How To Set and Track Financial Goals With Mint
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Most people track their financial activity somehow, be it via a program on their personal computer, an old-fashioned paper checkbook ledger, or perhaps even here on Mint.com. How many of those people, though, set savings goals and track their progress against those goals? I’d wager not that many–setting goals and then keeping after them is hard work, and it’s not something that’s easily done in many financial tracking programs.
Mint.com‘s new Goals feature seeks to take the difficulty out of both setting goals and regularly tracking your progress towards those goals. With a few clicks of the mouse, you can set up a savings goal, and then use Mint.com to help you achieve that goal.
How to create a goal
Creating a goal on Mint.com is quite simple: just click the Goals tab at the top of the screen, and you’ll see the Goals overview page, as seen in the image above.
Mint provides a number of predefined goals, covering objectives such as paying off your credit card debt or auto loan, saving for an emergency, buying a car, and taking a trip. You can also create a custom goal to cover whatever specific objective you have in mind.
Click on the goal type you’d like to create and a step-by-step guide will appear, asking you questions relevant to the selected goal. Choose a home improvement project, for instance, and you’ll be asked its projected cost, type of project, and whether you’ll fund the project from one or many sources. Each goal asks a differing series of initial questions, but they’re very simple to answer–just fill in the requested fields, and click Next, as seen below:
Next, the guide lets you name your goal, set a target date for reaching that goal, specify your desired monthly savings amount towards the goal, and even upload a customized photo of your goal–so you can look at that Ferrari (or Jetta) onscreen as you save towards its purchase.
Finally, the guide sets up tracking for your goal. You can assign a goal to an account, open a new account to use for that goal, or leave the goal unassigned (though unassigned goals can’t be tracked).
The tough part about setting financial goals (other than tracking your progress and achieving them, of course) is knowing how much you need to achieve that goal. Mint’s Goals feature actually does that math for you. If your goal is to get out of debt, for example, the Goals feature will pull all of your credit card debt and auto loans from Mint, so you can create a pay-down plan. Likewise, if your goal is to save for an emergency, Goals will estimate your monthly expenses based on your spending activity in Mint. If you want to buy a car, Goals will estimate the price based on the Kelley Blue Book value of your desired make, model, year and trim.
Goals does have one restriction: an account can only have one goal assigned at a time. Once the goal is achieved, the assigned account may then be assigned to another goal.
As an example, if you create a goal to save for college and assign it to your savings account, you can’t create another goal to buy a car and also assign it to your savings account. You can, however, assign a goal to multiple accounts, so that saving for retirement can involve both your IRA and 401(k) account.
You can create a goal without linking it to an account, but you won’t then be able to track your progress towards that goal, as seen below:
To get the most out of Mint’s Goals feature, it’s best to link a goal to an account–after all, what gets measured gets done.
How Mint helps you achieve your goals
Mint’s Goals not only helps you set up goals and track their progress — the feature is designed to help you achieve them. Each goal’s online guide offers specific advice to help you work towards that goal, including walking you though key milestones along the way.
If your goal is to buy a home, for example, once you determine how much you can afford and set up or link the accounts needed to save towards a down payment, the Buy a Home guide offers advice on improving your credit score, understanding your loan options, shopping for homeowners insurance and so forth. Each step incorporates relevant content from the MintLife blog.
You can also create custom tasks to add to your list of next steps or adjust your goal details. To adjust monthly contributions, click on “adjust monthly contributions” to edit across all goals.
How You can achieve your goals
While Mint.com’s Goals feature helps you set and track goals, here are some tips that can help you actually achieve the goals you set:
* Budget realistically: This applies to budgeting both time and money. The reality for most of us is that any goal we set is going to require a spending reduction in another category–less eating out, fewer new clothing purchases, etc. As such, it’s probably unrealistic to think you can go from saving $50 a month to saving $1,500, just because you created a goal that said you were going to save $1,500 a month.
Similarly, saving takes time, and setting a realistic date for achieving your goal will help you create an achievable monthly savings target. For instance, paying off $8,000 worth of credit card debt at 16% interest in one year will require paying back $726 per month. Spread that over three years, and the monthly amount drops to $281. Yes, you’ll pay more interest, but a three-year payback target is probably more realistic than a one-year target.
* Create a separate account: If you try to save for an objective using your normal checking or savings account, you may find that your planned savings simply get used up on other unplanned purchases. A much better way to achieve a savings goal is to set up a new account–Mint.com includes two new account options when creating a goal–and then deposit your monthly contributions into that account. The harder this account is to get at (no checks, no ATM cards, etc.), the better–you’ll be less likely to spend the money.
* Use automatic deposits through your employer: Instead of having to remember to manually transfer funds to your new goal-related account, use your employer’s automatic deposit capabilities to do it automatically. Most payroll services will let you deposit your paycheck into more than one account–I once had mine set up to go to six different accounts. By making deposits automatically, you’re much more likely to achieve your goal, as those funds won’t be available for spending before you get a chance to make the deposit yourself.
What’s to come
In the future, you will be able to see an annual view of long-term goals, such as retirement or college savings, which can help turn huge long-term goals into achievable (annual) short term goals.
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32 Comments so far
leave a commentWhy only one account per goal? That makes no sense to me. I have a savings account that I use to transfer all excess cash. However, right now I am saving to go on a trip, put money away for car repairs, update my porch, etc. All these goals are running concurrently.
Jon D — I noticed the same thing. I want to save for a car, but I’d like to do it in an account where I keep my emergency fund. However, the amount I want to save for a car is equal to the amount in the account (e – fund). What I did was increase the amount I wanted to “save” for the car by adding that amount to the e fund amount. I just did this yesterday, but it seems to be working fine.
You can assign 1+ accounts per goal. Your retirement, for example could be your 401k + IRA + home equity if you wanted.
You need at least 1 account per goal, because otherwise it’s impossible for the system to track your progress. If you had buy a car, vacation & save for a computer all linked to the same savings account, and the balance dropped (or even increased), to which goal should that be attributed.
Creating a new savings account, particularly at your existing bank, is simple. At ING, for example, I can do it in about 20 seconds.
Aaron Patzer
Founder & CEO, Mint.com
why can you only assign one goal to an account? that doesn’t make any sense whatsover. i have one account that manages three goals (one of which has three subgoals). if i used the mint goal system, i wouldn’t be able to properly track all of those internal goals. this feature is then completely useless to me
Please add all loans to the Pay off Debt goal – not just credit card and auto loans. I’d like to pay down my HELOC loan with my credit union. That account is linked to Mint, but currently I can’t choose that loan to pay off – only credit card and auto loans. Thanks for considering this.
Good suggestions. We wanted to focus the Pay off Debt goal on high interest debts, and not complicate things with student loans, HELOCs, and mortgages, which tend to be at a much lower interest rate & have tax advantages that are hard to incorporate. What might be a better solution is to show all loans, and then by default select all credit cards (they could be unselected), with the user optionally choosing whether to add other loans. Thanks!
I love the new goals! http://whiterabbitisme.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/new-goals-on-mint-com/
Yes, I second Virginia, please add all loans to the pay off debt goal!
We have student loans linked to Mint but it doesn’t show up in my list of loans to pay off. This would be a tremendously helpful feature as we push to pay down our student loans.
I agree, it seems like a silly oversight to have left out paying off loans for the pay off debt goal. Adding this feature would be an excellent addition. Thanks.
The new goal feature is great, but I think it would be really helpful is you were able to tag funds/transactions as going towards your goal. I have some goals right now that I can technically afford (vacations, large purchases, etc) and the way it is set up now, I have already met my goal. But if I could “tag” a transaction of a savings transfer to a goal, that would be very helpful. Also you should be able to link the goal to certain transactions and indicate what you have spent already towards your goal. For example , if your goal is to go on a trip, and you estimate the total thing will cost 1000, you might buy things in stages, like pay for the flight well in advance, and you should be able to link that so the remainder of the trip is only 500. Great feature, just hope it keeps getting better!
I agree with others, being able to assign only one account per goal makes this feature useless to me. I’ll stick with SmartyPig for goal tracking- much easier.
I second the call to allow for paying off loans as a goal. Since when are loans, no matter what they’re for, not considered a form of debt?
I can’t make this work for multiple goals coming out my savings account. For example I setup an Emergency Fund with a goal of $15,000, and I selected savings a account $10,000 savings account and a separate $3,000 savings account. So, I need to save $2000 more, which I planned to do over the next year. However, when I went to add a vacation goal of $2500, I wanted to specify that $500 of $10,000 account is already set aside for this. But, I couldn’t select the $10,000 account because it was fully used by the Emergency Fund.
I would agree with the others, that you really need to be able to track multiple goals from a single account (like Quicken does). People aren’t going to create physical accounts for car savings, vacation savings, emergency savings, etc.
You know, I can’t even begin to use this feature because of how completely ugly and un-Mintlike the UI is. I love Mint, love the product but the new dog-eared corners, gratuitous 3D effects and free 80′s Office clipart images for the goals section are taking a clean UI and stomping all over it.
It’s almost as if the Mint designer is locked in a closet somewhere and the Quicken designer was given a crack at it. No offense but it just looks bad. Really, really, bad.
I checked out the Mint goals feature and while it is noble and good in theory it falls short in practice. I really like the idea of goals and tracking them against the accounts I have setup up. I’ll write up more thoughts on it later this week on my blog but for now:
You can assign multiple accounts to one goal but an account can not be assigned to multiple goals. In theory this makes sense as a goal for an emergency fund shouldn’t share an account with say a debt repayment goal.
I can’t include manual or “other accounts” that do not have an electronic linking in mint. Like I have some US savings bonds tracked in Mint but am unable to link these to a savings goal like retirement or an emergency fund.
Debt repayment goals are very limited. Why only list credit card accounts? I have students loans, mortgages, HELOCS that should also show as accounts for such a goal.
College savings is inaccurate as it assumes no compounding interest on the savings. Who saves for college in a may jar in the back yard? I got a projected savings goal completion date 600 years in the future because it makes no assumption.
The retirement makes no adjustment for a more conservative mix once in retirement. Why would I continue to aggressively invest once in retirement?
Overall I’d say good for a first release but leaves something to be desired.
I was really excited until I realized you expect me to create a SEPARATE account for each goal. Are you serious? This seems like a thin veil for cross-marketing accounts. But come on, how many people will open 6 savings accounts to save for 6 things? Unrealistic.
I use ING and create “sub-accounts” for various savings goals. Even so I only have three.
I agree with the above posters. I was very excited that mint added this feature because I thought I wouldn’t have to use a whole other website for tracking my goals anymore but I have been disappointed again. I need to be able to track students loans under paying off debt goals and be able to use a single account for multiple goals. If HelloWallett and SmartyPig can do this why can’t Mint?
Is there an option to add student loan debt as a goal because that is my primary debt and it doesn’t look like I can. If that could be added (if I’m not missing it) that would be great!
I tried adding buying a home goal and input my details and it gave me a back a very unrealistic number. The goal needs to be alittle more flexible in how it calculates the amountto save per month as this number was way out of whack. Please address. Also, why aren’t loans considered debt??? Please fix this and make the overall goal setting process easier and more flexible and more realistic.
Thanks.
I would really like to echo some of the thoughts here. I’ll be graduating rapidly soon and I was looking forward to seeing my student loan debts spiraling down with a little help from Mint.
The goals would be a great way to make sure I have a way of seeing how soon (or how much faster) I am paying off my debts. Please consider student loans as a pre-made goal option!
Please add American Education Services (AES) under the “Pay Off Debt” Goal, instead of just credit cards and auto loans. College loans are some of the largest debts that most people have these days (at least people 22-30 or older) and many have them through AES. Thanks!
In addition to more flexibility in linking goals and accounts, it would be logical if goals were automatically added to the budget. Also, since I can’t save that much toward the college goal, I get the unhelpful information that at my current savings rate I’ll meet my goal in 2087. For this goal and the retirement goal, I would like to be able to fix the time horison and see projected total savings. Seems logical, no?
Yep. The next version should break down long term goals (particularly college and retirement) into an “annual goal” where you can flip back and forth between an annual and absolute view on your progress. That would make these things seem way less intimidating. As they are right now, the large numbers and long time frames can freak you out.
Aaron Patzer
Founder & CEO, Mint.com
First of, thank you for listening to user feedback and I’m pretty sure you guys will keep improving this feature like you’ve done for all the others.
I second other comments about assigning one account to many goals. I would also like the ability to assign my other property to my goal. I have savings bonds in my other list (I update manually monthly) which is part of my retirement goal, I would like to assign this along with my 401K account.
Please create a “Get out of Debt” Goal for School Loans and other loans. I want to make a plan to get rid of that debt. The current “Get out of Debt” is for Credit Cards only. That is useless to me.
While a nice feature, to really make the GOALS function useful, we should be able to link transactions with our goal. Also, it would be great if there were a way to account for payroll deductions that are used towards the goal (like 401k payroll deductions for retirement). Right now, I can’t figure out how the GOALS function will update my success in saving towards my retirement goal, because it looks like it is linked only with account value (which is great, if the account is a savings account, but much more tempermental/confusing if the account is an investment account) and not transactions. Staying on track is difficult is my success changes daily when the stock market closes. Please make it where you actually let me budget for my goal and show it as part of my monthly budget.
Here is a solution on how you could link multiple goals to one account…
Have it so that users could fund goals with a percentage of a given account. For example, with one savings account you could attribute 10% of that account to, say, an Emergency Fund (goal 1), 20% to a Vacation (goal 2), and 70% to Buying a House (goal three). Obviously the expanding and contracting size of the account would change the goal outlook…but if the outlook was calculated based on an average, then given enough time they would be accurate enough.
You could also circumvent this by being able to “lock” the original percentage of an account to a particularly important goal, so that if the account dipped, it would affect that outlooks of your other goals before affecting you locked goal.
It seems like there are some simply ways to implement a one account -> multiple goals scenario.
I am going to have to agree with this guy up top saying “You know, I can’t even begin to use this feature because of how completely ugly and un-Mintlike the UI is.” I also don’t like the book look. Jason Putorti is hands down one of the best designers I have ever seen and this site is absolutely gorgeous, but I would have thought you could come up with a little better looking book or something different. Anyway that’s just my opinion and its off topic from the usability which is the issue at hand. I haven’t read everyones comments but I sure hope you fix it so I can have multiple goals per account, also I too have school loans to pay off and would prefer that to be in the “Get out of Debt” section.
I was excited about the goals initially, but the way you have to allocate the accounts makes it nearly worthless. I want to save for a house AND track an Emergency Fund…why can’t I share the account from which these goals will be funded? It’d be great to be able to allocate a % of each account to each goal.
For now, I’ll continue to track elsewhere. Bummer.