my portfolio values and holdings in detail and shows

• Ticker
• Number of shares and the cost basis
• Current price
• Today Change in price (in $ and %)
• Total Gain/ Loss (in $ and %)
• Annual Dividend, Dividend Yield & Yield on Cost
• Account that purchases the stock
• Sectors and Assets Type
• Allocation of the stocks in proportion to the whole portfolio
• Real time currency conversion based on USD

In this page, I only need to input cash available in each account, the ticker symbol the first time the stock is purchased and the account that purchases the said stock. Everything else will automatically be populated by the spreadsheet.

Lately I have been having problems with Google Sheets’ function to fetch the dividend information, as it keeps on timing out and returning “#N/A” result or errors. To tackle this, I set up 2 back-up functions using add-ons and iex token (which I will elaborate more on how to set up in my next posts).

Essentially when Google Sheets’ function returns an error, the spreadsheet will automatically fetch the dividend information using the iex token method or the “IMPORTFROMWEB” add-on method

I also included a real time currency converter in this page so based on the currency chosen (converted based on USD), every information in this page will be in the selected currency.

In the near future, I’m planning to make the cash part to be populated automatically by the spreadsheet based on the information from the capital sheet

Trade Log

This sheet records all trade transactions that I have done and will automatically update all the information in the stock portfolio sheet.

Every month, I recorded all the reinvested dividend, stock purchase or sales and my cost basis and number of shares will be updated automatically.

Dividend Overview

This sheet is where I keep track of everything dividend in my portfolio.

• How much dividend I earn by sector
• How much dividend I earn every month year to year
• How much dividend I earn by account

Of course I included charts.

I do have to input the monthly dividend manually because I set up my portfolio to reinvest its dividend but my plan is in the near future, even this will be automated based on the information from the trade log sheet.

Future Updates

I constantly update this spreadsheet based on my needs and suggestions from people that use this tracker.

For now, I am planning to include the following in the future updates:

• Automated available cash information
• Automated monthly dividend earned information
• Notifications via email when certain cells (e.g stock price, gain/ loss %) reach a value that interests the user
• Options contracts

Where Can You Get This Spreadsheet?

Like I mentioned above, I mean to create a series of posts where I will explain in detail how you can DIY this spreadsheet from scratch and this first post is just meant to be a walkthrough of what I am using

But, if you can’t wait or the DIY road is not something that you are interested in, this spreadsheet is also available for purchase via Gumroad.

Also, don’t forget, when you use these links, you will be able to claim your free stocks

As usual, leave a comment or hit me up if you have an suggestions on how you think I can do better.

Update #1: Continue to Part 2 (“Creating a Trade Log”) HERE!

What is Index Fund/ ETF?

Index fund is a fund with portfolio that tracks an index in the market. For example, the Standard & Poor’s 500 (or more commonly known as S&P 500) tracks the 500 largest companies that trade in the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq.

Essentially by investing in this index, you are investing in a small amount of each company that are listed in the index. Let’s say that there is an apartment building that has 100 units and each unit is being sold for $100,000. Instead of buying each unit for $100,000, you then pay $100 to own a share worth $1 of each apartment. This means that you are not an owner of any single whole 1 unit but an owner of a portion of all the unit in the building.

An ETF works like an index fund, except it behaves like stocks, which means you can buy and sell it as much as you want throughout the trading day, as opposed to index fund that allows you to invest once a day. In term of performance however, there is virtually no difference between ETF and Index Fund.

Why Invest in Index Fund?

3 reasons why you should invest in anything really is you want a good return on your investment with the minimal amount of work and acceptable risk.

It provides a better return than individual stocks in the long run

The idea is that the stock market always goes up in the long run. By investing in the market as a whole you are going where the market is going. Compared to picking individual stocks that could go bankrupt and cause you to lose all your money.

You may not beat the market, since you are exactly where the market is but in my book, if I am beating the inflation, I am earning money.

It is easier to invest in index funds than to look for individual stocks

Since you are investing in the whole market, there is no need for you to pour over all the financial statements that you will have to do if you were to invest in individual stocks.

It’s safer than picking individual stocks due to broad diversification

Since you are investing in the whole market, you are much safer than if you were to invest in an individual stock. Let’s say that you invest in an energy company and the CEO of the company embezzled funds from the company which causes shareholder to lose trust in the company. In turn, the stock price will goes down.

Index fund however self cleans itself. Let’s say that you own the whole market, and the same energy company went bankrupt. The value of the company is no longer counted in the stock market. This is why index fund is safer. Sure, the price may goes down a little bit, but it will not goes down as much as if you were to own the company’s stock individually since the company is just a small percentage of the total stock market.

Investing in the stock market has never been easier due to many brokerages allowing you to trade without comission or opening account without fees like Robinhood and WeBull.

And, if you click the invite links on this page for Robinhood and WeBull, we will both get 2 free stocks from WeBull and 1 free stock from Robinhood valued up to $1,000.

Remember, for WeBull you have to complete your deposit within 24 hours

Anyway, by no means do I consider myself a financial expert, but here are 4 financial goals to have in 2020. Why 4? Because 3 is too little and 5 is too many.

1. Curb your impulse purchases
2. Track your expenses
3. Pay yourself first
   • Build an emergency fund
   • Start an Retirement Account
   • Start an investment account
4. Pay off at least 1 debt

Curb your impulse purchases

I know a lot of people who seems to buy things impulsively, whether it’s that second cup of Starbucks coffee, or a clothing article because it’s on sale. The rationales involved are usually somewhere along the line “I have had a long day today, I deserve this” or “I have not purchase anything for a while”.

I am not saying that you should not get a second cup of coffee if you do need it (we all had those days), but rather to differentiate your want and need appropriately. Any small purchases if you are not disciplined will add up over time, when the money spent could have been invested and generate income.

Having a long day or not having bought anything for a while do not justify impulse purchases. Spend your money wisely.

Track your Expenses

For my December 2019 challenge, I decided to start tracking my expenses and spendings again to have a clearer picture on my financial situation. I recommend you to do the same thing for the year 2020.

When you have a clear picture of what your monthly expenses is like, you can see where you can save money or allocate the spending to a better alternative.

There are many apps on iOS and Android that you can use to do this in the app store. Personally, I use the Spendee app because it is simple and easy to use. The user interface also reduces a lot of passive barrier for me to maintain the habit of tracking.

Pay Yourself First

When you pay yourself first, it is not the same as using the money to buy or spend it on yourself first. It simply means when you get your pay checks or earnings for the month, you set aside a portion of it to be invested first before you pay off other things.

There are many ways for you to set aside a portion of your paychecks automatically every month (contact your HR Dept. or your bank). Aim to set aside 30% of your paychecks every month in a separate account with the remaining 70% to be used for everything else. Once you automate the process and forget about the 30%, you will be surprised how you can adjust to just using the 70% for your daily expenses.

This is where tracking your expenses come into play. Depending on how much you get paid monthly, you have to know your fixed expenses (phone bills, mortgage, electricity, etc; party fund does not count) so you have a clear picture how much you can set aside. Do not worry if you can’t set aside 30% as long as you are setting aside money to be invested and commit to increasing the percentage set aside in the following months. The plan is to make this sustainable and long term.

Once you have set aside your pay every month, start making a conscious decision in allocating the money into the following accounts:

• 3 – 6 months of emergency fund
• Retirement Account
• Investment Account

Emergency Fund

In order to make this habit sustainable, you need an emergency fund. Emergency fund will act as a buffer when unexpected emergencies come up that require money. The keyword being emergency, going out for the night with friends that came from out of town is not considered an emergency.

Commit 1/3 of the pay you set aside every month into the emergency fund. The point is by having an emergency fund, you continuously set aside money every month because when these emergencies come, you can continue setting aside 30% of your pay.

Try to aim for 3 – 6 months of fixed expenses for the emergency fund and once you have filled up the fund with at least 3 months of fixed expenses, the leftover can be put into the retirement and investment accounts.

Retirement Account

Put another 1/3 of your set-aside-money into your retirement account. If you live in America, then Roth IRA, traditional IRA or anything your company offers will work. Even better if your company do a saving matching.

Investment Account

Finally, with your last 1/3, invest it. Start a low cost safe investment. Invest in bonds, invest in low cost index funds, invest in CDs as long as you invest it. The point is to get time on your side and compounding is the way to go.

Pay Off At Least 1 Debt

Aim and commit to pay off at least 1 debt. If you have more than 1 debt, start with the one with the highest interest rate or the one with least principal if the interest rates are equal.

Anyway, if you have your own personal financial goals that are not similar to this post, I will be very interested in hearing about them. Drop me a message or an email and let me know.