Savings pockets: set money aside for each thingSavings pockets: set money aside for each thing

Saving “whatever’s left” rarely works: whatever’s left gets spent. What works is setting money apart as soon as it comes in, with a name and a purpose. It’s the old envelope idea, and that’s what a pocket does.

Unlike a savings account, a pocket doesn’t live in a bank: it’s an account you keep. The money can stay where it always is, in your bank account or in cash; the pocket tells you how much of it already has a job and how much is truly free.

• For a bill. Tied to a recurring bill you already entered, like the car tax, insurance or building fees. It shows what’s missing for the next due date and how much to set aside each month; when it’s due, you pay it from the pocket.
• For a goal. A trip, a rainy-day fund, a new car. Give it an amount and a date and it tells you how much to set aside each month, or leave it open and add what you can.

1. Create the pocket

   With a name, its currency and what it’s for. The currency is chosen once and never changes: a dollar pocket holds dollars. If you already had money put away for it, enter it as an opening balance.

2. Say how much each person adds a month

   That’s the pocket’s plan. In a shared one, each person sets their part: Sofía $ 10,000, Martín $ 8,000.

3. Each month, Llegamos proposes it

   “Set aside this month’s” lists what every pocket asks for, and you confirm it all with one tap. Nothing is set aside on its own: until you confirm, the money stays free.

4. When the time comes, pay from the pocket

   When you mark a bill paid or enter an expense, choose to pay it from a pocket and it comes out in the same step. You can also take money back to hand or move it to another pocket in the same currency.

A pocket’s balance is never typed in: it’s the sum of its movements, so you can always see where each peso came from and what it went to.

Open a pocket to see its movements, add money or take some out, or tap “Set aside this month’s” to see what each plan proposes.

In the month’s summary, what you set aside comes off what you have left: earn $ 151,000, set aside $ 26,200, and that money is no longer there to spend. In exchange, when a pocket pays for something, it doesn’t come out of that month’s income: it already did, the day you set it aside. In the sample, the $ 7,200 building fees were paid from their pocket and never touched September’s salaries. More on how the month adds up in monthly bills.

The What’s ahead screen looks at the next six months with what you’ve entered and lists, apart, the bills that don’t come every month. For each one it says how much to set aside monthly, or which pocket already holds money for it. A property tax of $ 18,000 due at the end of February, seen from October, means $ 3,600 a month. You create its pocket from there with one tap.

To run the numbers before creating anything, try the monthly savings calculator.

In a group everyone sees the pockets and each person sets aside their own money. What a pocket pays is credited to whoever filled it, in proportion to what each put in, so nobody pays twice when you work out who owes whom. See shared expenses.

• It moves no real money. It opens no account and transfers nothing; your money stays wherever you keep it.
• It doesn’t set money aside on its own. It proposes; nothing moves until you confirm.
• It doesn’t convert. Each pocket lives in its currency (multiple currencies).
• It pays no interest. If you want the money to earn, that’s up to your bank.

Pockets are unlimited on the free plan, and a pocket that already paid for something is archived rather than deleted, history intact.