We all have financial goals, and yet often we don’t truly plan for them. It can be tough to know if you’re saving enough for a trip, home renovation projects, and putting enough away for longer term when you need to plan for them all in tandem. Add to that the complexity of having your savings spread across multiple accounts.
The reality is, it’s not easy. And that was the task at hand when we decided to reimagine the Goals feature in Monarch. There might be a lot to think about, but it should feel easy to plan for goals. Because when you set concrete goals, you’re much more likely to achieve them.
Today, our new Goals experience is officially out of beta and ready to help you plan for everything you have in mind, from this year’s vacation to next year’s cross-country move and everything in between.
Here’s how we’ve evolved Goals to better fit real saving and spending habits and give you clear guidance to keep you on track.
Two types of goals, built for how you actually save and spend
Save Up Goals: Every save up goal now shows a clear on-track or off-track status based on your current balance, planned monthly contributions, and target date. Adjust your contribution amount and watch the projected completion date update in real time. No more guessing whether you'll hit your target; you'll always know exactly where you stand or what you need to do to get back on track.
For longer-term goals like retirement, Monarch also factors in investment growth rates — so your plan reflects what your money is more likely to do over time, not just today’s value.
Pay Down Goals: Paying off debt deserves its own dedicated experience, built around the uniqueness of this kind of goal. Pay down goals gives you projected timelines for each debt account, tracks interest over time, and lets you model what happens when you pay a little extra each month. Want to know if you'll be debt-free a year sooner if you put an extra $100 toward your student loan? Now you can see it.
Save from any account, toward any goal
Get a birds-eye view of which accounts have funds available to save and easily allocate money from any account toward any goal. One account might fund many goals, or one goal might be funded by many accounts. Any type of asset you own can be used toward your goals, including crypto, real estate, company equity, and more. Now you have ultimate flexibility for how you view your assets contributing to your goals.
Spend from your goals while staying on track
Just bought flights for a vacation that's a few months away? Need to tap your emergency fund? You can now track spending from a goal while you’re saving toward your goal total. And yes, that includes spending from a credit card, which we recognize is often the case.
How spending affects your goal progress is up to you. Set it to reduce progress when you need to refill (like an emergency fund), or exclude spending from progress when you've saved specifically to spend (like a vacation). Each goal, your rules.
A full picture for every goal
Each goal has its own detail page where you can see contributions over time, spending against the goal, and a forecast of when you'll get there, all in one place. You can see the whole story of a goal, not just a progress bar.
Always know what's truly available to spend
Your goals now live within your budget, not alongside it. See exactly how much you're allocating to goals each month in the broader picture of your income and expenses so you always know what money is truly available versus what's already spoken for.
Compare different scenarios to pay off debt faster
Want to see how an extra $50 a month changes your payoff date? Curious whether the avalanche or snowball method gets you out of debt sooner? A new debt payoff calculator is built directly into the pay down page and helps you compare strategies and see the real impact of your choices before you commit. Once you've found your plan, save it directly to your budget — so it's not just a scenario you ran, it's something you're actually working toward.
Ready to Get Started?
Whether you're upgrading to the new experience or setting your first goal in Monarch, we're excited to be your partner in achieving them.
Head to the Goals page to check out all that’s new. If you haven’t upgraded to the new experience yet, you’ll be guided through a few steps like adding target completion dates for your save up goals so we can help track if you’re on track.
For a more detailed walk through, check out the video below where our Head of Advice and Planning shows you everything you need to know to successfully plan for your goals in Monarch.
