The following are foundational actions that can help you steer your financial future. Choose one or more to try.

Step 1: Determine what you have

What You Have Worksheet. This Excel tool (complete with instructions) will help you place your current holdings into appropriate asset classes. Once completed, the Workbook provides an outline of how much money you have invested in each asset class along with the total monetary value of your holdings. It also calculates your asset allocations (the percentage of total assets are in each asset class). If you enter your liabilities, the Your Net Worth tab will automatically calculate your total net wealth.

What You Have Demo. This short video explains how to use the What You have Workbook.

Where You Stand Calculator. If you want to know more about how your net worth compares with that of your peers, visit the Don’t Quit Your Day Job (DQYDJ) website. This site has a large variety of interactive tools and articles on economics and finance.

Step 2: Determine how much you need to retire

Play around with these retirement calculators to determine how much you will need to retire, as well as how your finances would change with changing scenarios, such as retiring later, increasing your current income, or saving more now.

Retirement Calculator. NerdWallet offers an easy to use and very informative calculator. The more you know about your situation at retirement, the more accurate the results.

How Long Will My Money Last? If you are approaching retirement or have already retired, this NerdWallet calculator will help you assess how long your current assets should last. While you are on NerdWallet’s site, look for their other calculators related to debt payoff, mortgages, loans, and a range of other personal-finance topics.

Build Your Own Spreadsheets. Those who want to go deeper can use the spreadsheets and retirement tools offered on the Money for the Rest of Us website. These powerful tools are accompanied by instructional videos.

Step 3: Determine your asset allocations

This section provides links to a range of asset allocation types. As you peruse this material, know that there is no one portfolio that fits every woman’s needs. Be very wary when a site or commentator claims that there is only one way to invest or one best approach to building a portfolio. If you are cautious or new to investing, consider starting with the simpler models provided.

Vanguard Basic Stock/Bond Models. Vanguard tends to recommend simple portfolios composed of stocks and bonds only. This site graphs historic returns, as well as best- and worst-case scenarios for stock/bond portfolios over a 90+ year period.

Portfolio Charts. This site contains almost 20 model portfolios designed by a mechanical engineer “with a strong math education, a deep personal interest in finance and investing, and some nifty Excel skills.” Each portfolio goes deeper than those provided by Vanguard, such as breaking down public equities and fixed income into sub-asset classes and adding alternative investments. If you want to geek out, there are also some great tools to model your own portfolio.

High-Net Worth Portfolios. Toniic is a membership organization for accredited investors who want invest their values, including moving 100% of their assets toward positive impact. Pages 6 through 14 of Toniic’s 2018 guide shows the asset allocations among their members, many of whom have high-net worth. One very interesting table shows how money has been allocated by some individuals or values-aligned organizations (think foundations) with $25 million to over $1 billion in assets.

How to Think About Asset Allocation. David Stein used to be a professional investor. Now he runs the popular Money for the Rest of Us podcast. In this episode, David discusses the average returns on different asset classes over time and talks about different ways to approach your portfolio. The page also includes links to more of his podcasts on this topic.

Through his website, David offers a Plus membership, that currently costs $450 per year or $1,200 for a lifetime membership. The Plus portion of the site includes five model portfolios – ultra conservative, conservative, moderate, moderately aggressive, and aggressive. It also teaches you how to make your own allocation decisions and provides tools to design and track the performance of your portfolio. Janine is a Plus member and has found David’s work extremely valuable.

Step 4: Track your investment’s performance

If you have not done so already, delve into the details and performance history of some of your public equity and fixed income holdings using the Morningstar website or another online platform.

If you do not know how to find your fund’s performance, watch the demonstration videos provided in the Take Actions sections of Chapters 6 and 7 on this website. The demo in Chapter 6 will show you how to research bond funds, while the videos in Chapter 7 help you understand your stock funds.

Step 5: Create your Investment Policy Statement (IPS)

Building your own Investment Policy Statement is an important part of your investment journey. If you’re currently working with a financial advisor or investment manager, you may already have a personalized IPS. If you don’t have an IPS yet, download the IPS Workbook and develop your own.

Investment Policy Statement Workbook. This workbook contains both a template, instructions for you to create your own IPS, and two completed IPS examples. Don’t worry if you cannot fill everything out right now. As you get more comfortable with investing, it will become easier.  

Investment Policy Statement Form. You can use this form to create your own IPS.

The IPS is a great document to share with family, friends, and others with whom you discuss your financial situation. Once developed, you may want to revisit it on an annual basis to ensure it still reflects your goals.