Savings and goals
Jen from Lunch Money
Use case #1: Help plan for "By X date, I need Y set aside"
Use case #2: Set a budgeting goal for a specific category to "Save X amount every month"
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Din from Lunch Money
Merged in a post:
Savings Goals with Target Date & Auto-Calculated Monthly Contributions
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Jan-Patrick
As someone migrating from YNAB, one feature I'm really missing in Lunch Money is the ability to set a savings goal with a target amount and target date on a category (or sub-category) and have Lunch Money automatically calculate how much I need to budget each month to reach that goal on time.
How it could work:
In the category side panel (where rollover options already live), add an optional "Goal" section with three fields:
- Target amount (e.g., €3,000)
- Target date (e.g., December 2027)
- Already saved (pre-filled from the current rollover balance)
From these, Lunch Money could auto-calculate the required monthly contribution and surface it as a budget suggestion or preset, similar to how "Fill Available up to" already works but dynamically adjusted based on remaining time.
A small progress indicator on the budget row (e.g., "€860 / €3,000 · 14 months left") would make it easy to stay on track at a glance.
Why this matters:
Lunch Money already has all the building blocks, rollover to same category, budget presets, and starting balances. A goal feature would tie them together into a guided experience that's especially valuable for:
- Saving toward a specific purchase or event (vacation, down payment, annual insurance)
- Sinking funds for periodic expenses
- Users transitioning from YNAB who rely on target-based budgeting
Current workaround:
Right now, you could manually calculate the monthly amount and set a fixed budget preset, which works but requires recalculating whenever adjusting the timeline or make an extra contribution. Automating this would be a huge quality-of-life improvement.
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Martijn van der Meij
combined with https://feedback.lunchmoney.app/categories-tags/p/mark-a-category-as-savings This would be realy usefull Any news?
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Mark Sherwood
Is this still being worked on? Jen mentioned it going to alpha in 2024 but I still dont see it
Din from Lunch Money
Merged in a post:
Goals
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Catalina Lopez
To be able to make savings goals, with due date so that I can calculate how much I must save month by month to table to have the amount by that date. And that by designating money in that category, you carry the balance towards the goal.
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Michelle
+1 Nthing this. This is probably one of the most important basic functionalities remaining to make this a more complete financial tracker. Seems like it shouldn't be too hard to implement either. Would just love to be able to have an optional field I can set a goal for each category and see how far off the budgeted amount is towards the goal.
YNAB actually has a great implementation of this. Would love to see something similar.
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Mounsif
I’m new here and have recently migrated from the YNAB platform. I’m currently trialing and comparing features between the two. So far, I’m actually impressed with what an indie developer has delivered, it feels like a breath of fresh air compared with a well established company like YNAB, which in my view has fallen behind in several areas.
One thing I’ve noticed is that there doesn’t appear to be a native Savings Goals feature in Lunch Money. I may have missed it, but it doesn’t seem to be available, which leads me to assume it hasn’t been developed yet. Judging by the upvotes in this thread, that seems likely.
Could you please confirm whether a native Savings Goals feature is planned or already in development? Any insight into timeline?
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Andy McMullen
Adding this to the budget screen would be nice as well. i.e. if you have a recurring transaction defined, there should be a budget option to set an amount that will hit the amount you have defined by the date of the recurring
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Istvan Csaki
I really need this feature, please develop it <3
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Frank
Would love a savings/goals feature
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Martin
I see the comment from Jen on September 25th, 2024, saying that the new budgeting feature will support savings and goals.
Is this the same as targets?
I'm also in the beta and I'm not seeing the feature, but then again, it's all a bit confusing.
Thanks in advance for the great software, but this seems like a key element.
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