How I use “My TSP Portfolio” in iGoogle.
Since nobody has written anything like this up, I thought I would give it a try.
How I use “My TSP Portfolio” in iGoogle.
You can start this for any day in the past or today. i.e. go back to your last IFT which is how I use it.
- I turn off the L funds as I don’t move in and out of them (personal choice).
- I track all the individual funds (G, F, C, S, and I).
- If starting from scratch, go to tsp.gov and grab your share amount(s) to the fourth decimal. While at tsp.gov you should also write down the share prices (again to the fourth decimal). Also write down the present total $ amount you have.
Now you can go old school or new school here. I use pen, paper, and a calculator, so that’s old school. If your still using charcoal... well that's one-room schoolhouse and I call you "Sir".
- Take your overall $ amount and divide that by the share price for each fund. Round up or down to the fourth decimal.
- Plug those share prices into “TSP Portfolio”. All the $ values should be equal or your math/typing was off.
You now have your starting baseline.
- From this you can see over a few days or weeks the $ amount gained or lost in each fund. It's a nice quick and dirty, but it is also accurate from my experience using it
What I do with the information.
- I use G fund as my +/- benchmark. G fund still makes money (about 0.01% a day). So this is an upward moving benchmark. This benchmark quickly answers a few questions.
1. Am I making money on my latest IFT or not.
2. How much have I made or lost on my current IFT.
3. How are the funds doing wrt each other.
4. If I'm down, how much do I need to make back to break even or above?
I update this every time I put money into the TSP and here is how.
- So say like this past payday I was in the S fund, I write down all the share prices for when the money went in.
- I divided those share prices into the dollar amount that went in on that payday.
- I open up TSP Portfolio and add the new shares to each current share amount (use calculator).
- I do this for each individual fund. In this example, S fund would have been done already on tsp.gov, so I just plug that in.
- This keeps me in reality for comparisons. My G fund benchmark is moving up as it would had I been parked in it. The other funds are too.
Here is a variation of this that I've used in the past.
- G fund treated as above.
- I reset the other funds to match my current (in this case) S fund value (calculator).
Now, going forward, I can evaluate the I fund, C fund, or F fund with a new artificial baseline against the S fund. This can help steer me toward answering those what if's. I can't change yesterday. But I can learn and maybe reevaluate the decisions for why I did or didn't move.
Splitting between funds...
At present, I personally change my allocation every time I do an IFT. There are arguments for and against this to be sure. At other times I’ve set my allocation differently as a hedge.
If you split funds you can still track things with this iGoogle gadget. You just have to decide how you want to view it. I found that keeping G fund at 100% value and adding up the others in my head was best. But if you are partially in G fund as well… well it’s your call at that point.
Hope this helps anyone who hasn’t used this yet. I would also be happy to hear how others use this.
And kudos to the creator of this gadget, btw.
Pete
or loss
each day. It can track all 10 funds and you can hide the ones you don't have money in.
