Saving up and paying down

A goal is a thing you are working toward with money you already have or will have. SageFin handles two kinds, and they work differently enough to be worth separating before anything else.

Saving up

A holiday, a deposit, a new boiler. You name it, optionally give it a target and a date, and say what you plan to put toward it each month.

The money stays in your accounts. A goal does not move anything or open anything — it is a claim on part of a balance you already have. You choose which accounts fund goals, and progress is measured against those.

That is why a goal can be fully funded without you doing anything: if the savings account you nominated already holds enough, the goal is already met. It is a way of naming what the money in an account is for.

Allocating

Allocating is how you say which part of a balance belongs to which goal — and you can move an allocation between goals as your mind changes. Nothing leaves your bank when you do this, which is worth being clear about: the ledger being rearranged is SageFin's, not your bank's.

Because the money stays where it is, it can also be spent. If your goals come to hold more than the accounts funding them, the Goals page stops saying Available for goals and says Short for goals, with the size of the gap. Allocate less, or move money back, and it clears.

Does spending set you back?

A goal can be told that spending reduces its progress, or not. Both are defensible and they suit different goals: a holiday fund that quietly drains while you spend from the same account should probably say yes; a deposit you would never touch should say no.

Paying down

Debt works the other way round, and SageFin treats it separately rather than pretending a credit card is a savings goal in reverse. A pay-down plan attaches to the liability account itself.

Three ways to order more than one debt:

• Avalanche — highest interest rate first. Costs you the least money.
• Snowball — smallest balance first. Clears an account soonest, which some people need in order to keep going. It costs more and works more often.
• Planned — the order you choose, because sometimes the reason is not arithmetic.

There is no correct answer among those. Avalanche wins on paper; snowball wins when finishing something is what keeps you at it.

What goals do not do

They do not move money. No transfers, no standing orders, no accounts opened. SageFin reads your accounts; it cannot act on them.

They do not change your budget. A goal and a budget are separate claims on the same money, and that is deliberate — you can be on track for a deposit and over on groceries in the same month, and both are true.

They are not advice. SageFin will show you where a plan gets you and how long it takes. It will not tell you whether the debt or the holiday should come first.