Achieve Financial Goals Using Mint
Including a rundown of the Goals tab and pro tips on how to 1-up your financial progress.
Welcome back to week 3!
You are just past halfway to becoming a Mint pro.
So far, we’ve covered the essentials - Tracking and Budgeting.
Today, we will look at goal setting and progress tracking.
That is, we will be focusing on the Goals tab.
Let’s get to it!
Using the Goals Tab
Before I get into my opinions on Mint’s goals feature,
I’ll give you the rundown of how it works.
When you press the Goals tab,
You will see nine different goal-setting options.
Plus an extra one - customization.
The first two options are debt repayment goals.
The rest are savings goals.
Don’t get too overwhelmed by this, though.
They’re all the same, more or less.
I’ll walk you through the general process for savings goals.
First, click on a goal you want to set or make your own.
Give your goal a name.
Enter the goal’s target amount.
Input the goal completion date.
Select the account you are saving in.
The following prompt reads this message:
“Do you want to include your existing balance of $xx.xx toward this goal?”
Select yes or no.
Mint will spit out how much you need to save per month.
You can adjust this if needed, though it will change your completion date.
Lastly, press “Set Goal”.
Back on the Goals tab, you will see your first goal.
You can click it to see more information,
But since you just made it, it probably looks pretty empty.
I guess you better start saving!
Oh, and for the two debt repayment goals.
Setting these goals is even easier than savings goals.
Select your specific debt account.
Then, input your monthly contribution amount.
Press “Set Goal” and you’re all set!
Simple as that.
Why I Hate the Goals Tab
I must say,
I am not very ecstatic about Mint’s Goals feature.
Especially compared to the Budgeting feature.
As I explain why, remember -
Though I often reference just savings.
I am speaking about savings and debt repayment goals -
Ok, here’s why I’m dissatisfied.
Number one.
Not all accounts link to Mint (remember Intro to Mint?).
If you are currently saving in an unlinked account,
Mint doesn’t recognize this.
It’s super inconvenient and has some cascading effects.
Such as this: number two.
Specific savings account balances gauge goal progress.
This is fine for one savings goal,
but what about saving for multiple things simultaneously?
Well, you would have to have a different account for each goal.
Not the most convenient, as all my savings goals are in the same account.
Number three.
About my preference for flexible, month-to-month budgeting
The goals feature is too rigid.
When you build a goal, Mint recognizes a monthly payment amount.
Say, $200/mo.
That $200 is reflected in the budget tab,
Good idea...
But remember, no month is the same!
What if, next month, you intend to skip this $200 contribution
And double down in January, contributing $400.
To my knowledge, Mint doesn’t recognize this level of flexibility.
Impractical, to say the least.
What I do Instead
To avoid Mint’s rigid Goals tab,
I employ a combination of Mint Tracking and PFP Budgeting.
Tracking Goals, My Way
On Mint, make a new transaction category under the “transfers” folder.
Lets call it “*Savings Goal* Transfer”
Wait, why under the “transfers” folder?
Well, when you contribute to your savings,
You typically transfer money from your chequing account to your savings account.
Specifically, there are two transaction items for each transfer.
Money leaving account A (chequing account)
Money entering account B (savings account)
So when I come across these transactions,
I always categorize the savings account transaction (no. 2) as “*Savings Goal* Transfer”.
The transaction from the chequing account (no. 1) is categorized as just“Transfer”.
Then,
When I am looking to track my progress,
I search for “*Savings Goal* Transfer” in the Transactions tab.
By doing this, I can see every contribution and withdrawal
To/from this savings goal.
Now, the downside of this approach is that,
When working in the Transactions tab,
You can’t see a net total for a searched item.
For example, when I filter all “*Savings Goal* Transfers” transactions
The master list shows each transaction value,
But not the total value of all these transactions.
The total would be ideal for seeing your savings goal progress.
However, you’ll have to find the total elsewhere... like excel!
The best part about this strategy is that, as Mint intended,
you can still track monthly contribution progress.
Here’s how.
Set a budget item for your specific savings goal category.
(“*Savings Goal* Transfer”, from my example above.)
Following the budgeting principles from last week,
You can specify your contribution goals on a month-to-month basis.
This way, if you need to focus on other priorities for one month,
You can adjust future budgets accordingly.
Why not display progress in the Trends tab?
Wow. Nice question!
We haven’t even covered the Trends tab yet.
Without going into detail
(Because that’s what next week is for)
I will say that overall I approve of the Trends tab,
Just not for tracking goal progress.
Simply put, it doesn’t work.
The trends tab is best for expense categories.
It fails to pick up data from many non-expense categories,
such as transfers.
We’ll get into the details next week.
In the meantime, feel free to play around in the Trends tab,
Maybe you can find a viable solution. (if so, share!)
To Reiterate
Instead of fully transitioning to Mint,
I suggest you use Mint alongside the PFP Budget Table.
When it comes to budgeting (from last week),
Use the PFP Budget Table.
Then, when a new month begins,
Head over to Mint to update the current monthly budget.
Align this with what you outlined in the PFP Budget Table.
And for the day-to-day stuff, that is, tracking.
Head to Mint every once in a while and sort your transactions.
As for the goals tab - give it a try.
I don’t love it, but perhaps you will.
And finally,
We will look at the trends tab when we wrap up next week.