Savings Goals Tracker — Methodology Handbook

The Savings Goals Tracker is the list of everything you are putting money aside for — an emergency fund, a trip, a first payment on a home, a laptop, a wedding — with the target, what is already in, what each month must carry, and when the goal lands. This handbook explains what the tracker stores, how every figure on the page is computed, how a paycheck is split across goals, and what the tracker deliberately does not do.

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What a goal is here

One row is one thing you are saving for. It carries:

Name and glyph — what the money is for. The glyph is picked from the name ("emergency", "trip", "laptop", "car", "house"…) and can be changed from a small grid of twenty; there are no brand logos, because a goal is not a merchant.
Target and currency — the amount you want to reach, in the currency you are saving in. A euro holiday fund and a dollar emergency fund sit side by side; totals convert into the currency you view the site in (see Multi-currency).
Already saved — what was put aside for this goal before you opened it here. It counts toward progress from the first day, so a goal you are halfway to does not start at zero.
By when — optional. With a date, the tracker computes what each remaining month must carry; without one, it projects a landing date from your plan or your recent pace.
Plan per month — optional. What you intend to put in each month. It drives the pace badge and the paycheck split. Left empty, the deadline's figure is used where there is a deadline.
Priority — 1 is first in line when a paycheck is split. Goals with the same priority split in list order.
Status — active, reached, paused, or archived. A paused goal keeps its place and its money but leaves the paycheck split and the "behind" list; a reached goal stays in the list as a win; an archived goal is out of the way but never deleted.
Notes.

Nothing is derived from a bank feed. What is in a goal is what you put there — by hand, from a spreadsheet, or from a calculator hand-off.

Contributions — the one log everything depends on

Every movement of money is one row in the contribution log: a positive amount is a deposit, a negative amount is a withdrawal. Each row carries the date, the currency (always the goal's), a note, and where it came from — typed by hand, a paycheck allocation, an import, or a calculator.

From that log, per goal:

saved = already saved + Σ contributions (withdrawals subtract), never below zero;
remaining = target − saved, never below zero;
progress = saved ÷ target, capped at 100 %;
this month = Σ contributions dated in the current calendar month;
recent pace = Σ contributions in the last three months ÷ 3, the average the projection falls back on when there is no plan.

The log is what the "put in, by month" chart, the streak and every "this month" figure draw from — real amounts on real dates. A contribution can be deleted; a goal's contributions go with it when the goal is deleted.

What the deadline needs, and the pace badge

With a deadline, the tracker computes monthly needed = remaining ÷ months left, where months left is the gap between today and the deadline measured in days ÷ 30.44 (a year of 365.25 days over twelve). A deadline within the current month asks for the whole remainder now.

The pace badge compares what you are actually doing with what the deadline needs. Your rate is the monthly plan when you set one, else the recent pace (the three-month average), else nothing:

Reached — remaining is zero, or the goal is marked reached.
Overdue — the deadline has passed and money is still owed.
No plan — there is no rate to compare (no plan and nothing put in recently), or no deadline and no rate.
Ahead — the rate is at least 10 % above what the deadline needs.
On track — the rate is within −5 % / +10 % of what the deadline needs; a goal with a rate but no deadline is also "on track" — it will land, just on a date of its own.
Behind — the rate is more than 5 % below what the deadline needs.

The thresholds are deliberately forgiving: a plan that is 3 % short of the mathematically exact figure is a rounding, not a failure.

When it lands

The projected date is today plus remaining ÷ rate months, using the monthly plan when there is one and the recent pace otherwise. It is the date the goal lands if nothing changes; it is not a promise, and it moves every time a contribution does. When there is no rate at all, there is no projection — the tracker says so rather than guessing.

The goal form runs the same arithmetic live: type a target and a date and it shows what each month needs; type a plan and it shows in how many months, and on what date, the goal lands at that plan.

Milestones and the streak

Every goal has four milestones — 25, 50, 75 and 100 % of the target. The list draws them as marks on the progress bar; the overview names the next one not yet crossed and how much it takes; the contribution sheet offers "to the next milestone" as a one-tap amount.

The streak is the number of calendar months in a row, ending this month or last month, with a positive net contribution across all goals. Miss a month and it starts again; it exists to make the habit visible, not to shame a bad month.

Splitting a paycheck

Setup takes what arrives each pay cycle (weekly, every two weeks, monthly) and the overview divides it across the active goals:

Goals are taken in priority order (1 first), then list order.
Each goal wants its monthly plan — or, without one, what its deadline needs — pro-rated to the cycle: a monthly figure ÷ 4.33 for weekly pay, ÷ 2.17 for fortnightly pay.
A goal never takes more than it still needs.
When the paycheck runs out, the remaining goals get nothing this cycle; when the goals run out first, what is left is shown as left over.

The split is a suggestion drawn on the overview, not a transfer. Putting the money in is one tap per goal (the plan amount is the first chip in the contribution sheet) — or one tap for the whole split: Log the split under the card books every row as a contribution dated today, after you confirm the count and the total. Those rows are marked as coming from the paycheck in the history. Nothing is booked on a schedule: payday is your tap, every time. A paused goal is not in the split.

The overview — what it computes

Saved across all goals — the sum of saved across active and reached goals, against the sum of active targets; the overall progress bar below it counts active goals only, so a reached goal does not inflate the percentage.
This month — net contributions dated this month across every goal, beside the total monthly plan.
Plan per month — each active goal's plan, or its deadline's need where there is no plan, summed.
Still to save — the sum of remaining across active goals.
Streak — as above.
Next deadline — the soonest deadline among active goals, coloured by that goal's pace.
Reached this year — goals whose reached date falls in the current calendar year.
Behind — every active goal whose pace is behind or overdue, with what it needs against what it gets. This card sits above the rings on purpose: the honest number comes before the pretty one.
Every goal — one ring per active goal, closest to done first, with its pace badge, its next milestone and its projected date.
Split my paycheck — as above, with the Log the split button that books the whole split in one confirmed tap.

Importing

A spreadsheet — any CSV with at least a goal name and a target. Columns are matched from their headers (goal, target, saved, currency, by when, plan per month, status, notes) and can be corrected before importing. "Saved" becomes the goal's already saved; a status word like "done", "reached", "paused" is read; names already on the list are skipped, so importing the same file twice adds nothing.
The calculators — the Target Savings, Emergency Fund and Savings calculators can hand their result here as a goal: the add form opens with the target, what is already saved, the monthly figure and the date filled in, for you to confirm. The bridge runs the other way too: any unfinished goal has a "run it in the Target Savings calculator" button that opens that calculator with the goal's remaining amount, its saved amount and its months left in place — what a higher contribution or an interest rate would change, on the same numbers.
The assistant — the site assistant can add a goal from any page ("save 3,000 for a trip by June") by opening this tracker's add form pre-filled; you review and save.

Export

Every goal with every field the form collects, and every contribution in the log, as one CSV file — free on every plan, always.

Multi-currency

Each goal and each contribution is stored in its own currency. Every total, ring, chart and paycheck split converts into the currency selected in the site header at the day's rates, and says so when the list mixes currencies. The list itself shows each goal in its own currency; the contribution sheet writes in the goal's currency; editing a goal hands the form the stored values, so a converted figure is never written back as if it were native. The paycheck is stored in the list's base currency and shown converted.

The shared book

A set of goals can be kept by more than one person — a couple, a family, flatmates. A shared book is a separate list: everybody in it sees the same goals and the same progress; editors add goals and put money in; an administrator sets the book's currency and paycheck; a viewer sees everything and changes nothing. Your personal goals stay private and are never mixed into a shared one. Contributions inside a shared book belong to the book and show who made them. Export of a whole book is free for every member. Nothing is shared automatically: a goal lands in a shared book only when it is added there.

The savings coach

On Pro, a chat inside the tracker reads the same figures the page shows — every goal's saved, remaining, pace, projected date and next milestone, this month's contributions, the streak, the paycheck split — and answers questions about them: which goal to feed first, where a bonus should go, whether a deadline is realistic and what plan would make it so. It quotes the page's numbers and never re-derives a total. It can also fill the add form from a sentence ("add a goal: new phone, 900, by December"), record a contribution ("put 200 into the holiday fund"), or open a goal for editing; you review and save. It does not know interest rates or account balances, and it does not move money.

Free and Pro

The free plan keeps up to three active or paused goals with everything above: progress, pace, milestones, the paycheck split, CSV import and export. Pro removes the limit and adds the savings coach and the shared book. Existing goals never disappear when a plan ends; the limit applies to new ones.

What the tracker does not do

It does not connect to a bank or a savings account. Contributions are what you log, not what a statement shows; if the account earned interest, log it as a contribution.
It does not move money. The paycheck split is a plan drawn on the page, and each deposit is one tap you make.
It does not compound. A goal's projection is linear — remaining ÷ rate — because the money in a savings goal usually sits in an account whose interest is small against the contributions. For the compounding version of the same question, the goal's calculator button opens the Target Savings calculator with the goal's numbers in place.
It does not mark a goal reached by itself. When a contribution brings a goal to its target the page shows it as fully funded and offers "mark reached"; the status changes when you say so, because a goal can be met and still be open (a rolling emergency fund).
It does not rate your goals or tell you what to save for. Priority is yours; the coach argues from your numbers and nothing else.