There is already a feature to set a pot goal and the progress toward that is tracked. That’s great but I think by also adding a goal date you could also show some very interesting and useful information.
If we had the goal and goal date, at any given time you could do.
(Goal - Current Balance) / no of days remaining until goal date
That would give you your daily contribution.
That would be great if saving for a particular event/date.
At any given day it would inform you how much you need to put away per day in order to reach the goal.
If you get behind it would adjust upwards and if you deposited a lump some it would reduce this.
I have used this type of view personally for various things and always found that a useful bit of info.
What in theory should be a very simple feature to implement could be really helpful.
Do lots of people work daily then? I’ve seen the same comments for budgetary stuff too and it’s always been something I’ve struggled to understand. I can go most of the week without spending anything so the concept of a daily or even weekly anything is alien to me. How does it work for others?
This relates the putting money away for a savings goal so it’s slightly different to budgeting. I suggested this as a daily thing as it’s the obvious step but you could easily have it configurable to show weekly or monthly amounts to be saved away.
I have used this approach for years on car related expenses. I have a spreadsheet which I have added up insurance, mot, service and £500 for general maintenance. They are all due in aug so I divide the the total by 12 and that tells me how much I need to put away each month to cover it.
This year I have started something similar with gifts for Christmas.
Point is by simply adding a date to the goal you can expose some useful information to help manage your money and that’s what this is all about right?
Some of the IFTTT saving goal type applets are doing similar things i.e. putting X away each day to reach y by a certain date. Latest one being the new 50 note one.
I agree, this would be a really beneficial feature and would allow a realistic view of whether you are on track or not. It would also move people away from using third party apps.
Ideally you would have the option of setting the payment occurrence I.e. daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly etc to show your goal over that period. It could also readjust to suit if you over pay or under pay.