You will build a spreadsheet that holds every goal with its target, date, balance and monthly figure.
Most people who try to plan several goals at once end up with a few figures in a notes app, one in a banking app's savings tracker and the rest in their head. Each one looks manageable on its own. Nobody has added them up, so nobody knows whether the budget can carry all of them.
This exercise puts every goal in one sheet. It takes about half an hour, and you will add a column to it in almost every module that follows. Use Excel or Google Sheets, whichever you already use for your budget.
Open a new sheet and type these headings across row 1, one per column from A to H: goal, target, date needed, saved so far, months left, monthly figure, where it is kept, and type.
Each goal gets one row. Keep the names short and plain, such as "Wedding" or "Home: cash part", so the sheet reads at a glance.
Take the list from lesson 1.1, A goal needs three numbers before you can plan it. For each goal, type the target in column B, the date in column C as a real date, and what you already have set aside in column D.
For moving goals, use the target you set in lesson 1.2, Set targets for goals whose price keeps moving, with its buffer. Put the source and check date in a note on the cell, or in a column to the right, so the evidence travels with the number.
Leave column G, where it is kept, blank for now if you are not sure. Module 2 is about filling it in properly.
In E2, work out the months left. In both Excel and Google Sheets, =DATEDIF(TODAY(), C2, "m") gives the number of whole months from today to the date in C2. Copy it down the column.
In F2, work out the monthly figure: =(B2-D2)/E2. That is the target minus what you have, divided by the months left, the same arithmetic as lesson 1.1. Copy it down too. If you want to include a cautious return for long goals, you can swap in the PMT formula from lesson 1.3 for those rows, but a plain division is fine for anything under about three years.
Below the last goal, add a total row. In column F, sum the monthly figures. That single number is the one this whole exercise is for: what all your goals need from you every month, together.
Here is Mei and Daniel's sheet, with every figure made up for the example.
Wedding: target S$30,000, needed in 30 months, S$6,000 saved, S$800 a month Home, cash part and renovation: target S$32,000, needed in 60 months, S$2,000 saved, S$500 a month Car downpayment: target S$20,000, needed in 60 months, nothing saved, about S$333.33 a month Daniel's part-time diploma: target S$8,000, needed in 24 months, S$2,000 saved, S$250 a month
The total row shows about S$1,883.33 a month.
The home target is the S$30,000 renovation figure from lesson 1.2 plus S$2,000 they expect to pay in cash when they book the flat. Module 4 checks that split properly.
Now look at your monthly budget, the one from your spending plan, and find what you can actually save each month after your emergency fund is in place. Use the real figure from your last few months, not the one you would like it to be.
Mei and Daniel's budget saves S$1,500 a month for goals. Their goals need about S$1,883.33. They are short by about S$383.33 every month. Seeing that gap in a cell is the point. Without the sheet they would have funded the wedding first because it is closest, and found out about the home shortfall in four years.
If your total fits within what you save, good: you have room, and later modules help you decide where the spare money goes. If it does not, don't fix it yet. The gap tells you how much work module 8 has to do.
The last step is a label. In column H, mark every goal as fixed, flexible or optional.
A fixed goal has a date you can't move without real cost, such as a wedding with a booked venue or the payments due when you collect a flat's keys. A flexible goal matters but could move by a year or so, such as a diploma that runs several intakes a year. An optional goal is one you would like but could drop, such as a car for someone who lives near an MRT line.
Mei and Daniel mark the wedding and the home as fixed, the diploma as flexible and the car as optional. You will use these labels in module 8, Choose which goal comes first when they compete, to decide what gets funded first.
A finished sheet has one row for each goal, all eight columns filled except where it is kept, a total row, and your budget's real monthly saving written beside the total. Yours will look different, and the activity below is where you build it.
Complete the goals sheet for your own goals and write one sentence on how far the total is from what you can save.
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