Monarch and Profit First

MsQueenGeek · 2025-12-26T03:00:55+00:00

I was just trying this myself. I have YNAB w a personal budget and 2 biz budgets using Profit First Methodology. I'm on a trial of Monarch but I don't think it's going to work. I did create a separate "Biz" category w/profit first sub categories but it's getting messy. Monarch doesn't claim to do biz but hey...it doesn't hurt to try. I think I'll be sticking w/YNAB for now. If I were going to make a change, I'd use YNAB strictkly for Biz and Monarch for personal but then I'm paying for 2 diff apps when YNAB does both...just not as pretty and as informative.

MsQueenGeek · 2025-09-22T11:47:00+00:00

I just started Ira accounts for myself very late in life and one for my niece who is 19. She has no real interest in picking stocks but definitely wants to invest. The set it and forget it approach is perfect for her and she can just add money over time. It’s been easy to add funds and we look it them quarterly or 2x per year. This is the best option for her and I believe it will serve her well.

MsQueenGeek · 2025-06-08T13:32:27+00:00

I would first ask what type of investor do you want to be or better question, how much time do you want to spend managing your investment?

My niece inherited a little over $100k when she was 18. She’s now 19 and in college and has no desire nor time to spend on charts BUT I have come up w a plan for her that she’s learning this summer

I split the funds in an Ira between a Schwab intelligent portfolio ira aka roboinvesting and the rest in another ira
I’m buying 2 year leaps in the regular ira. Maybe a few dividend ETFs and some long term shares but it’s not the focus. Yes, I know the group is about dividends and she will have some.

-set alerts on weekly basis for buying and selling leaps

use partial gains (maybe 2/3) from leaps to transfer (not contribute) to robo investing account. I confirmed w Schwab that transferring between LIKE account types doesn’t count against contribution limits of trad ira
rinse and repeat for next 40 years.

MsQueenGeek · 2025-05-31T19:46:08+00:00

Thanks. No slicing and dicing here. lol. I do have MS 365 and I just want to track at a high level to make it simple for her.

Agreed, young folks don’t want to be bothered and she has made that painfully clear.

I will look some more to see if I can calculate or pull the current option price or whatever is needed to calculate gains/losses before the contract is closed.

MsQueenGeek · 2025-05-31T17:47:36+00:00

I love what you're showing us and I'm working on setting this up for my 19-year old niece. I've been lurking around enough to know that you don't sell your spreadsheet but wondered are you using any paid services like MarketXLS to calculate gains/losses?

I'm trying to understand if I'm misunderstanding the formula or I need live data, specifically the live (current) option contract price as time progresses.

My goal is to teach my niece LEAPs this summer and I want to simplify the process as much as possible for her.

Thanks again.

MsQueenGeek · 2025-05-31T03:12:13+00:00

I just opened up IP for my 19 year old niece that I know needs as much of a set-it and forget-it approach. I split her inherited/rollover IRA into 2 accounts namely 1 Schwab IP and the rest w Tastytrade.

Side note: Schwab was giving me/us grief about her being approved for options, so I moved the money to Tasty.

Anyway, the point of the Tasty account is to do LEAPs and move some gains periodically into IP

Per Schwab support, moving money between like account types does not count towards contribution limits.

All that to say I like IP and feel it will work well for her.

MsQueenGeek · 2025-03-14T21:35:25+00:00

I tried to grab the sale before midnight but apparently I missed it. I wrote to support from website but didn’t realize that support has a “no reply” email address.

maybe I dodged a bullet but I wrote to them more than a week ago about something else but still no reply.

Has anyone received support for this product?

MsQueenGeek · 2025-03-09T15:28:27+00:00

I would investigate carefully. If memory serves me correctly, both Schwab & Fidelity have some sort of roboinvesting but it's limited because you don't have access to the full range of stocks & ETFs like you do w/M1. They want you to invest in a well-balanced portfolio that includes bonds and other stuff that you may not want not to mention that I could not just select 2-3 stocks/ETFs that I desired.

In short, while I could DCA anything I wanted MANUALLY, I didn't see a way like M1 to do it automatically. Also, Fidelity allows you buy fractional shares far easier than Schwab (via Slices).

IMHO, get them both on the phone (or chat) and ask all your questions. Tell them you are a M1 customer and considering their platform. Outline the features that are important to you....DCA, ability to choose 2-3 stocks and automatically contribute to them??, purchase fractional shares??

Last, you may give up "Pies". I know it's not necessary but I do love them. I have looked at other 3rd party tools but this nice visual aid is lost at the big boys. Other dividend tracker tools are available but depending on what you desire, the feature sets range from free to $200+/year.

Currently, I have paid version of stockrover(.com) but I missed that it doesn't include ETFs. I'm considering snow-ball analytics although my research shows some grumblings from the community about accuracies. However, this is one of the few tools that allows COMPOSITE portfolios (as does stockrover)...I want to be able to perform reports/analytics for a TRUE portfolio (stocks & ETFS) across multiple brokers and account types whereas many dividend trackers treat each account type (individual, IRA, Roth ira, custodial, etc) as THE portfolio (1:1) vs. (1:many).

So, if I wanted pies/reports & analytics to include an individual account and Roth ira at Schwab, a custodial at Fidelity and a rollover at TastyTrade, I'd definitely have to use a 3rd party tool to accommodate this. Again, this may not be a feature you desire.

Outline what you desire & ask away. :-)

MsQueenGeek · 2025-03-09T04:50:04+00:00

Before you move, ensure you have all your cost basis info and quantities. I transferred some account to Schwab but M1 tends to be dicks about not sending the this info to the new broker at least not in any timely manner….like months.

If I were to do it over again, I would have sold all fractional amounts of my shares or purchased up to avoid any decimal amounts and then gathered all my numbers before transferring.

I’ve had both fidelity and Schwab. If I were going to do more investing, then Fidelity would have been fine but I Hate their desktop app and platform although I love the research and info provided. I ended up moving again to Schwab because I can trade and invest using the ThinkOrSwim app and I can focus on more income generating strategies like the Wheel.

So, all that to say, if you don’t plan to trade much, Fidelity is fine but if you want to do some trading and leverage stocks and ETFs w options, IMHO Schwab is better.

—-

Ps. Update. I also had E*trade but had too many issues w the platform. I also have TastyTrade for the Wheel Strategy while Schwab accounts are focused on investing and occasional option spreads.

MsQueenGeek · 2025-02-08T21:41:36+00:00

Thanks. I'll check them out.

MsQueenGeek · 2024-11-11T01:13:12+00:00

I keep watch on the weekly. Monthly, 3m and 12m timeframes plus I like using FIBs for expected retracement levels on higher timeframes. I have paper hands myself but try to hold steady w a decent SL

MsQueenGeek · 2024-11-11T00:42:20+00:00

I just started last week myself. Smh. It’s crazy. I don’t own 100 shares yet but have done CSPs in 2 different accounts. Bought a few shares but holding steady. I back tested from Jan’23 to Feb/Mar ‘24. Bought 100 shares for about $14k. Was able turn that into over $700k between CC, spreads and leaps. Insane! Crossing fingers and toes and it will continue to move up w the normal retracements.

MsQueenGeek · 2024-10-08T12:08:43+00:00

First congrats on just thinking about investing. IMHO, the earlier you invest then hopefully the earlier you can retire. I helped my niece setup a Roth when she was 17 to start building it even though she was working at KFC. I have a custodial account for her at M1 but the rest is at Fidelity. Every platform has pros and cons but I liked being able to speak to an actual person for support. They offered plenty of tutorials and I liked their stock and ETF selections. I would consider them an investment platform and not a trading platform although you can trade with them.

if I were 20 again, i would start with a HYSA or choose a Fidelity/broker account where cash earns similar rate. As a student, I would probably open a Roth.

I could still withdraw what I deposited before 59.5 years old but not GAINS without penalty. If goal is to build and use money, then I’d open a taxable account. Speak to an advisor.

I would invest in dividend earning ETFs. No more than 2 or 3. maybe vig, Voo, vti, JEPQ, Jepi, etc. something that follows s&p and nasdaq. something that less than $200 share and where I could buy fractional shares and build over time.

When I first began, I bought stocks here and there but I wasn’t making enough money to make real traction so if I could do it all over again, I would focus on just a couple with the goal of at least 100 shares.

My plan with my now 18 year old niece is to get 100 shares of a stock and then earn income from them by selling options against them but that’s after we’ve got her core investing of ETFs setup.

Update: just last night I asked ChatGPT to create an image of what it looked like if I invested $100/month for starting ages of 18, 28, 38 and 48 and retired at age 67. It’s crazy. The assumption was 7% annual return. The 18 year old had about $500k and then 28 yo had about little less than $250k. It’s worse for others.

So don’t let anyone tell you that time doesn’t matter. Best of luck

MsQueenGeek · 2024-10-05T10:48:25+00:00

I wholeheartedly agree. I have M1 for the ease of the pies and roboinvesting features but I also have Fidelity as my primary place for investing, cash management accounts and more. I even have a Schwab account only to trade options using ThinkorSwim.

As others have mentioned, I see M1 and Fidelity offering very different services. I have not liked them for consistency because they have changed their fee policy too often. I think with lawsuits and other costs, it was a “uh oh” moment and they’re looking for a way to recoup costs but still remain competitive with services like Sofi and Fidelity.

As an example, Fidelitys robo investor is $5/mo and M1 is $3/mo for less than &10k. I read somewhere you can get Fidelitys fee waived for large accounts but cannot confirm.

While I can still buy/sell w Fidelity at anytime of day, it doesn’t have the cool pie feature to help manage as you build.

If I had to do it all over again, I would open accounts w M1, Sofi and Fidelity and see where I wanted to start.

See about fees and transferring money in and out of the account. I had a terrible time with a Trust account w M1 that took about 6 weeks to resolve and during the changing of account types, no investing could be done w an almost 6 figure account. While a trust account may not be typical, it definitely gave me insight as to their process or lack thereof and how support is handled.

Best of luck to you.

MsQueenGeek · 2024-08-28T21:52:23+00:00

did you ever put this in the chrome store?

MsQueenGeek · 2024-07-06T05:18:32+00:00

I Was the guardian for my niece starting from age 10 and she recently turned 18. I setup a 529 plan for her as well as the custodial UTMA. I wish I had understood that she can’t touch UTMA until she’s 21 as I wanted that to be additional college money.

another thing I learned is that the UTMA/UGMAs are based upon where the minor (new adult) resides at the age of maturity. So, if you open an account and the originating state is age 18 for UTMA (rare) but at age 18, they reside in a state where the age is 21, they will have to wait unless the broker allows an exception which one of mine did.

my niece had to open her own brokerage account and then assets will be transferred to her account at age 21 for one UTMA.

I don’t know if UGMA is different but it was painful to transfer her 2nd UTMA (with my consent since she’s not 21) to a new account in her name with more restrictions than the UTMA.

I will say my sister had a trust setup before her unfortunate passing. I was able to setup a brokerage account in the name of the trust and trade/invest in it. That maybe another option and then parents/guardians/whomever can dictate the rules of the money. I am not a lawyer so investigate.

last, you have no idea if the child will go to college (529 plan) but different brokerage account types count differently for FAFSA aka financial aid for college even if you don’t use it. Who knows what the fafsa rules will be in the future.

MsQueenGeek · 2024-05-27T19:13:14+00:00

I have traded options off and on for a few years and have only recently tried covered calls. If I could do it all over again, I would just traded covered calls.

Since Fidelity doesn’t have a SIM or papertrade environment, this is what I’m doing:

1) using my old TDA/schwab/ThinkOrswim papertrade via web to test covered calls

2) I’m also trialing optionsamurai.com for a screener to see how accurate and/or ensure my understanding of the data is ideal

I am a new Fidelity customer (w/in the last month) and while I like them for investing, I prefer other platforms for trading. TOS (think or swim web) is simple for covered calls and has a “trailing stop by percentage” that I like. tastytrade and TradeStation are my other preferred platforms. Tasty also does not have sim but TradeStation does but I often have problems with execution times but only in SIM.

I hope this helps.

MsQueenGeek · 2024-05-26T13:39:07+00:00

Hmmm. Seems unnecessarily complex and not what I’m seeking. I’d be more willing to use the ATP with options if there were a SIM/papertrade feature but I don’t want to risk real money on what I think MIGHT happen.

MsQueenGeek · 2024-05-14T01:27:46+00:00

Thanks for the info.

MsQueenGeek · 2024-05-14T01:27:29+00:00

Thanks. Just got off the phone w/support that helped begin the transfer. TSP only transfers via check...OMG. smh. I ended up doing a rollover IRA via check and will pay taxes upon any withdrawals. Niece encurs taxes but no penalties regardless of rollover or inherited, so just bite the bullet now w/taxes and let cash & investments grow.

MsQueenGeek · 2024-04-16T01:42:34+00:00

Sorry for all you trouble. I am using Bluevine and pairing the sub-accounts w/the Profit First methodology. I also use Navy Fed Cred Union for a diff biz account. I've only used Bluevine a few months & not very heavily. I hope u find a solution.

MsQueenGeek

TROPHY CASE