The following is a graphic visual representation of the things that make me me. Hope you enjoy!
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Thoughts, reflections, and first-hand encounters in finance, operations, human behavior, and the economics of sports.
Purpose of this article: to help you quickly create and monitor your personal balance sheet.
A personal balance sheet provides an overall snapshot of your net worth (or net wealth) at a specific period in time. It is a summary of your assets (what you own), your liabilities (what you owe) and your net worth (assets minus liabilities). The old business adage “what gets measured, gets managed” rings true in your personal finances as well. Without a personal balance sheet, it becomes very challenging to put forth effective short-term and long-term strategies to improve your finances.
Compiling the necessary financial information to create your personal balance sheet can be an arduous manual process especially if you are not using personal finance software like Mint or Personal Capital. So if you do at least one thing after reading this, start using some personal finance software today! Here is a link to reviews on some of the best personal finance software.
There are a ton of reviews comparing all of the ins and outs of each of the different personal finance apps and software, but my favorite by far is Personal Capital. In short, Personal Capital gives you the best view of your Net Worth, and does this quickly, accurately, and in real-time. Additionally, Personal Capital utilizes Yodlee to sync up to your various financial accounts, and thus has fewer reported sync issues.
It’s not a budgeting tool like YNAB or Mint, and it doesn’t help much with daily cash management (i.e. managing expenses, paying bills, alerts on overspend, etc.). It is though an effective aggregator that can help you manage your short-term and long-term views of your net worth.
Using Personal Capital, the following personal balance sheet was created for Client A in less than 10 minutes:
All of the values for assets and liabilities are from the same day and thus reflect the same, single point in time for my client’s finances.
Now take a closer look at each column. Over the past seven months there has been a +24% increase in net worth as Client A’s net worth has grown from $183K to $227K. Back in December of 2019, the comprehensive financial strategy that was put in place focused on building retirement assets while steadily paying down liabilities owed, and thus far into the year this strategy is working for Client A.
In general, there isn’t really a magical solution that quickly changes one’s net worth position. Consistently executing your financial plan which usually entails some combination of savings, investing, and paying down debt is the tried and true strategy to increasing your net worth.
But before you can improve your financial situation, you need to measure your current starting point. The personal balance sheet is the best tool to help you do just that, and utilizing the financial app, Personal Capital, makes the compiling and tracking of this information seamless.
Personal Capital invite a friend link
You can download the excel file of the balance sheet template here:
The 2018–19 season saw Carlito break into the Mansfield Town F.C. first team on a regular basis. He started the Stags’ first league match of the season, and quickly became a household name by the winter festive period. On November 24, 2018 he had one of his best games of the season assisting on all 3 goals in a 3-1 victory over Lincoln City F.C. By this point in the season, Carlito had netted 5 goals and provided 5 assists, helping the Stags collect 36 points from their first 19 games, and vault into second-place. Carlito had the complete game on December 22, 2018, winning man of the match and netting one goal and an assist in a 2-0 victory against Stevenage F.C. Carlito’s performances continued to accelerate as he helped to drive the Stags to the top of League Two by the end of January 2019, and earned the Player of the Month Award. The Stags continued to march on with the help of Carlito as they earned a pivotal three points on February 2, 2019 with a 2-1 come from behind victory against Macclesfield Town. For the remainder of the 2018–18 season Carlito would go on and establish himself as a nearly unstoppable play maker for the Stags. By season’s end, the Stags were crowned EFL League Two champions. All in all he made 53 appearances in all competitions during the 2018–19 season, scoring 18 times, and assisting on another 21 goals.
The FA Cup Miracle of 2018–19
Although FA Cup giant killers are a real thing, miracle runs like this can only happen on the sticks ?.
Los Angeles is a city with a deep sporting tradition. Between the Lakers, Dodgers, Kings, Bruins, and Trojans, the City of Angels fields professional and collegiate teams that historically have won a number of Championships. So in the summer of 2004 when the MLS agreed to a second team in LA, the expectations were high. In the shadows of the established LA Galaxy, Chivas USA was born.
From the beginning, Chivas USA leaned into the strong Hispanic heritage permeating Los Angeles, and placed a large bet on the fact that roughly 9% of the nation’s Hispanic population lives in LA:
The lead investor, Jorge Vergara, was a Mexican businessman, film producer, and owner of football club Chivas de Guadalajara of the Mexican 1st division. With his support, Chivas USA modeled itself after its parent club, Chivas de Guadalajara, and set out to build a team in direct contrast to the bourgeois Galaxy across town.
In the inaugural 2005 season, Chivas USA drew 273,284 over 16 home matches and a franchise record 317,432 in Year 2. A deeper look into attendance by year reveals the Chivas USA average attendance in the early years were on par or above the league average.
From 2005 to 2009, Chivas USA made the playoffs four out of five years. But it’s on the field performance quickly dropped off from 2010 onward as the club missed the playoffs every year since 2010. By the final three years of its existence, Chivas USA were bottom of the league in average attendance and bottom of the league in performance.
To put it in more quantifiable terms, of the 320 regular season games played over their 10 year existence, Chivas USA lost 47% of them and drew 25% collecting on average only 36 of the available 96 points each season. Ultimately their tepid on the field performances caught up with them and their fans stopped showing up. Fans simply don’t like to support losing teams, especially fans in Los Angeles.
Brian Nwokedi’s Book Review on Goodreads
Direct Link to Book: The Survivors Club
Author’s Twitter: @bensherwood
Seven Ways To Increase Your Odds of Surviving a Plane Crash by Business Insider
10 Tips That Could Save Your Life by The Art of Manliness
The male brain has larger centers for aggression and action and is wired for pursuits that require solitary work. The male brain is finely tuned to sense threats, connect through sex, react quickly, and respond directly to spoken cues of others.
The female brain has larger centers for nurturing, communicating and forming social bonds, and is wired for pursuits that require interaction with others. The female brain is finely tuned to read faces, hear emotion in tones of voice, and respond to unspoken cues of others.
In Closing
It’s not that men and women are from two different planets as John Gray wrote in 1992. It’s more simply that women and men have different brain realities caused by differences in testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone. These hormonal differences give women the edge when it comes to connecting emotionally, observing fully, and communicating effectively, and thus are ultimately better at sustaining deeper relationships with others. So the next time you have a communication disagreement with someone of the other sex or have a challenging time understanding their point of view, remember to give yourself a bit of grace because “boy-behaviors” and “girl-behaviors” are simply hardwired into our brains at birth.
Extras
In this year’s version, I wanted to find a club in the fourth division of English football that was close to Nottingham Forest (my wife’s club). My hope was to play 1-2 years with the current team striving to get promoted. My target was to eventually be sold to a bigger club like Forest or Chelsea.
On November 24, 2018 (in the virtual world), Carlito has one of his best games of the year and announces himself to the EFL League Two during a 3-1 victory over Lincoln City.
In a 2-0 victory against Stevenage, Carlito as a complete game and wins man of the match with a 9.5 overall match rating.
Carlito’s performances continued to accelerate as he helped drive Mansfield Town F.C. to the top of the league by January 2019.