Your Money, Your Goals - A financial empowerment toolkit for social services programs.

Turning goals into savings targets

For goals that require money to reach, you will want to know: How much should I save every
week (or month) to meet my goal?

When figuring out how much you need to save every week to meet your goal, you need two
pieces of information: the total amount that you’d like to save and the number of weeks you have
to save. Then, you can plug those two pieces of information into this formula:

Total amount

needed for goal

Number of

weeks to reach

goal

Amount to set

aside each

week

Here is an example: It is January 1st, and you’ve just set a new goal to save $500 in an
Emergency Fund by the time your kids start school at the end of August. You already have your
first piece of information: the total amount you’d like to save is $500. To get the second piece of
information, the number of months, just count the number of months from January to August
and multiply by 4. You should arrive at 32 (8 months X 4 weeks).

You can plug these numbers into the formula:

$500 ÷ 32 = $15.65 (rounded)

The formula shows that you would need to save about $15.65 every week in order to have $500
by the time your kids start school. (To get the monthly total, divide the savings goal by 8 months
instead of 32 weeks.)

Here is another example: It’s the beginning of May and your new goal is to save $500 to buy new
school shoes, clothing, and school supplies for your kids at the end of August. How much do you
need to save every week to meet this goal? Your first piece of information is that you need a total
of $500. To find the number of weeks you have to save, count the months from May until August
and multiply by 4. You have 16 weeks. Now, plug it in to the formula:

$500 ÷ 16 = $31.25 per week

You would need to save $31.25 per week (or $125.00 a month) in order to meet this goal.