In my last post I wrote about using sinking funds to manage an irregular income. I create and manage those funds using Quicken’s savings goal feature. Currently I’m using Quicken Deluxe 2007, but these instructions were essentially the same when I used the 2003 version.
Savings goals can be found in Quicken by clicking first on “Planning” and then “Savings Goals.” At this point you can choose to set up a new goal or edit, delete, contribute to, or withdraw from an existing goal. When you set up a new goal you have the option, although it’s not required, to set up a goal amount and a goal date.
When you contribute to a goal you choose which Quicken account you want the amount to come out of. Quicken will then take the amount from that account and place it in your savings goal account. It’s important to note that this amount is not physically removed from your actual bank account, only from your Quicken account. Since I usually choose to have my amounts transferred from my checking account, this has the added benefit of being a little extra overdraft protection for me since my Quicken account shows less than my actual bank account holds.
When you choose to withdraw money from your savings goal, you again have the choice of which Quicken account you would like your money transferred into.
As I’ve noted before, I’m a total Quicken addict and saving goals are one of my favorite Quicken features. Some other things I love about this feature of the program are that all of your Quicken savings goals accounts are tracked on your sidebar so it’s easy to see how much money you have transferred into them at any time and the amounts will be included in your net worth. Also when reconciling your accounts with Quicken, the saving goals amounts are accounted for so they don’t throw off your numbers.
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great trick! my husband and i have been trying to figure this out for a while. now, i just need to get quicken deluxe to get this feature, since the basic version does not.