Savings goals

A savings goal is a target with a name, an amount and a date: "€3,000 for the holidays before June", "a €6,000 emergency cushion", "€800 for the new laptop". Cuéntamo keeps track of how much you have saved, how much is left, and the pace you would need to keep to get there on time. It is your digital piggy bank: you set the goal and the app shows you, at a glance, whether you are on track.

Progress is calculated with a contributions model: you start from whatever you had already saved (the starting balance) and, from there, the income that lands in the goal's account keeps adding up. We explain it in detail below. Goals live on this screen (under Planning) and also as a compact widget on the Home page.

Creating a goal

Click "New goal" at the top right. The first time, the screen is empty with a piggy 🐷 and a big button to get started. A form opens; once you save, the goal appears as a card with its progress ring.

You don't need to fill in everything: a name, a target amount and a deadline are enough for a working goal. The rest of the fields fine-tune how progress is measured.

The form, field by field

Name. How you recognise it ("Holidays", "Emergency cushion", "Car"). Required.

Target amount. The sum you want to reach. Required.

Start date (optional). When saving starts counting. If you set it, Cuéntamo counts only the contributions from that date on (retroactivity): handy when you'd already been saving for this and want to measure it from then. Leave it blank and it counts from when you create the goal.

Deadline (optional). When you want to have it; past dates aren't allowed. If you set it, Cuéntamo works out how much to set aside each month to make it in time (“Needed/mo”). If you leave it blank, no problem: instead Cuéntamo estimates a projected date from your real saving pace (your average monthly contribution) and shows that pace. So you can have a goal with no calendar pressure and still see when you'd reach it.

Savings account (optional). The account where you keep this goal's money. The dropdown only lists accounts of type Savings and Investment (see Accounts). If you link an account, progress is measured from the real income that lands in it; if you leave it blank, progress is calculated by adding up the movements you link to this goal by hand.

Starting balance (optional). What you already have saved towards this goal the day you create it. It's the starting point: contributions add on top of it. For example, if you already have €500 put aside, enter it here and the goal starts at 500 instead of zero.

Milestones (optional). Amounts along the way to the goal: with “Add milestone” you can set as many as you like (up to ten). See “Milestones: the goal in stages”.

Tag (optional, only shown once you pick an account). If you choose a tag, only the income carrying that tag counts as a contribution. This is how you keep several goals in the same account from mixing (see the next section). If you leave it on "All income of the account", everything that comes in counts.

Colour. Identifies the goal on the card and in the progress ring. Pick one from the palette or open the picker for a custom colour.

Icon (optional). An emoji (🏖️ 🏠 💰…) that decorates the card. Up to four characters.

Generate an automatic monthly contribution (only when creating, and only if you've set an amount, a deadline and a savings account). We cover it in "The automatic monthly contribution".

How progress is measured (the contributions model)

Cuéntamo doesn't ask you to jot down "I saved X" by hand. The goal's balance is worked out automatically like this:

Current balance = starting balance + contributions.

Contributions are the real income (movements with a positive amount, including incoming transfers) in the account linked to the goal. Only confirmed (real) movements count, not forecast ones.

• With an account and no tag: all income landing in that account counts.
• With an account and a tag: only that account's income carrying the chosen tag counts.
• Without a linked account: the classic model applies: the sum of the movements you link to this goal by hand.

Because the balance is derived from real movements, every time you record or import income into the account, the goal moves forward on its own. Taking money out (an expense) does not subtract: the model adds up contributions, it doesn't compute the account's net balance. To reflect a withdrawal, the natural approach is for that money to leave as a movement and simply not come back in.

Several goals in the same account (tags and even split)

It's very common to have a single savings account with several targets inside it ("holidays", "car", "buffer"). Cuéntamo handles this with two mechanisms you can combine:

• Tagged goals. Each goal keeps only the income carrying its tag. Tag your contributions on the fly and every euro goes to its target. This is the most precise option.
• Untagged goals (even split). "Free" income —the income that doesn't carry the tag of any tagged goal in that account— is split evenly among all the active untagged goals of the account.

An example: in your "Savings" account you have the goal "Car" with the tag car and two untagged goals, "Holidays" and "Buffer". A €300 income tagged car goes entirely to "Car". A €200 income with no tag is split €100 and €100 between "Holidays" and "Buffer". Paused or completed goals don't take part in that split.

The automatic monthly contribution (linked recurring)

When you create a goal with an amount, a deadline and a savings account, the checkbox "Generate an automatic monthly contribution" appears. If you tick it, you choose which account the money comes from (by default, your first checking account) and Cuéntamo creates a monthly recurring transfer (recurring movement) from that account to the goal's account, for what's left (the target minus the starting balance) split across the remaining months. It shows you live how much it will be ("A recurring movement of X/month will be created"). It starts on the 1st of next month and ends on the deadline.

The savings account is required because progress is measured by what comes into it: without an account, a recurring movement's forecasts wouldn't count as contributions.

That recurring movement stays linked to the goal. When it exists, the card and the detail show "Your contribution: X/month" instead of "You need X/month", because you already have a scheduled contribution. You can edit or delete it anytime from Recurring. Note: if you pause the goal, its recurring movement is paused too; when you resume it, it resumes; and if you delete the goal, its recurring movement is not deleted (the delete prompt reminds you): remove it from Recurring if you no longer want it.

How much to set aside each month: based on what you have left over

With a deadline, the easy maths is “what's left divided by the months remaining”. But not every month is the same: if December brings presents and the car insurance at once, suggesting the same figure as in a quiet month is suggesting something you won't manage.

So Cuéntamo looks at your Forecast and splits what's left in proportion to what you'll have left over each month. A tight month (where you spend what comes in, or more) gets little or nothing, and it never suggests setting aside more than you have left over.

• The card shows “In November, set aside X” (or that the month is tight).
• The detail panel shows the month-by-month split up to the deadline, with the tight months marked.
• If even setting aside everything you have left over won't get you there in time, it tells you how much you'd be short, so you can move the date or lower the goal.
• If the goal already has a scheduled contribution, the split covers what's needed on top of it.
• With several goals, each month's surplus goes first to the one due soonest, so the same money isn't counted twice.

The more recurring items you have set up, the finer the split. Without forecasts, you'll see the usual even split (“You need X/month”).

Milestones: the goal in stages

A big goal feels like an uphill climb: 9,000 for an emergency cushion looks out of reach in the first month. What works is what a runner does with a marathon: split it up. First 1,000 for when the washing machine breaks down, then one month of expenses, then three. Each stage is a small win, and reaching them is what keeps you going.

Those are milestones. You add them in the goal form with “Add milestone”, and Cuéntamo sorts them for you. Only the ones below the goal count: if you lower the goal and a milestone ends up above it, it stops showing, but it isn't deleted, and it comes back if the goal goes up again.

• The card shows the next milestone and how much is left to reach it.
• The detail panel shows the full list: the ones you've reached, ticked, and for each pending one, the date you'll get there at your current pace. It's the same pace used for the goal's expected date, so they match.

If you create the goal from the cushion in the Forecast (“Create a goal with milestones”), the milestones come already suggested: 1,000, one month of essential expenses and three months, rounded up to the hundred and only the ones below the goal.

When a repayment ends: keep setting it aside

The last car loan payment is a good day, and also an opportunity: you had long stopped counting that money as yours, so if you keep setting it aside, now towards a goal, you won't notice it.

When a recurring expense with an end date finishes in the next few weeks (or has just finished), a notice shows up in Goals and in Recurring with the description, the amount and the date. Pick the goal and press “Keep setting it aside from…”: Cuéntamo creates a recurring transfer for the same amount and frequency, from the same account the repayment came out of to the goal's account, starting on the date the next repayment would have been due. If the goal had no contribution yet, this one becomes its contribution.

Only goals with a savings account linked are offered, because the transfer needs a destination. If you're not interested, “No, thanks” dismisses it for the whole account book and it won't show up again.

The goal cards

Each goal is a card with a stripe in its colour. Inside you see:

• The icon and name, plus a status badge when relevant: green "Completed" or grey "Paused".
• A progress ring with the percentage reached.
• The amounts: saved so far versus the target (for example "€1,200 / €3,000").
• The deadline and how many months are left.
• The monthly contribution: "You need X/month" to make it in time, or "Your contribution: X/month" if there's a linked recurring movement.
• The linked account, if any.

Below there are three buttons: edit , pause/resume (hidden on completed goals) and delete . Clicking the body of the card opens the detail panel. On narrow screens the cards switch to a compact version and stack into a single column.

The detail panel

Clicking a card opens a window with all the goal's information:

• A large progress ring and the amounts (saved / target), with "X left" underneath.
• Deadline and months remaining.
• Needed/month: what you'd have to contribute each month from now to reach the target.
• Current contribution: what the linked recurring movement contributes, normalised to monthly (if there is one).
• A on-track indicator: green "On track" when, at the current pace, you'll make it in time, or red "At this rate you'll get there on [estimated date]" when you'll overshoot the deadline. Only shown on active goals.
• The linked account.
• The recent contributions: the latest entries that added to the goal, with their description, date and amount.

The "Needed/month" and the estimated arrival recalculate on their own from what you've saved and from the scheduled contribution. To see your goals' impact on the overall balance, use the Forecast; to keep spending in check by category, use Budgets.

States: active, paused, completed and overdue

A goal can be in one of four states:

• Active. Running; it adds up contributions and takes part in the even split of its account.
• Paused. You park it temporarily. It drops out of the split and, if it has a linked recurring movement, that movement is paused too. Resume it anytime with the play button .
• Completed. Once it reaches 100%. It gets the green badge and the date it was completed is saved. Completed goals are grouped in a collapsible "Completed goals" section at the bottom of the list.
• Overdue. Its deadline arrived without being completed. These stand out in an amber notice at the top of the list, with their percentage and an "Extend deadline" link that opens the editor to set a new date.

Buying a home: the goal with the full figure

Next to the create button there is another one, «Buying a home», and it exists because the figure you need to save to buy a house is not the deposit. On top of the deposit come the tax of the region where the property is and the deed costs, and on a normal purchase that is the difference between saving 20% of the price and needing close to 29%.

The assistant asks for the price, where you are buying, whether it is a resale or a new build, your situation and how much the bank lends, and shows the breakdown: deposit, tax, notary, land registry, conveyancing and appraisal. On accepting, it opens the goal form with the total already filled in.

Two things worth understanding about the calculation:

• What rules is where the property is, not where you live. If you live in Madrid and buy in Málaga, you pay Andalusia's rate. That is why it asks for the territory instead of taking it from your account book's settings.
• The tax isn't based on the price. It is based on the Catastro's reference value, unless the price is higher, in which case the price wins. That is why there is a field for the reference value: leave it empty and we compute on the price and warn you, because if the reference value is higher you will pay more than we told you. It is free to look up on the Catastro's electronic office with the cadastral reference.

If your situation qualifies for a reduced rate (main home, young buyer, large family, disability), the assistant applies it and tells you which condition you would have to meet: income and value limits are not asked here, so the figure is a good estimate, not a tax return.

Some territories also show a checkbox for a case that depends on the property, not on you, and that beats any profile. In the Basque chartered territories it is a home of up to 120 m² built area, which drops the rate from 4% to 2.5%. In Castilla y León it is the 0.01% for young buyers, which is not the general case: a buyer under 36 purchasing in the regional capital pays 4%.

That checkbox only asks what we cannot work out ourselves. The 0.01% in Castilla y León requires three things at once, but we already know two: that every buyer is under 36 is the profile you picked under «Your situation», and that the home is worth less than €150,000 comes from the price (or from the reference value, if that is higher). So the checkbox only appears once you pick «young buyer», and it only asks about the municipality. If you tick it and the home goes over €150,000, we tell you the 0.01% does not apply and why, rather than leaving you with a figure nobody will charge you.

The same sum, without signing in, is in the public home buying costs calculator.

When you sign: adding the house to your net worth

In Net worth there is an «I've signed» button that opens the same assistant and, on accepting, creates the property and its linked mortgage in one go, with its amortisation schedule.

What matters is the value it is stored at: not the price, but the price plus the taxes and costs of the purchase. That is the «acquisition cost paid» the income tax law talks about, and it decides two things that arrive years later: how much gain you declare the day you sell, and how much you can depreciate each year if you end up renting it out. Storing only the price loses a figure you can no longer reconstruct, because the invoices go missing.

Editing, pausing and deleting

Editing opens the same form to change name, amount, date, account, starting balance, tag, colour or icon. (The automatic contribution checkbox only appears when creating, not when editing.)

Pause/resume changes the state without losing anything. Remember that pausing also pauses the linked recurring movement, if any, and resuming starts it again.

Deleting asks for confirmation. Removing the goal keeps its linked recurring movement (if it has one), in case you want to keep using it: otherwise, delete it from Recurring. It also clears the goal reference on any movements that were linked to it; those movements are not deleted, they simply stop counting towards the goal.