The Future Self projection extends your actual behavior forward — your real income, spending, and saving pattern from recent months, compounded over 10, 20, and 30 years. It's not a hypothetical calculator; it's your current trajectory, made visible.
The lines and the band
- Current pace — where your net worth goes if the recent months keep repeating. This solid line is the honest centre; it moves when your behaviour moves.
- Optimistic and Pessimistic — a dashed line above and below, with a shaded band between them. These aren't guesses about a "better" or "worse" you — they're built from your own month-to-month variability (one standard deviation above and below your average monthly surplus). A steady saver gets a narrow band; someone with lumpy income and spending gets a wide one. The band is the honest range your recent history supports.
Why it changes
The projection recalculates from your data, so a strong saving month bends it upward and a heavy quarter flattens it. Don't read a single month's wobble as destiny — the point is the trend, and the trend responds to you. That responsiveness is deliberate: watching the curve move after a real decision is the most motivating feedback loop in personal finance.
The scenario explorer
Beyond the default horizons, the scenario explorer lets you ask what if: a different monthly saving amount, a different return assumption — and watch the horizon redraw. Use it to price big decisions ("what does this recurring cost really cost me over 20 years?") rather than to daydream.
Reading it with the right expectations
Projections assume the future resembles the recent past — no forecast survives a career change, a market crash, or a windfall. That's fine: the projection's job is not prophecy. It's to make this month's behavior visible at the scale where it matters.