You will build one plan that funds your goals with what your budget can save each month.
Mei and Daniel are saving for four things at once: their wedding, the cash part of a home, Daniel's diploma and a car. Their budget saves S$1,500 a month for goals (a made-up figure, like all their numbers in this course), and their four goals take exactly that amount between them.
Earlier in the course you built a goals sheet, chose where each goal's money lives, and made detailed plans for the goals that apply to you. In lessons 8.1 to 8.3 you ranked your goals and put them in order. You still don't have one document that shows the whole plan and the reasons behind it. This project produces that document. Allow about 45 minutes.
A funded goals plan is one page, or one spreadsheet tab, that covers every big goal for the next ten years. Each goal gets a monthly amount, and those amounts add up to exactly what your budget can really save each month. The plan also records the trade-offs you made and your review schedule. Write it clearly enough that someone who hasn't taken the course can follow it. That might be your partner, or you a year from now. They should be able to see what you're saving for, how much, where the money is kept and what you gave up.
Start with the amount you can really save for goals each month after your emergency fund and insurance are in place. Lesson 8.1, Why every goal cannot be first, sets out this rule. Look at what your budget has actually saved over the last few months, not the amount you wish it saved. If the amount varies from month to month, use the lower end.
This figure is your ceiling. Every month of the plan must add up to exactly this figure, and never more.
For every goal, write down five things:
the target amount the date the monthly figure for the current period where the money is kept its priority, from lesson 8.2
Take these details from your goals sheet and from the detailed plans you built in modules 3 to 7. Use the target from the detailed plan. Don't use the rough target from lesson 1.1. For a wedding, the target is the cash you need before the day. For a home, it is the cash portion. For a child, it is the pre-birth goal. For a course, it is your own share after credits and sponsorship.
Mei and Daniel have four goals in their current period. The wedding needs S$31,200 in cash before the day, at month 30. They put S$850 a month towards it, and it has priority 6. The money sits in a savings account plus fixed deposits timed to each deposit payment. The home cash part is S$32,000, needed from month 3 to month 60. It gets S$500 a month and also has priority 6. Most of it is in SSBs, and the payments due soon are kept in the savings account. Daniel's diploma costs S$8,000 at month 40. It gets S$150 a month, has priority 3, and is kept in a savings account plus one fixed deposit. The car is S$20,000 at month 66, with priority 2. It is optional, so it gets nothing until month 41. From then, its money goes into T-bills.
Add up the monthly figures for the current period. For Mei and Daniel, S$850 + S$500 + S$150 + S$0 = S$1,500, which is exactly what their budget saves.
If your total is higher than your ceiling, use the tools from lessons 8.2 and 8.3, A ranking method for competing goals and Sequence goals instead of splitting them. Fund the high-priority goals in full and give the remaining goals whatever is left. Move any goal whose date is flexible, and push optional goals into a later period.
If your total is lower than your ceiling, decide where the spare money goes. It might go to a goal that is underfunded, or to a goal you moved later. Money that isn't assigned to a goal usually ends up spent.
Then check every later period on your timeline the same way, so that each one adds up to your saving figure. Mei and Daniel's timeline from lesson 8.3 shows their later periods. The pre-birth goal starts from month 31, and CDA deposits begin after the birth.
Your trade-offs are the compromises you made to fit the plan. Write each one as a single sentence with its reason. It might be a later date, a smaller target, a goal moved behind another one, or a goal you dropped. These are the decisions people most often forget, and the ones a partner will most want to understand. If your income rises, they are also the first things to revisit.
Mei and Daniel recorded three. Daniel's diploma moved from month 24 to month 40, because the wedding and home come first and his course has several intakes a year. The car moved from month 60 to month 66, and its funding starts only in month 41, because it is optional. The wedding target rose from S$30,000 to S$31,200 once they counted the cash needed before the day.
Review the plan every six months. Put both review dates for the next year into your calendar now. At each review, update your balances and recheck any targets whose price keeps moving, using lesson 1.2, Set targets for goals whose price keeps moving. Then check that each goal is on track. Hold an extra review if your income changes, if there's a pregnancy, if you move, if the price of one of your targets changes a lot, or if government support or housing rules change.
Mei and Daniel review on the first weekend of April and the first weekend of October. They will hold an extra review if either of them changes jobs, if they start trying for a baby earlier, or if HDB's completion estimate moves.
Your plan is done when every goal has its target, date, monthly figure, where the money is kept and priority. The monthly total must equal your real saving figure. You also need a short list of trade-offs in plain sentences and two review dates already in your calendar. The whole plan should fit on one page, and someone else should be able to follow it.
You now have everything needed to put your own plan together.
Fill in the funded goals plan, check that the monthly total matches your budget, and put two review dates in your calendar.
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