Net Worth Over Time: Assets, Loans and Inflation

Published by Adrian Vogel · Reading time: approx. 8 minutes · As of: September 2026

If you want to know how your wealth is doing, you probably look at your bank account. Understandable, and still the wrong place. A current account shows liquidity, not wealth. It does not show what your house is worth, how much debt is still sitting on it, what the collection in the cabinet means, or how much of your monthly instalment is repayment and how much is interest.

Rather than describe that at length, here is the result first, and not as a screenshot but as the module itself. What follows is the real Big Picture from OWNAMIC, calculated over an example household. The sliders are live: drag the inflation rate, switch the horizon to 20 or 30 years, enter a wealth goal, open the details. Every example figure in this article comes from exactly this calculation.

timeline Time horizon

tune Assumptions & net worth target expand_more

trending_down Inflation

2.0 %

Amounts are future euros at 2.0 % inflation.

trending_up Income growth (nominal)

2.0 %

Real income growth (income vs. prices): 0.0 %/year

flag Wealth goal

€

A target for your net worth — shown as a dashed line, in the net-worth view only.

Net worth With unchanged inputs, net worth would grow over 10 y by: +363,801 €

expand_content Details expand_more

Data basis

What the carry-forward actually rests on. Every kind of input that is not recorded is calculated as zero and makes the curve too optimistic.

check_circle	Income	5,300 €	entire horizon
check_circle	Fixed costs	2,600 €	entire horizon
check_circle	Variable costs	619 €	from 30 purchases
check_circle	Assets	417,000 €
check_circle	Debt	2,200 €	until year 5
check_circle	Savings plans	200 €	until year 10

Yearly surplus / deficit

Year →

shopping_cart incl. variable costs ≈ 619 € / monthsavings incl. savings plans ≈ 200 € / month — moved into assets, not spent

Net worthRemaining debt (mortgage)Value corridorSurplus Deficit

Net worth today 297,000 €

Corridor 10 yWith unchanged inputs this would give:≈ 625–697kfrom – to, not a commitment≈ 550,000 € in today's money

Cumulative 10 yWith unchanged inputs this would give:+123,243 €trending_up Surplus

Mortgage remaining debt 120,000 € → 0 €0 from year 5

functions How this chart is calculated — every formula expand_more

Everything below is computed deterministically from the recorded objects — no AI, no market forecasts. Symbols: t = month (0 = today), i = monthly interest rate, σ = assumed standard deviation, g = assumed annual value change of an asset class (0 % unless you set one).

Net worth today

Every active object counts at its documented (purchase-backed) or AI-estimated value: real estate, money and accounts at their recorded balance, financial assets (securities, funds, deposits), digital assets (crypto, tokens, licences), vehicles, collectibles and household goods. The remaining debt of all loans is subtracted. Consumed goods — consumables and cosmetics — are excluded, and a collection is a container that counts only through the objects it holds.

net worth(0) = documented values + estimated values − remaining debt(0)
asset classes: real estate · money · financial assets · digital assets · collectibles · vehicles · household

The net-worth line

Six effects move the line: the cash surplus or deficit of that month, the loan principal repaid in it, the durable share of variable purchases (a car keeps resale value, groceries do not), the inflation indexation of price-linked objects (real estate, collectibles), the money moved into asset classes by savings plans and planned trades, and — only if you set a rate per class — the assumed value change. Money assets, financial and digital assets, vehicles and household goods stay nominally constant by default. A savings rate leaves the surplus and arrives as a transfer, so the two cancel and the line does not move. The number above the chart is exactly the rise of that line over the selected horizon — the cumulative surplus alone is only one of the effects and has its own tile further down.

net worth(t) = net worth(0) + cumulative surplus(t) + repaid principal(t) + durable share(t) + inflation indexation(t) + transfers into assets(t) + assumed value change(t)

Yearly surplus / deficit (the bars)

Income minus expenses minus the full loan installment (interest and principal), any special repayments (Sondertilgung) and the rates of savings plans and planned purchases; sale proceeds count as inflows. A year's bar is the sum of its 12 monthly nets. The full installment, special repayments and savings rates all count as outflows here — the principal inside the installment and the transferred savings are credited back in the line above, never counted twice.

monthly net = income − expenses − loan installment − special repayment − savings rates & planned purchases + sale proceeds
year bar = Σ of the 12 monthly nets

Who pays when the bars are red?

A deficit is drawn from the money assets (accounts, deposits): their stock shrinks by exactly the accumulated deficit. Net worth can still rise at the same time, because most of the loan installment is not a cost but repayment — money moving from the account into home equity. Only the interest portion truly leaves the wealth. A savings plan works the same way: the rate leaves the account and turns into the asset it bought.

money assets(t) = money assets(0) + cumulative surplus(t)   (the surplus is already net of savings rates)
Δ net worth in month t = monthly net + principal(t) + transfers(t) = income − expenses − interest(t)

Loan repayment (the dashed line)

The remaining-debt line follows a real amortization schedule: each month interest is charged on the current balance, the rest of the installment repays principal. As the balance falls, the interest share shrinks and the repayment share grows. Any recorded special repayments (Sondertilgung) reduce the balance directly on top. Without a recorded installment, the annuity is derived from the contract values (n = term in months).

i = annual interest rate ÷ 12
interest(t) = balance(t−1) × i
principal(t) = installment − interest(t)
balance(t) = balance(t−1) − principal(t) − special repayment(t)
annuity fallback: installment = loan amount × i ÷ (1 − (1 + i)^−n)

The value corridor

An ~80 % confidence band around the expected line. AI-estimated values carry an assumed uncertainty of ±25 %; recurring spending an assumed variation of ±15 % per month — the band widens over time.

corridor(t) = net worth(t) ± 1.2816 × √(t × σ_spending² + σ_estimates²)
σ_estimates = 25 % of AI-estimated values · σ_spending = 15 % of monthly expenses

Wealth goal

A target you set for your net worth. It never enters the arithmetic — the line does not move because of it. It is drawn as a horizontal dashed line in the net-worth view, not in the category view: there the areas show a composition, not a total. The star marks the crossing with the middle curve, and the vertical dashed line runs from there down to the time axis. The tile states the span in which the goal could be met: the upper end of the uncertainty corridor gives the early year, the lower end the late one.

goal year = first month with curve(t) ≥ goal · span = [upper corridor edge, lower corridor edge]

Inflation

The chart shows future euros. Prices — recurring expenses and variable costs — rise with the inflation rate you set, and so do income (at your nominal income growth) and the value of real estate and collectibles. Money assets, financial and digital assets and the mortgage schedule are nominally fixed and stay flat (unless you set a rate per class), which is why savings quietly lose purchasing power while fixed debt gets lighter. Vehicles and household goods are left flat too: they are estimated present values with no depreciation model behind them, and indexing them up would overstate a stock that in reality loses value.

price level(t) = (1 + inflation)^(t/12) · today, real value(t) = nominal value(t) ÷ price level(t)

Variable costs (consumables, vehicles, …)

Consumables, vehicles, collectibles and household goods are carried forward from averages of your own purchases over a per-category window (e.g. 6 months for consumables, 7 years for vehicles). The full amount counts as spending; for durables the part that keeps a resale value (retention factor) is credited back as an asset, so net worth reflects depreciation rather than the full outflow.

net-worth impact = spend − retention × spend

Savings plans and planned trades

A savings plan is one repeating purchase event with a quantity and an amount per rate; a single planned purchase or sale is the same event without repetition. From tomorrow on, every occurrence inside the horizon moves money: a purchase leaves the money assets — it counts as an outflow in the monthly net, exactly like a loan installment — and lands in the object's asset class at the amount paid. A sale runs the other way. The transfer itself does not move net worth: the line assumes neither gain nor loss on it. Rates are fixed nominal commitments and are never escalated with inflation. Occurrences up to today are already part of the object's value and are not counted again.

monthly net = income − expenses − loan installment − special repayment − savings rates & planned purchases + sale proceeds
asset class(t) = asset class(0) + Σ purchases(≤ t) − Σ sales(≤ t)
Δ net worth caused by a transfer = 0

Value development of the asset classes

Every class starts at 0 % per year — no gain, no loss. Real estate and collectibles additionally follow the price level (inflation). If you state a rate for a class under „Configure scope“, today's stock and every transferred tranche compound at it from the month they are held. For comparison the chart derives what your own objects did so far: purchase price against latest valuation, annualized and value-weighted, over at least six months. That figure is read-only and never applied on its own — the past performance of a few objects is not a forecast.

value(t) = value(0) × (1 + g)^(t/12) · indexed classes additionally × price level(t)
historical g = (latest valuation ÷ purchase price)^(12/months) − 1, value-weighted per class (read-only)

Assumptions and limits

Asset values are held constant — no appreciation or depreciation, no taxes, no investment returns — unless you deliberately set a rate for a class. Market volatility of securities and crypto is not modelled; a savings plan is carried at the amount paid. Not in the carry-forward yet: pending bookings in the transactions inbox, the remaining balance of consumer loans (only their installments count), and the running costs of ownership (repairs, maintenance, fuel). Deficits are assumed to be funded from the money assets; the carry-forward does not warn when those would run out. It describes, it does not advise.

Where each object type lands

Every OWNAMIC object type and how the carry-forward reads it — derived from the same rules the calculation runs on, so this table cannot disagree with the numbers.

Object type	Assets	Cash flow
Flexible Physical belongings	Counts at its value: Household	Planned purchases and sales (events with quantity): transfer between money and this class
Appliance Physical belongings	Counts at its value: Household	Past purchases: variable costs (Household & electronics) · planned purchases with quantity: transfer
Artwork Physical belongings	Counts at its value: Collectibles	Past purchases: variable costs (Collectibles) · planned purchases with quantity: transfer
Clothes Physical belongings	Counts at its value: Household	Past purchases: variable costs (Household & electronics) · planned purchases with quantity: transfer
Collectible Physical belongings	Counts at its value: Collectibles	Past purchases: variable costs (Collectibles) · planned purchases with quantity: transfer
Collection Physical belongings	Counts at its value: Household	Planned purchases and sales (events with quantity): transfer between money and this class
Component Physical belongings	Counts at its value: Household	Planned purchases and sales (events with quantity): transfer between money and this class
Consumable Physical belongings	Not an asset (consumed)	Past purchases: variable costs (Consumables) · planned purchases with quantity: transfer
Cosmetics Physical belongings	Not an asset (consumed)	Past purchases: variable costs (Consumables) · planned purchases with quantity: transfer
Decoration Physical belongings	Counts at its value: Household	Past purchases: variable costs (Household & electronics) · planned purchases with quantity: transfer
Electronic device Physical belongings	Counts at its value: Household	Past purchases: variable costs (Household & electronics) · planned purchases with quantity: transfer
Furniture Physical belongings	Counts at its value: Household	Past purchases: variable costs (Household & electronics) · planned purchases with quantity: transfer
Jewlry Physical belongings	Counts at its value: Collectibles	Past purchases: variable costs (Collectibles) · planned purchases with quantity: transfer
Literature Physical belongings	Counts at its value: Collectibles	Past purchases: variable costs (Collectibles) · planned purchases with quantity: transfer
Material Physical belongings	Counts at its value: Household	Past purchases: variable costs (Consumables) · planned purchases with quantity: transfer
Musical Instrument Physical belongings	Counts at its value: Collectibles	Past purchases: variable costs (Collectibles) · planned purchases with quantity: transfer
Pet Physical belongings	Counts at its value: Household	Past purchases: variable costs (Household & electronics) · planned purchases with quantity: transfer
Plant Physical belongings	Counts at its value: Household	Past purchases: variable costs (Household & electronics) · planned purchases with quantity: transfer
Real Estate Physical belongings	Counts at its value: Real estate	Planned purchases and sales (events with quantity): transfer between money and this class
Sports Equipment Physical belongings	Counts at its value: Household	Past purchases: variable costs (Household & electronics) · planned purchases with quantity: transfer
Tool Physical belongings	Counts at its value: Household	Past purchases: variable costs (Household & electronics) · planned purchases with quantity: transfer
Toy Physical belongings	Counts at its value: Household	Past purchases: variable costs (Household & electronics) · planned purchases with quantity: transfer
Unknown Physical belongings	Counts at its value: Household	Planned purchases and sales (events with quantity): transfer between money and this class
Vehicle Physical belongings	Counts at its value: Vehicles	Past purchases: variable costs (Vehicles) · planned purchases with quantity: transfer
Digital Asset Financial assets	Counts at its value: Digital assets	Planned purchases and sales (events with quantity): transfer between money and this class
Financial Asset Financial assets	Counts at its value: Financial assets	Planned purchases and sales (events with quantity): transfer between money and this class
Money & Assets Financial assets	Balance as recorded: Money & assets	Source of deficits and savings rates; surpluses accumulate here
Mortgage Financial assets	Remaining debt (subtracted)	Loan installment from the amortization schedule, plus special repayments
Repayment Financial assets	—	Installment as fixed costwarning Gap: the remaining debt behind it is not modelled yet
Gift Income	—	Income or expense, per cost type
Salary Income	—	Income (recurring or one-time)
Insurance Service expenses	—	Fixed cost (income if the cost type says so)
Power or Heat Supply Service expenses	—	Fixed cost (income if the cost type says so)
Rent Service expenses	—	Fixed cost (income if the cost type says so)
Service Service expenses	—	Recurring: fixed cost · past one-time: variable costs (Services (services, accommodation, travel))
Subscription Service expenses	—	Fixed cost (income if the cost type says so)
Tax Service expenses	—	Fixed cost (income if the cost type says so)
Accommodation Travel costs	—	Recurring: fixed cost · past one-time: variable costs (Services (services, accommodation, travel))
Transportation Travel costs	—	Recurring: fixed cost · past one-time: variable costs (Services (services, accommodation, travel))

The example household: €5,300 salary, €2,600 living costs, a flat bought for €320,000, a €120,000 mortgage at 3.0 % with a €2,200 instalment, plus accounts, a securities account, a crypto wallet, a car, household contents and a collection. Description, not advice.

The Big Picture is part of OWNAMIC — how tangible assets get into it is shown on Wealth in view.

Why have such a module at all? Every three years the Deutsche Bundesbank surveys the wealth of private households in Germany. The figures from the latest wave (survey 2023, published April 2025) are sobering and instructive at the same time: average net wealth per household was around €324,800, the median only €103,200. More than 60 percent of total private net wealth is held in real estate. And although wealth rose in nominal terms, it fell in inflation-adjusted terms between 2021 and 2023.¹

Three things follow. For most households, wealth sits in things, not in accounts. What counts is the difference between assets and debts, not the sum of the assets. And a figure that is not adjusted for inflation says little about the future. That is exactly why OWNAMIC has the Big Picture.

What a Carry-Forward Needs in the First Place

At its core, it is a simple calculation, repeated every month:

Net worth next month = net worth today + this month's surplus + this month's repayment ± change in the value of your holdings

The devil is in the inputs. On one side the holdings: accounts, securities and cash, plus property, vehicles, household contents and collections, which for most households make up the bulk and are at the same time the hardest to put a figure on, and the liabilities with remaining balance, interest rate, instalment and end of term. On the other side the flows: income, fixed costs, variable costs and savings plans. And in between the assumptions nobody knows: inflation, income growth, value development per asset class, interest after the fixed-rate period. Leave any one of these out and most calculators will still draw you a curve. It is simply wrong, and usually too optimistic.

The Big Picture in OWNAMIC

You will find it on the My Belongings page under the Big picture tab, right next to the Money tab, once you have chosen Plan finances or The whole picture as your occasion. There is no separate input form for income and expenses. The Big Picture reads everything from what you have documented in OWNAMIC anyway: salary and running costs as services, the loan as a mortgage, purchases as objects, savings plans as recurring purchase events. What you set in the Big Picture itself are only the assumptions.

First, the data basis. Under Details → Data basis sits the sentence that describes the principle of the whole module:

What the carry-forward actually rests on. Every kind of input that is not recorded is calculated as zero and makes the curve too optimistic.

See also: Digital Inventory Management – Order That Holds Up When It Counts and When the House Burns Down and Nothing Is Documented – how the objects this data basis rests on come into being.

For the household above it reads:

Input	Example household	Coverage
Income	€5,300 / month	✓ entire horizon
Fixed costs	€2,600 / month	✓ entire horizon
Variable costs	€619 / month	✓ from 30 purchases
Assets	€417,000	✓
Debt	€2,200 / month	✓ until year 5
Savings plans	€200 / month	✓ entire horizon

Two rows deserve a second look. Fixed costs here are only the €2,600 of living costs; the loan instalment sits deliberately in its own Debt row, because for the greater part it is not a cost but repayment. And until year 5 on the debt row is not a gap but a statement: from then on the loan is repaid and the €2,200 are the household's again. A warning triangle on a row would not be an error but an honest label: either the input does not cover the whole horizon, or an average rests on fewer than three purchases. If income or fixed costs are missing entirely, the Big Picture withholds its figures, and the chart stays grey until both are recorded.

Then the assumptions. At the top of the view you choose the time horizon, 10, 20 or 30 years, and below it are two sliders. Inflation sits at 2.0 % by default, and the curve shows future euros, that is nominal values. For context: the inflation rate in Germany was a preliminary 2.9 % in August 2026, the core rate excluding energy and food 2.4 %.² Whether you calculate with 1.8 %, 2 % or 3 % is an assumption, and that is exactly why it is a slider and not a fixed number. Income growth sits at 2.0 % as well, and underneath OWNAMIC shows the figure that really counts: real income growth, by default 0.0 %. In the second quarter of 2026, nominal wages in Germany rose by 4.1 % year on year, consumer prices by 2.5 %, so real wages gained 1.5 %.³ That is a good year. Anyone calculating with 0.0 % real is calculating cautiously.

Next to them sits an optional wealth goal. It is the only field here that does not touch the calculation: the curve does not move by a single euro because of it. It is only drawn as a horizontal dashed line, and where the curve crosses it there is a star with a vertical line down to the time axis.

Variable costs come from your purchase history rather than from gut feeling. Most people know their rent to the euro but systematically underestimate their variable spending. OWNAMIC derives it from your purchases and past one-off expenses, per category with an adjustable lookback and average. Vehicles default to 84 months, because a car in Germany stays in private hands for about seven years on average; for consumables, 6 months is enough. In the example that gives ≈ €191 for consumables, ≈ €291 for vehicles and ≈ €137 for household & electronics, together the €619 from the data basis. You can overwrite any value; it is then your statement, not the algorithm's. For durable goods, OWNAMIC also credits a retained share back as asset value: vehicles 50 %, collectibles 90 %, household & electronics 25 %. A car keeps a resale value, groceries do not. The running costs of ownership, repairs, maintenance and fuel, are not yet included, and the Big Picture says so right there.

Value development per asset class is where most financial calculators make the numbers look good. OWNAMIC does the opposite:

The carry-forward assumes neither gain nor loss for any class: 0 % per year (real estate and collectibles additionally follow the price level).

Zero means zero. No securities account automatically grows by 7 %, no car automatically loses 15 %. If you want to assume an increase in value, you choose Own rate and type in an annual rate between −50 % and +50 %, and in doing so you make an assumption you are responsible for yourself. Real estate and collectibles follow the price level. That is not an assumption about an increase in value but the consequence of the inflation setting: if all prices rise by 2.0 %, the nominal value of a tangible asset rises too, without it being worth more in real terms. Money, financial assets, digital assets, vehicles and household contents, by contrast, stay nominally flat. Savings quietly lose purchasing power that way, while a fixed debt becomes lighter.

What your own objects show sits next to it in the From your history (read-only) column. In the example that is roughly +4.5 %/year for the financial assets, because the securities account was opened five years ago with €9,000 and is valued at €11,200 today. That figure is not applied automatically. Five good years are no proof that the next ten will go the same way.

The loan is the single largest item for most households. On the mortgage you enter the loan amount, interest rate, instalment and start and end dates, and OWNAMIC calculates the rest: in the example, €300 of the first €2,200 instalment is interest and €1,900 repayment, after four years it is almost all repayment, and over the whole term the household pays around €9,000 in interest on the €120,000. Special repayments you record as events on the loan. The example household is the comfortable case: the loan is repaid within the horizon, and that is exactly why the curve visibly tips upwards from year five.

The uncomfortable case is more common. If the term ends before the loan is repaid, the Big Picture freezes the remaining debt from the end date and visibly marks it as follow-up financing open – assumed. What happens after the fixed-rate period, nobody knows today: anyone who financed at 1.5 % in 2016 now sees mortgage rates of roughly 3.7 to 4.2 % effective for a ten-year fixed-rate period.⁴ That lets you see at a glance when that point comes and how large the sum is for which you will then need a solution. Useful to know: under Section 489 (1) no. 2 of the German Civil Code (BGB), a loan with a fixed borrowing rate can be terminated ten years after it has been received in full, with six months' notice, without an early-repayment charge, even if the agreed fixed-rate period runs longer.⁵ What counts is the date of full disbursement, which is in the contract or on the account statement.

Reading the Result

At the top of the view is the chart with two lines: net worth solid, remaining debt dashed. Above it the one figure that sums it all up: With unchanged inputs, net worth would grow over 10 y by: +€363,801, from around €297k today to around €661k in ten years. The pale green band around the line is the value corridor.

Under Details are the tiles you should actually read. Net worth today: €297,000, that is €417,000 of assets less €120,000 of remaining debt. This figure is in no banking app, because no banking app knows about the property, the collection and the household contents. The corridor 10 y with the sentence from – to, not a commitment and the most important line in the whole view: the end value in today's money. And cumulative 10 y, the sum of all yearly surpluses, with the most interesting observation in this whole article: the first years are red. Income of €5,300 against €2,600 living costs, €619 variable costs, a €2,200 instalment and €200 of savings leaves a small monthly shortfall, and the household draws on its €25,000 in savings and securities. Net worth still rises, because by far the greater part of the instalment is not a cost but repayment. From year five, when the loan is gone, the bars turn green and substantial.

With a goal set, a tile appears that does no calculating of its own but reads back how long that number could take. Deliberately as a span of years, not a date: the optimistic edge of the corridor gives the early year, the lower edge the late one. Enter €500,000 for the example household and you get such a span. Enter a million and you read instead that the goal does not look reachable within ten years, not even at the upper edge. Both are useful answers, and neither is a commitment.

If you want it exactly, you open How this chart is calculated – every formula at the very bottom. The calculation is laid out there in the open, right down to the corridor's formula: a band of roughly 80 % probability into which AI-estimated values enter with ±25 % uncertainty and running expenses with ±15 % fluctuation per month.

What the Big Picture Is Actually For

A curve over ten years is nice to look at. It becomes genuinely valuable the moment you face a decision that cannot be undone, and where most people have to rely on gut feeling because they do not have the numbers together.

A child. A child changes both sides of the calculation at once: income drops for a while, variable costs rise permanently. In the Big Picture you play that through before it happens: give the salary an end date, create a reduced income with start and end, raise the variable costs in the affected categories, pause the savings plan, and then see whether the bars in the surplus chart stay green. For the example household, which is tightly calculated anyway, the question would not be the red year but whether the €25,000 in savings last until year five.

Early retirement or part-time. "Can I stop at 60?" is at heart a question about the ratio of holdings to flows. Horizon set to 20 or 30 years, the salary given an end date in the desired year, a pension income at the reduced level after it, and the curve shows whether net worth keeps growing from that point, stagnates or is drawn down. If a salary has no end date over 20 or 30 years, the Big Picture even points out that most people retire during that time. Try it above. And it shows the result in today's money, which over 25 years makes the difference between a reassuring figure and a misleading one.

A sabbatical or self-employment. A year without salary is not a catastrophe if you know which pot it is paid from. A deficit is drawn from money assets, and in the Categories view you can see how far accounts and securities melt away. The carry-forward does not warn you when they would be exhausted; you read that off the curve yourself. If a sale from the collection would be needed, you record it as a planned sale event. That way you see what the year costs in the end: not just the lost earnings, but the lost repayment and the lost savings plan too.

See also: Why Writing Down Your Progress Helps You Reach Your Goals – the research behind the wealth goal.

In all three cases you do not change the model, you change your inputs. Whatever you set on the sliders, OWNAMIC saves automatically as your scenario; Load scenario brings that state back when, after moving things around, you want to look from the saved starting point again. The answer is then not a number with a commitment attached but a comparison of curves under assumptions you set yourself. The difference between a gut decision and an informed one is rarely that the second turns out differently. It is that afterwards you know why you made it the way you did.

What the Big Picture Deliberately Is Not

The Big Picture is not a financial plan, not an investment recommendation and not a forecast. It is a deterministic carry-forward of your own data under assumptions that you set yourself and that remain visible. The tiles say With unchanged inputs this would give, not you will have, and the wealth goal is put in the conditional and as a span, because a goal is not a date that software gets to hand out. Derived costs carry the word derived, the frozen remaining debt the word assumed. You always know which part of the curve rests on your documentation and which on a setting. Under the view it is stated once more: Description, not advice · Estimated values.

And the calculation runs in code, not in a language model. OWNY, the AI assistant in OWNAMIC, plays no part in it. Every figure in the Big Picture comes from traceable formulas over the data you have recorded, and the same inputs twice give the same curve twice. Only your assumptions are stored – encrypted – never the calculated result; the curve is produced afresh on every visit.

What the Big Picture currently does not model, it says in the view itself: price fluctuations of securities and crypto, the remaining balance of consumer loans (only their instalments count), the running costs of ownership such as repairs, maintenance and fuel, taxes and investment income, and open entries in the booking inbox. And it does not warn you when money assets would be exhausted in a deficit year. It describes, it does not advise.

Which assumptions feed the curve and where the figures come from is set out below under Transparency.

The Best Order to Proceed In

Work from the hard numbers to the soft ones. First the loan, because loan amount, interest rate, instalment and term are in the contract. Then income and fixed costs, without which the Big Picture withholds its figures. Then the savings plans, so that the €200 or €500 going into the securities account each month do not count as an expense but as a transfer. Then your assets, above all the illiquid ones: the property with a traceable valuation, the collection with documented objects, the household contents at least roughly. This is where most households have the biggest gap and the biggest part of their wealth; in the example above, €320,000 of €417,000 sit in no account at all. After that, check the variable costs, and only then the sliders, once deliberately cautiously and once deliberately optimistically. Last of all, if you like, a goal. A target line over a curve that is still missing half its assets only tells you how incomplete the data is. Over a complete one it tells you how far along you are.

A Compass, Not a Satnav

OWNAMIC calls itself your compass for value and order, and the Big Picture is the part of it that works most like one. A compass tells you where north is. It does not tell you whether you want to go there, which route to take or how long it will take. It knows neither the terrain nor the weather, and it has no opinion.

That is exactly how the Big Picture is built. It shows you which direction your wealth is moving in if everything stays as it is, and which if you change one input. Whether you then increase your repayments, take the sabbatical or set up the nursery is not decided for you by anyone. Not by an algorithm either. The compass points in a direction. You have to walk the path yourself. But you no longer walk it blind.

Transparency

The figures in this article come from an example household in OWNAMIC and serve as illustration – it is the same household the chart at the top calculates, and the same calculation that sits behind the home page. I am the founder and developer of OWNAMIC; this article describes the product from that perspective. It does not replace financial, tax or legal advice. All values shown in the Big Picture are carry-forwards under assumptions, not predictions.

Sources

Deutsche Bundesbank: Vermögen und Finanzen privater Haushalte in Deutschland: Ergebnisse der Vermögensbefragung 2023 (Household wealth and finances in Germany: results of the 2023 wealth survey), Monthly Report April 2025. Press release: https://www.bundesbank.de/de/aufgaben/themen/bundesbank-studie-vermoegen-in-deutschland-steigen-nominal-gehen-aber-real-zurueck-ungleichheit-bleibt-unveraendert-954622 · Article: https://publikationen.bundesbank.de/publikationen-de/berichte-studien/monatsberichte/monatsbericht-april-2025-954594?article=vermoegen-und-finanzen-privater-haushalte-in-deutschland-ergebnisse-der-vermoegensbefragung-2023--954598
Federal Statistical Office of Germany (Destatis): Inflationsrate im August 2026 voraussichtlich +2,9 % (Inflation rate expected at +2.9 % in August 2026), press release no. 311 of 31 August 2026 (preliminary; final results on 10 September 2026). https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2026/08/PD26_311_611.html
Federal Statistical Office of Germany (Destatis): Reallöhne im 2. Quartal 2026 um 1,5 % höher als im Vorjahresquartal (Real wages in Q2 2026 up 1.5 % on the same quarter a year earlier), press release no. 308, August 2026. https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2026/08/PD26_308_62321.html
Market overviews of German mortgage rates for a 10-year fixed-rate period, as of early September 2026: Dr. Klein (https://www.drklein.de/aktuelle-bauzinsen.html), Vergleich.de (https://www.vergleich.de/aktuelle-bauzinsen.html), Baufi24 (https://www.baufi24.de/bauzinsen/). Ranges depend on loan-to-value ratio and creditworthiness.
Section 489 BGB (German Civil Code), the borrower's ordinary right of termination. Explained, for example, by Capitalo (https://www.capitalo.de/baufinanzierung/anschlussfinanzierung) and Dr. Klein (https://www.drklein.de/sonderkuendigungsrecht-baufinanzierung.html). German law; this applies to loans governed by German law.

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