What if?

  1. The question

    What if I invested $1,000/month?

    $1,000 monthly into the S&P 500 since 2015. USD, not EUR — we do not convert euros. Historical monthly DCA versus weekly-equivalent sizing.

  2. Assumptions

    What this page actually assumes

    • $1,000 per month in US dollars. There is no EUR series yet, so this is the honest stand-in for “€1,000/month.”
    • Buys land on the monthly cadence used in our backtest (not 12 identical weeks).
    • Held to the last date. No withdrawals.
    • SteadyGrow still thinks in weekly signals; the comparison on this page is that monthly cash habit versus adaptive weekly sizing of the same long-run budget.

  3. Historical data

    2020-01-03 → 2026-08-28

    S&P 500 from 2015. Monthly contributions are the calendar most payroll savers actually use. Switch years to shorten the window; we will not extend it into the 1990s.

    Series: S&P 500. Same contribution calendar. No data before 2015.

  4. Interactive simulation

    Change the habit, stay on the real curve

    Amount
    Start year

    $1000/month · S&P 500

    2020-01-03 → 2026-08-28 · $1000/month · S&P 500

    Contributed$80,308
    Held to the last date$143,387
    Return+78.5%
    SteadyGrow value$186,274
    vs blind DCA+$42,886
    S&P 5002020-01-03 → 2026-08-28 · $1000/month
     +$42,886 vs blind (+29.9%)Ended +29.9%
    Blind DCASteadyGrow
    $0$48.7k$97.5k$146k$195k2020-012021-042022-092023-122025-052026-08

  5. Results

    What the numbers say

    Contributions ≈ months × $1,000. Ending value is that cash in the index. If you think in weekly pay, try the $500/week story — it is a close cousin, not the same schedule.

  6. What changes if…

    Nearby questions

    What if the weekly amount wasn't always the same?

    These pages fix the contribution. SteadyGrow keeps the same long-term budget and sizes weeks from valuation — more when markets are cheap, less when they're stretched.

    Get weekly signals — $29/quarterLive $500/wk experiment →