Savings & Goals

How it works

The mechanics of this kit, plainly — what runs and when, where the data lands, and what you look at.

• Monthly check-in runs the 1st of each month · 8am and keeps the What you're saving for dashboard fresh. The first of the month — asks once for the balances it has not seen, and says where every goal stands.
• What is captured lands in the Savings goals dataset, which lives at Data/Savings Goals in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Balance snapshots dataset, which lives at Data/Balance Snapshots in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Savings accounts dataset, which lives at Data/Savings Accounts in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• The What you're saving for dashboard reads from the dataset and shows, at a glance: where it's heading · how the goals stand · put away, month by month · next goal due · set aside, across every goal · goals on the register · go through the balances · balances, latest per account · each goal, at this rate · the accounts · the goals · how this board works.

The wiring, in one breath: Moss holds Goal capture · Moss holds Balance capture · Goal capture writes to Savings goals · Balance capture writes to Balance snapshots · Savings goals shown by What you're saving for · Balance snapshots shown by What you're saving for · What you're saving for kept fresh by Monthly check-in · Moss holds Rates and transfers · Rates and transfers writes to Savings accounts · Savings accounts shown by What you're saving for.

Getting the most from it

A kit earns its place when it changes what you look at and what you say, not when it is installed. This is the rhythm that makes it pay.

• Put every goal on the register the day you install — the name you'd use, roughly how much, a date if it has one, where it is kept — and give Moss the balance in each pot. The goals table and the pace ring fill from that first sitting; the line of what you put away needs a second month.
• Say a balance the way you'd say it to a friend — "the easy saver's at 5,450", "put 200 in the trip pot" — whenever you happen to look, and Balance capture files a snapshot with what went in since the last one. With two accounts that could fit, name which; if you don't, Moss asks rather than guessing.
• When a savings statement arrives, add it to the vault and say what it is. Balance capture takes the closing balance and what was paid in from the document, not from memory — that is the correction that keeps Put away, month by month true.
• Read Where it's heading on the first of the month, after the Monthly check-in has run: the dashed half is arithmetic at the average of your last three months, the basis line says so, and Each goal, at this rate says which goal that rate lands early and which it doesn't. Answer the check-in's one card the same day, or say a balance hasn't moved.
• Read the Pace column as arithmetic, never as a verdict: "behind" means the remaining amount over the months left is more than what is going in, and the list says by how much. Move the date, change the target, or pause the goal — all three are decisions, not lapses, and the row keeps its history.
• Ask Moss for the case both ways when you are weighing whether to save or pay something off, and expect the plain line that this is a record, not financial advice. Which account, which rate and what to do with a lump sum are yours; nothing here can touch your money.
• Once a month, Go through the balances on What you're saving for takes each open account in turn: type the figure from your banking app, with last month's beside it, and move on. The balances bar is current at once; what went in is worked out at the next check-in, and each goal's set-aside figure moves then, or straight away if you tell Moss you have been through them.
• Read a rate out when it changes ("the easy saver's 4.1% from October") and say what goes in on which day ("250 on the 1st"). Rates and transfers keeps both on The accounts, dated, keeps the old rate in the note, and tells you where that plan lands for each goal it feeds, with the working. It never writes a rate you did not give.
• Ask what an account is earning and Moss works it out on your own balance and rate, with the method and its assumptions said; interest a statement printed is kept on the log as printed, never a worked figure. Ask whether a rate is any good and yours is set beside a published, dated range for that kind of account, never beside a named bank or deal.
• When a goal is reached, the check-in's card asks what comes next for it: keep the pot as it is, keep building it, spend it on what it was for, move its monthly to another goal, or start a new one. Nothing is chosen for you, and the reached goal stays on the record.

Make it yours

Nothing here is fixed. The pieces are ordinary agents, routines, datasets and dashboards, so anything you know about shaping those applies. Retire whatever earns nothing.

Things people usually change first

Say any of these in chat, or edit them on the kit’s page in the app.

• What you call each goal and each account — the name on the register is the word Moss uses back.
• When the monthly ask lands — the first of the month at eight is the default — or which accounts are never asked about, or whether the ask happens at all.
• How each goal is judged: the target, the date, and what you plan to put in a month are all yours to move, and the pace follows.
• How a shared account is split between the goals kept in it — Moss never splits a balance for you.
• The currency you think in, and the day money usually lands — said once, remembered for every check-in.
• Which accounts Go through the balances walks: say an account is closed and it drops out of the walk and the monthly ask, and stays on the record.
• The rate and the regular transfer on each account: say the new figure and it replaces the old, which is kept in the note.

Your first run

Installing starts a short setup conversation — not a form. Answer roughly, correct later.

1. Installing ends with "Meet Moss" and a short conversation, not a form. Before it asks you anything, Moss looks at what you have already told 1Presence and at any savings statement or spreadsheet in your vault, and offers what it finds for you to confirm. Then one tap-to-answer panel offers the kinds of thing people put money aside for — a cushion for emergencies, a trip, a deposit, a big purchase, a course, a vehicle, a gift or an occasion, a project, a rainy-day pot — leaving out what it already found. Then each goal, one at a time: what you call it, roughly how much, by when if there is a date (no date is a real answer), where it is kept, what is already set aside toward it, and roughly what you mean to put in each month. Each goes on the register as you say it, with its first pace worked out from your plan.
2. Then the balances, lightly: what is in each account you named, as a rough figure or a blank. Nothing in that conversation reads an account — there is no bank connector to grant, now or later. A statement is a document you add to your vault. If Goals & Coaching is installed, a money goal on Hazel's register is offered by name; if Mortgages & Loans is installed, paying something off stays there; if Assets & Holdings holds a cash figure, it is offered as a starting balance and written only if you say so.
3. Whatever is still missing (a goal, the amount one is for, or what is set aside toward it) waits on the Kit page with a way back to Moss, and Moss offers it once the next time you talk. Tell it a part does not apply to you, or that you have finished setting up, and it stops asking. Until a goal is on the register, the first-of-the-month check-in leaves one card inviting you in rather than measuring nothing.
4. From the first day of the next month, the Monthly check-in reads every balance you have given, asks you once — in one card — for any account it has not seen this month, works out each goal's pace from what is actually going in, and redraws the board with the projection's basis stated. It says something only when a goal has slipped behind or been reached, and a goal reached comes with one question: what next for it. Answer the card in a line, or go through the balances on the board one account at a time. A quiet month is the point.

Watch the first pass, then tell it what you would have done differently — that correction teaches it more than any setup could.

The essentials

Learning, preferences and run costs work the same in every kit — so they are covered once, in the Kits guide.

Living with a Kit — the Kits guide →

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