Using Savings Goal Money (edited)

RRBarney

Now that I have contributed to savings via savings goals, how can I best pull that money over to account for an added monthly expense in a particular month? Is there a way to move it from savings in the simplifi dash to lets say income to cover that expense in the spend plan that month?

DannyB

@RRBarney

Right now, any expenses you use savings goal funds to cover will need to be excluded from you spending plan. whether it's an expense specifically related to the savings goal, or you need to use the funds for something not related to the savings goal.

First how to "access" the SG funds (directly from this SG support article):

1. Hover over the panel on the left-hand side and select Goals.
2. Locate the Goal that you'd like to withdraw from and select the three dots to the upper right of it.
3. Select Withdraw from goal.
4. Select Withdraw to spend for goal -or- Withdraw for another purpose, whichever applies.
5. Select the Account that you want to withdraw from and enter the Amount that you'd like to withdraw.
6. Click Withdraw when done.

Second, excluding the actual expense from your Spending Plan may feel like "cheating" or somehow not accounting for the expense as part of your spending but you need to remember that you have already accounted for and included whatever the expense is in the previous months contributions that have been recorded as part of your overall spending. Thus, when it comes time to spend this money, you don't need to add it back into this month's Plan as income, nor do you need to include the expense in this month's spending.

It's a bit like the reason you exclude credit card payments from the Spending Plan - You've already spent the money; you're now squaring up with the institution that extended you the short term "loan" but you have already accounted for the expenses in your Spending Plan for the month.

Finally, this doesn't matter if the expense is what the goal was originally for or if you need to use this money for something unrelated to the goal. You have still already "paid" and accounted for the expense anomalously, so to speak.

I would also point out, referring to @EL1234 's comment, that Simplifi has a very neat accounting feature when it comes to Savings Goals that makes their use reasonable and concrete. When you contribute to a goal, you have to designate the actual physical account the saved money resides in. Once a contribution is made you can track the accumulation of designated funds in the Accounts list and on the Savings Goals > By account page. In these two places you are given an accounting of how much of any given real-world balance you have designated for goals. By the same token, Simplifi will not allow you to contribute to a goal from an account for more than what is actually available in that account minus any currently designated moneys.

It's true though, that you cannot move a withdrawal from a savings goal back into the current months Spending Plan. There are reasonable reasons for why this is so some of which I lay out above.

EL1234

If you've moved the money to an actual savings account, you can transfer it back to your checking account and then in the Transfers section of spending plan, "unexclude" the positive transaction of that transfer. That way the transfer will act as extra income for you to spend against.

I'm pretty sure you can also add a manual Income transaction but I don't know if there's a way to withdraw it from the savings goal so it's not double counted later.

This is probably why I don't use Savings Goals, I don't like manually excluding transactions from things and it's very abstract. Where is the money and how do I know that it's actually available to be spent? When I want to save money I transfer it to a savings account and when I'm ready to spend it I transfer it back.