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Hey, it’s Jeffrey — back again!
I've been tracking my net worth for years in YNAB and now Monarch. I check it every month or so in Monarch Money, feel somewhat good or bad depending on the market’s impact on my retirement accounts, and move on without much thought.
What I never actually calculated was whether I was building wealth faster or slower than the year before.
I exported my monthly net worth history and ran one prompt. I wasn't trying to do anything complicated. I just wanted to know the story in the numbers, not just the current balance.
Here's the prompt I used:
Here is my monthly net worth history. Each row is a month and the net worth value for that month.
[PASTE YOUR MONTHLY NET WORTH DATA HERE. You can export this from Monarch Money or YNAB under their net worth or reflect reports. If you do not use a tracking tool, estimate your net worth at the end of each year for the past 3 to 5 years using your account balances minus your debts.]
Please do the following:
Calculate the year-over-year dollar gain for each full calendar year in the data.
Calculate the percentage growth rate for each year.
Identify whether my growth rate is accelerating, decelerating, or staying flat over time.
Calculate my average monthly net worth gain over the most recent 12 months.
If the trend continues at the current rate, project what my net worth could look like in 1, 3, and 5 years.
Flag any months or years where the change looks unusually large or small, and ask me if there is a reason for it (like adding an account or receiving a windfall).
Keep the output clear and conversational. I want to understand the story in the numbers, not just a spreadsheet of calculations.
Here's what came up when I ran it on mine.
My data goes back about ten years. The early years showed high percentage growth, but on a small base, so the dollar gains were modest. That's the "building the snowball" phase. It looks impressive in percentage terms and doesn't feel like much in your account.
The more interesting part was 2022 to 2024, before any major life changes. The annual dollar gain roughly doubled each year. Not the balance. The gain itself. Growth of 14%, then 25%, then 30% in consecutive years. That's the kind of acceleration that's invisible when you're just checking a monthly balance and feeling good or bad about the market.
The prompt also flagged several months where the jump looked too large to be organic and asked me to explain before building any projections. A big spike when we combined finances after getting married. A down year I hadn't thought about in years. AI flagged each one, which is exactly what you'd want.
The 5-year projection, using only the organic growth rate after stripping out those one-time events, was bigger than I expected. I'm not treating it as fact since market conditions change, income changes, and life happens. But having an actual number to think about, grounded in my own history rather than a generic savings calculator, felt different.
One note before you paste your data: flag any years where you added accounts, combined finances, or received a windfall before the prompt builds its projections. Otherwise, it will model those jumps as organic growth, and the forward numbers will be off.
Keep going? Want to go further? Try these follow-up prompts after you get your initial result:
If your growth rate is decelerating: "My net worth grew [X]% in [year] but only [Y]% last year. What are the most common reasons wealth accumulation slows down, and what levers are typically available to reverse it?"
If you want to stress-test the projection: "Here are my net worth projections at the current growth rate. Now model three scenarios: one where my income drops 20%, one where the market returns 3% annually instead of 7%, and one where I increase my savings rate by 5 percentage points. How do the 5-year outcomes compare?"
If you don’t have YNAB or Monarch: "Help me build a simple method to estimate my net worth at the end of each of the past 5 years using only information I can look up in old account statements and my memory. Walk me through it step by step."
AI tip worth trying this week: writing polished reviews for small businesses
Most people have reviews they mean to write and never do. I love writing reviews for small businesses. It’s an easy thing to do that genuinely helps them.
I had a few bullet points rattling around in my head about my wedding DJ and finally just handed them to Claude. I jotted down what I liked, asked it to write a polished Google review, and it was done in a minute.
The move: next time you want to leave a review but can't face writing it, just jot a few things you actually liked and ask Claude to do the rest.
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One quick note: This newsletter is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. I'm not a financial advisor — just someone sharing ideas and tools I've found useful. Use what works for you, skip what doesn't, and always do your own research. Some links may be affiliate links or sponsored content for which I may receive compensation.