Projections: Where You're Headed

Looking backward is useful. Looking forward is powerful.

Tracking your net worth over time shows you where you've been, and that's valuable. But the projection tool shows you where you're headed, which is where the real power is.

When you can see what your current savings rate and investment returns will produce over 5, 10, or 20 years, abstract financial decisions become concrete. "Should I save an extra $500 a month?" stops being a theoretical question. You can see the answer on a chart.

How projections work

The Projections tool takes your current net worth and models what it could look like in the future based on a growth rate you set.

You control the assumptions:

• Starting net worth. This is pulled from your most recent snapshot automatically.
• Growth rate. The annual percentage you expect your net worth to grow. This factors in savings, investment returns, debt payoff, and everything else.
• Time horizon. How far into the future you want to look.

The tool plots a curve showing your projected net worth at each point in time. It's not a prediction (nobody can predict the market), but a model for seeing what happens if you stay on your current trajectory.

Why growth rate matters more than you think

Here's where projections get really interesting. Small changes in your growth rate have enormous effects over time, because of compounding.

Let's say you have $200,000 today. Try adjusting the growth rate below to see how dramatically small percentage changes compound over time:

A 5-percentage-point difference between 5% and 10% growth translates to hundreds of thousands of dollars over a decade. Over 20 years, the gap becomes even wider.

This is why the projection tool is so valuable for decision-making. It shows you the long-term impact of the choices you're making right now.

What happens when you save more

This is the feature most likely to change your behavior. When you bump your growth rate by even a small amount (representing, say, saving an extra $500/month or getting a slightly better return on your investments), the projection curve shifts up.

And not by a small amount. Over 10 or 20 years, that small shift compounds into a meaningfully different outcome.

It turns a vague feeling ("I should probably save more") into a specific picture: "If I save $500 more per month, I'll have an extra $150,000 in 15 years." That's not theoretical; that's math.

Setting realistic growth rates

What's a reasonable growth rate to use? That depends on your situation:

Conservative (3-5%): Mostly cash savings with some bond allocation. Good for people who are primarily paying down debt or saving in low-yield accounts.

Moderate (6-8%): A mix of stock market returns and active savings. This is roughly what the S&P 500 has returned historically after inflation (about 7%).

Aggressive (9-12%): High savings rate combined with mostly equity investments, or a rapidly growing business. Achievable in growth years, but harder to sustain long-term.

Using projections to set goals

Instead of picking an arbitrary savings goal, try working backward from projections.

Want to hit $1 million by age 45? Open the projection tool, plug in your current net worth, and adjust the growth rate until the curve hits $1 million at the right time. Then figure out what combination of savings and returns gets you to that growth rate.

This turns a dream number into a plan. And having a plan you can see on a chart is far more motivating than a number scrawled on a sticky note.

Projections + milestones = momentum

The projection curve also shows you when you'll likely hit your next milestone. If you're at $180,000 and can see that at your current rate you'll cross $250,000 in about 18 months, that creates anticipation. You start rooting for yourself.

And when you actually hit it, the celebration screen on your dashboard confirms it with a badge. Learn more about how milestones keep you motivated. Then you look at the projection for the next one.

That loop (project, work toward, celebrate, project again) is how people build real wealth over time. Not through one big windfall, but through consistent progress that compounds.

Try it

Open the Projections page from your dashboard. Your current net worth is already loaded. Adjust the growth rate and watch the curve change. Then try adding just 1% more. You might be surprised how much that shifts the outcome. If you haven't set up your first snapshot yet, it only takes about five minutes.