Categories are ways to track spending and budget for spending. Goals are pools of money that you contribute to at any point and later spend through your categories.

As we built this feature, it was very important for us to keep your savings separate from your spending, so Cash Flow remains accurate. As such, money allocated towards Goals over the course of a month does not show in your Categories tab or count towards your Spending Total for the month.

If you'd like, when you reach a goal and start spending from it, the app will temporarily increase your budget to reflect that you’ve already saved for it, so you’re not in the red when you spend on something you were setting money aside for. You can turn this off if you’d prefer not to see that extra budget when you spend from a goal. Learn more about spending from goals here.

To plan for savings, we recommend reviewing your Cash Flow tab to see get a sense of your average monthly income and make sure that the margin between that value and your total budgeted amount (also known as your Net Income) is reflective of your monthly savings goal total.