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One of the foundational posts by Financial Independence (FI) bloggers is a monthly report which is essentially a combination of their balance sheet and income statement.

I respect their reasons for posting it, but I have decided to not share mine for one reason – It is not a valuable use of my time writing about it and of your time reading about it.

I agree with the benefit of tracking in regards to different aspects of life you intend to improve. Peter Drucker, a famous business writer, once commented,

If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it

Ever since I started tracking my income, expenses, and net worth via a balance sheet and income statement, I have seen my net worth grow many times over. Yes, it reads as if I am bragging, but it is more of a byproduct of my initial low net worth.¹

As I have my system already set up, pulling and updating the figures are not particularly time consuming, but explaining the monthly changes would take most of the time and the following discussions are not productive.

If the numbers are low relative to the reader’s own financial figures, the reader may ask, “what can I learn from him?” If the financial numbers are high relative to the reader’s net worth, the reader may ask, “I may never get to his number.”

Posting the exact figures is limiting this blog’s potential to reach more audience because of the distractions it causes, and if you are already tuned out before reading my other posts, you may not learn as much as you could have otherwise.

Financial figures are also location centric. Structurally, people living in high cost of living states and countries require different financial numbers than people living in low cost of living states and countries.² Writing another article to explain my cost of living situation is another distraction I prefer to not have.

The science and art of calculating your own net worth can be a discussion in and itself. I once posted the question of “how do you calculate your net worth?” to the local ChooseFI group and I got more follow-up questions and more nuanced calculation techniques from members.

I also do not intend to operate as a public company. What do I mean by that? For regulatory reasons, a public company is required to disclose their financial figures quarterly and may need to answer follow-up questions via conference call. Its stock price will be very much affected by the management’s ability to market its strategic plan to the Wall Street analysts. I prefer to have autonomy over the direction of my finances, and my specific use of my finances may not be applicable to your life for many reasons.

I do me, you do you. Personal finance is personal.

You may ask, “if I am not posting my financial figures, what am I going to be posting about?” Well, you have to wait till next post to find out, whenever that may be.³
🙂

Click here if you want to know know a little more about me.

Click here if you want to why I started the blog.

Click here if you want to know why I picked this name.

1. I would love to have had a net worth of exactly ₵1, perhaps in a foreign currency that has depreciated vs. the US dollar. It could make this post sound a lot more braggy, if this is even a word.
2. I intentionally do not mention any specific states and countries. I don’t want to hear the imaginary expletive from one of my 5 readers since I inadvertently offend the reader’s state or country. I like my 5 current readers equally.
3. I have not completely eliminated the possibility of publishing a specific part of my finances, but most bloggers publish them as marketing tools for their specific courses. For example, a real estate blogger may publish his/her income report to sell a course on rental property. The only things I can sell you now are the free T-shirts collected over the years that I haven’t been able to Kon-Mari away.