Goal Spending Plans
How to plan what a goal will cost, file expenses against it, and let a goal pay for its own spending instead of it landing on your monthly budget.
Overview
Most goal features are about money going in — contributions, linked accounts, progress toward a target. A spending plan is the other half: what the money is eventually for.
You plan what a goal will cost, broken into lines. Then, when you actually spend, you file the transaction against the goal. A wedding goal gets a Venue line, a Catering line, a Photography line. As the invoices arrive, each one gets filed where it belongs, and you can see what you planned, what you have spent, and what is left.
Two separate things can happen when you file a spend against a goal, and it is worth being clear about the difference up front:
- Tracking it against the goal is reporting. The spend still counts in your monthly budget. This works on every plan.
- Paying for it from the goal takes the spend out of your monthly budget and withdraws the same amount from the goal's balance. This is a Pro feature.
Creating a Spending Plan
Open the goal
Go to Goals and tap the goal you want to plan spending for. Scroll to the Spending from this goal section.
Start the plan
If the goal has no plan yet, you will see No spending plan yet. Tap through to the plan editor to create one. You can also set a plan up right after creating a new goal.
Add your lines
Add a line for each thing you expect to spend on, with a name and a planned amount. A plan with no lines prompts you to add what you expect to spend.
Save
The plan appears on the goal's detail screen with Planned, Spent, and Left totals across the top.
Filing a Spend Against a Goal
Once a goal has a plan, any expense can be filed against it.
Open the transaction
Find the expense in your transaction list and tap it to open its detail screen.
Tap Attribute to a goal
You will see a prompt to file this against a goal you are already planning to spend on. Tap Attribute to a goal.
Pick the goal and line
A sheet opens headed Part of a goal?, listing the goals with plans and the lines inside them, each showing what has been spent of what was planned.
Choose how it is treated
Choose Just track it to record the spend against the goal while leaving it in your budget, or Pay from this goal's fund to have the goal pay for it. Confirm.
Afterward, the transaction shows which goal and line it belongs to, and states plainly which of the two happened: Tracked against the goal — still in your budget, or Paid from this goal — it has left your budget.
Tracking vs. Paying From the Goal
This is the distinction that matters most, so it is worth spelling out.
Tracking is reporting only. Nothing moves. The transaction stays in your budget exactly as it was, and your budget totals are unchanged. You have simply labeled the spend so it shows up in the goal's plan. Tracking is available on every plan, including Free, and always will be.
Paying from the goal actually changes two numbers. The spend is excluded from your primary budget, and the same amount is withdrawn from the goal's balance. These always happen together — Forbidden Finance never drops a spend from your budget without recording the matching withdrawal from the goal. Money that vanished from your budget with nobody having paid for it would make your own totals lie to you.
Paying from the goal requires Pro or Premium.
When a Goal Cannot Pay
If you ask a goal to pay and it cannot, the request does not fail — your attribution is still saved, and Forbidden Finance tells you why the payment did not happen:
- The goal is short. If the goal's balance will not cover the spend, it stays in this month's budget and you are told how much short the goal is. You can add the difference and pay from the goal, or leave it tracked.
- Your plan does not include it. On Free and Starter the spend stays filed against the goal and remains in this month's budget, with an option to upgrade.
- The goal is closed. A closed goal cannot pay for new spending.
In every case the filing survives. Only the payment part is refused.
Suggestions
Forbidden Finance can spot spending that looks like it belongs to a plan you already have and offer it to you, so you are not hunting through your transaction list. A suggestion tells you what it found and what confirming will do — it files the transaction under the line and leaves it in your budget until you choose to pay it from the goal. You can confirm it as tracked, or confirm and pay from the goal in one step.
Undoing a Filing
Tap Release on the transaction. It returns to your budget as an ordinary expense, and if the goal had paid for it, the goal is credited back.
Releasing is a correction rather than an erasure — the goal's history keeps the record of what happened and what undid it, so the numbers reconcile. Release works on every plan, whatever tier you were on when you filed the spend.
Closing a Plan
When a goal's spending is finished, close its plan. The plan stops taking new spending, everything it already paid for stays on the record, and the goal can start a fresh plan later. Nothing is deleted.
Closed plans no longer count toward your plan limit.
How Many Plans You Can Have
The limit is on plans that are active at the same time. Closed plans accumulate freely.
| Plan | Active spending plans |
|---|---|
| Free | 1 |
| Starter | 3 |
| Pro | 10 |
| Premium | Unlimited |
Every tier can plan the spending its goals cause — only the number of simultaneous plans changes. If you are already at your limit, close a plan you have finished with to free up a slot.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does filing a transaction against a goal change my budget?
Only if you asked the goal to pay for it. Tracking a spend against a goal is reporting and leaves your budget totals exactly as they were. Paying from the goal is the one that removes the spend from your budget, and it is a Pro feature.
Does paying from a goal move money in my bank account?
No. Nothing is transferred anywhere. Forbidden Finance records a withdrawal from the goal inside the app to show that the goal covered that expense. Your bank accounts and their balances are untouched.
Can a spend leave my budget without the goal paying for it?
No. The two are always paired: a spend is only excluded from your budget alongside a matching withdrawal from the goal. There is no path that does one without the other.
What happens when I hit my plan limit?
You cannot create another active plan on your current tier. Close a plan you have finished with, or move to a plan with a higher limit. Nothing you already have is affected.
Can I still file spending on the Free plan?
Yes. Filing a spend against a goal is free on every plan and is not limited. What Free and Starter do not include is having the goal pay for the spend and drop it from your budget.
What is the difference between this and linking a budget item to a goal?
Linking a budget item feeds money into a goal — your monthly allocation counts as progress. A spending plan is about money coming back out of it. Many goals use both: a linked category builds the balance, and a spending plan tracks what it gets spent on. See Linking Budgets and Accounts.
Can I undo paying from a goal?
Yes, at any time, on any plan. Tap Release on the transaction. The spend returns to your budget and the goal gets its money back, with both steps kept in the goal's history.
Related Articles
Goals Overview
How goals work, and how they sit alongside your budget.Linking Budgets and Accounts
Feed money into a goal automatically.Tracking Progress
Progress, projections, and required contributions.Budgeting Overview
The primary budget a paid-from-goal spend leaves.Need more help? Contact us at [email protected].