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Posted by JM on August 29, 2006, 10:34 am
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Gary wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I was just wondering if anyone here keeps track of the original amount
> they've contributed to their 401k or IRA, and if so, how? What I mean
> is, say I put $5,000 in each year for 5 years - I've contributed
> $25,000. That may now have a market value of $35k. Provided you've
> only purchased securities (and don't have reinvsted dividends or
> capital gains), you can easily see what your original cost basis is.
>
> If though, you've sold a mutual fund and purchased another because you
> either want to re-balance your portfolio or you've changed your
> investment style, that transaction results in a sale of the old
> security and a purchase of a new security. This new security's cost
> basis will be the market value of the security you sold.. Another
> scenario is where your company changes 401k managers and your
> investment choices don't carry over to the new manager. You
> effectively end up selling all of the old securities and purchasing new
> ones. Also, reinvested dividnes and capital gains obfuscate this a
> bit, too.
>
> I realize because I have this set up as a retirement account that none
> of these sales are affecting my capital gains, etc., but I guess I
> would like to one day look back at my nest egg and know how much of it
> was money I contributed and how much of it was gains or returns on that
> investment. I don't necessarily want to change my transactions in Q to
> trick it into a different cost basis, but I would like to find a way to
> keep track of how much I actually contributed vs. how much was gains or
> returns over my lifetime. This just for my own personal knowledge, and
> possibly as a tool to teach my children just what you can accomplish by
> starting to save for your retirement early. I think if I can show them
> that Dad put this much away each month and in total, and it grew to
> this much money by the time he retired, that would go a lot futher in
> teaching them the importance of saving than just looking at one of
> those graphs the 401k administrators hand out.
>
> Do any of you actually keep track of what you have contributed vs. what
> gains you've made? If so, could you share how? Or, have you decided
> not to bother with it and just look at the returns on the investments
> you currently have and the current value of you retirement accounts?
> Luckily I've kept good track of things and haven't had that many
> changes where I couldn't go back and figure out the amount now. I'm
> getting ready to make some significant changes to many of the funds I'm
> in (due mostly to overlap between my 401k and IRA), and now is the time
> to figure out what I'm going to do if I'm going to do anything. Also,
> I guess the thought watching that nice gap between cost basis and
> market value get smaller bothers me for some reason.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Gary
Yes, I have checked this on occassion out of curiosity. By proper
selection of customizing criteria, QW can give you this figure quite
easily - total, sub-total by year, etc. A Banking > Transaction Report,
customized for appropriate accounts and categories, can be created to
give you the info. It helps/simplifies the procedure if you include a
unique memo in your paycheck entry, e.g., 'Employee Contribution' as
you can include this in the customization criteria - all transactions
in which Memo Contains....
My case was complicated slightly by the fact that I have made both
pre-tax and after-tax contributions to the 401k. I differentiated
between these by creating classes - PT and AT - and appending the class
to the 'category'; e.g., an after tax contribution is indicated by
'[401k Acct]/AT'. An alternative is to include this info in the memo,
e.g., 'Emplyee Contribution - AT' or 'Employee Contribution - PT'.
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