The problem we face with our investments is time. Time is the biggest factor in determining how your money will grow and where it will go. Unfortunately, no one can control or change this variable as it just simply marches on regardless of what you want to do. One way for us to fight back against time’s constant progression is through diversification.
We have to put our eggs in a few different baskets if we want any hope of creating a reliable financial portfolio. However, diversification can be extremely difficult as you not only have to manage the assets that you’ve invested in but also their placement on your timeline as well. This is where a timeline creator for your financial portfolio comes into play.
A timeline creator will allow you to not only visualize your investments but make them easier to manage as well. A good timeline template even allows you to change timeframes and simulate different scenarios. The rest of this post will go through five ways that timeline creators can be used to ensure a successful financial portfolio experience.
1. Using a Timeline Maker To Track Your Investments
When making a timeline for your investment portfolio, it is important to think about the amount of information you’d like to share. If you want a simple version that leaves out a lot of the details, then you should only include the main points such as when an asset was purchased and sold. If you plan on showing off your investments, then a more comprehensive timeline may be a good idea. Most investments only date back to the 1970s or 1980s, but if you want to go even further then that is certainly possible as well.
Once you’ve decided on what level of information you want to be shown on your timeline, making sure everything appears correctly will be the next step. Add your currencies, stocks, bonds, and other investments to the timeline. Use colors or icons that will make it easy to distinguish one investment type from another.
2. Using a Timeline Generator To Make A Comparison Chart
Having multiple timelines created for your financial portfolio can help you to visualize how different approaches can affect your results over time. Even if you’ve only made one, you can still use it for this purpose.
Don’t just stick to making timelines that show the results of different investments though. There’s nothing wrong with adding in your lifestyle expenses so you can see how much free cash you truly have available at your disposal after all the bills are paid each month.
On top of this, you may want to use a pie chart to let you see how much of your investments are going into each of the vehicles you utilized. Head over to Venngage to use their pie chart maker.
3. Make Timeline To See Your Investments In A Different Light
The way we approach our investments is always changing and the results we get from doing them are often not consistent either. Sometimes you’ll find that your portfolio rises by 10% in two years while other times it only grows by 2%. Chances are these figures aren’t all too random though. This means you can use a chart of your investments to see if you notice any trends. For example, the timeline below shows the ups and downs that appeared with this portfolio over time. If we pay attention, we’ll realize that it rose in February each year along with December which saw the biggest gains by far.
4. Creating Timeline To Look For Loopholes
Even though there are many different types of investments to choose from, they all share one common trait. They seldom pay out any money on the days when you expected them to. We call this an income gap and it can be extremely frustrating to deal with each time your paycheck is due.
There’s also another type of gap called an “opportunity cost gap” which occurs when you miss out on a chance for a return because of how often your money is tied up. These types of gaps can be even more difficult to track down and address than the other one, but by using a timeline creator to see if any significant ones exist in your portfolio, we might be able to figure out a way to deal with them.
5. Using a Timeline Creator To Keep Track Of Your Retirement
When saving for retirement, reducing your taxable income as much as possible is vital. If you’re like most people and end up spending all the money you make before it even makes its way into the bank account, then this is an important step to take. This is where having a timeline created for your portfolio can help out.
Making certain that everything stays on track with your retirement savings plan will allow you to rest easy knowing that there won’t be any last-minute surprises waiting for you when it comes time to retire.
When the time comes to retire, looking at the complete picture of your portfolio will be important, but it isn’t everything. After all, there are plenty of different types of investments that may come into play then too.
Conclusion
Having a financial portfolio timeline created doesn’t have to be costly or time-consuming if you know where to go. If you found our free timeline creator useful then feel free to pass the link on to your friends and family members.
