# Goals with a price and a date > Turning wishes into amounts, dates and a monthly number, and deciding what moves when they don't all fit. - Course: [Personal Finance: Budget, Safety Cushion, Debt and Investing](https://productovi.com/courses/personal-finance.md) - Module: What am I saving for? - Lesson 29/32, ~18 min - Source: https://productovi.com/courses/personal-finance/goals-with-a-price-and-a-date ## A list of wishes **Alex Tutor:** Back to Dana, whom you're still helping: her list of plans keeps growing. **Dana:** The cushion is finally full, and the kitchen money is set aside. Next on my list: a new laptop for lessons, a trip to see my sister, and one day a down payment on a flat. Every month I save “something”, and it melts away. **Alex Tutor:** Those are wishes. A wish becomes a **financial goal** when it has three things: a price, a date and a monthly number. Without a date, nothing tells you how much to put aside this month. **Sofia:** And the monthly number is just the price divided by the months? **Alex Tutor:** For goals up to a year or so, yes: price minus what's already saved, divided by the months left. A 6,000 dentist visit in March is six payments from October: 1,000 a month. **Dana:** The laptop is 27,000, and I want it by June. Nothing saved yet. > **Exercise:** Dana wants a 27,000 UAH laptop by June and has saved nothing yet. Saving from October to June, that's nine monthly payments. What is her **monthly number**? In UAH. ## What's saved counts **Dana:** Nine payments, October to June: 3,000 a month. Then the trip: 12,000 in August. I already have 1,000 for it. **Alex Tutor:** Then what's saved comes off first. Eleven payments are left, October to August. **Sofia:** So the 1,000 is a part of the goal that's already done. **Alex Tutor:** Exactly. Keep it in the trip's own pot, so it doesn't drift into groceries. > **Exercise:** The trip costs 12,000 UAH in August. Dana already has 1,000 for it and will save from October to August: eleven payments. What is the **monthly number**? In UAH. ## A goal far away grows **Sofia:** Laptop 3,000, trip 1,000: 4,000 a month. **Alex Tutor:** With the cushion full, Dana can set aside about 6,000 a month: 2,000 for retirement, next lesson's topic, and 4,000 for goals. The two fit exactly. Each is a **sinking fund**: a named pot fed every month, so a known cost never lands on a card. **Dana:** And the flat? A down payment of 500,000 in today's prices, in about six years. **Alex Tutor:** Long goals need one more step: prices rise. Consumer prices in Ukraine were up 8.1% in a year as of August 2026. Assume 8% a year and grow the price: $$ \text{price in } n \text{ years} = \text{price today} \times (1 + i)^{n} $$ *i is the yearly inflation you assume, n the number of years. A guess, not a forecast: check it every year.* > **Exercise:** The flat down payment is 500,000 UAH in today's prices, in 6 years. Assuming 8% inflation a year, what will it cost then? Use price × (1 + i)ⁿ. Round to whole hryvnias. ## When the goals don't fit **Dana:** 793,000? Over six years that's about 11,000 a month. And until the laptop is paid, I have nothing spare. **Alex Tutor:** Then something has to give: the date, the amount or the other goals. Part of the money could also earn above inflation, with risk and fees. What doesn't work is keeping everything as it is and hoping. **Sofia:** The short goals end one by one. From next September the flat could get the whole 4,000. **Alex Tutor:** True, and in the first year the flat pot still collects 10,000 from what's left over. But 4,000 is far below 11,020, so the date moves out, the target shrinks, or the money has to earn something. Decide now, not in year five. > **Exercise:** The flat needs about 11,020 a month; Dana can give it nothing until the laptop is paid and at most 4,000 later. What is the **honest** fix? ## Which goal goes first **Alex Tutor:** Order matters. First the cushion, because it protects every other goal; Dana's is done. Then goals with a fixed date and price, like the kitchen and the laptop. Then big, flexible ones like the flat. **Dana:** Honestly, I feel guilty about the trip. It's a want, not a need. **Alex Tutor:** A planned want is fine. It has a price, a date and its own pot, so it won't come out of the cushion or a card. That's the whole point. **Sofia:** Seeing her sister once a year is probably worth more to Dana than a faster flat anyway. > **Exercise:** **True or false:** a trip is a want, not a need, so it shouldn't be in a goals plan. ## Your turn: Dana's goal table **Dana:** Put it all in one small table for me. And tell me honestly what to do with the flat. **Alex Tutor:** Columns: goal, price, date, saved, monthly number. Then one decision on the flat with a reason. **Sofia:** And the monthly numbers can't add up to more than 4,000. **Alex Tutor:** Right. The 8% is an assumption, so say so. And where the flat money sits is a separate question: savings and investing have their own rules, risks and fees. > **Exercise:** Write Dana's goal table (goal, price, date, already saved, monthly number) for the laptop and the trip, and add one decision on the flat with a reason. The monthly numbers must fit in 4,000 UAH. > **Key ideas** > > - A **financial goal** has a price, a date and a monthly number; a wish has none of them. > - Monthly number = (price − already saved) ÷ months left. Dana: laptop 27,000 ÷ 9 = 3,000, trip (12,000 − 1,000) ÷ 11 = 1,000; **4,000 a month**, all of her goals money. > - Each goal gets its own pot, a **sinking fund**, so a known cost never lands on a card. > - For goals years away, grow the price by inflation: 500,000 × 1.08⁶ ≈ **793,437 UAH**, about 11,020 a month over six years. The 8% is an assumption to check every year. > - When goals don't fit, move a date, shrink an amount or drop a goal: decide now. Cushion first, then fixed-date goals, then big flexible ones. > - A planned want is fine. Where long-goal money sits is a separate decision with its own risks and fees. **Alex Tutor:** Next: the goal with the furthest date of all, retirement. - Previous lesson: [Case: Sam's family protection checklist](https://productovi.com/courses/personal-finance/protection-checklist-case.md) - Next lesson: [Retirement: what the state gives and what you add](https://productovi.com/courses/personal-finance/retirement.md) --- Productovi Learning. 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