Fluctuating savings goals

RRBarney

Can i reduce a savings goal for just a month and not have it change every subsequent month? If i have a monthly goal of $2000 a month into savings, but this month I have a one time expense that is $1500, I would like to just contribute $500 to my savings goal so I an use the balance in my account towards the expense. How do i best reflect that change?

DannyB

@RRBarney savings goal contributions are completely flexible. By the wording of your question, I'm guessing you are looking for a way to edit a single month's SG reminder like the way you can edit a bill or subscription reminder for the current month without affecting the series. That is not available for SGs because you can contribute as much or a little as you like in any given month regardless of the amount you set up for your monthly contribution when you created the goal. I think of the monthly contribution to a SG as a suggestion, based on either an amount you set to save each month, or an amount based on when you want the goal to be completed. In either case you are not "required " to make the designated amount.

There is no "penalty" for not making a full contribution in a given month. The only result is that, in the case of a "less than set amount" contribution you will "fall behind" in reaching your goal if time based or you will simply take a bit longer to reach your goal if it is an "I want to save this much a month for this goal" with no time limit.

Hope that helps.

Erin

Thank you for asking this, as it’s been bugging me for a while. The above answer doesn’t really get to the crux of the issue, which is that there isn’t a way (as far as I can tell) to edit the amount the spending plan “expects” from savings goals each month. Some months I don’t have any extra money to contribute to my goals because it’s all going to other buckets in my spending plan, and I’d like the ability to tell the spending plan I won’t be contributing that month so I don’t go in the red. I know I can ignore savings goals in the spending plan, but I want to account for them most months. Am I missing something?

Coach Natalie

@Erin, thanks for posting on this topic!

You're not missing anything — there's currently no way to ignore individual Savings Goal contributions in the Spending Plan. We have an existing request for this ability that you can vote on and follow for updates, though!

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/2955/add-ability-to-ignore-individual-goal-contributions-in-spending-plan

-Coach Natalie