For short term savings goals what I do is have a high yield savings account (can be an FDIC one or in a money market fund) -- this year these have been earning a lot (close to 5%) and a related spreadsheet that tracks the various short term savings goals (how much is in each fund). On the spreadsheet I have totals, dollars in my checking account for each goal, and dollars in my high yield savings account for each goal. And I do EFT transfers from one to another as necessary (This can all be done online and it can take three days, for example, for my bank to make funds available in my checking from the high yield savings). And as you know, you sometimes have to put down a deposit, things like that in advance, so need to move monies over to checking. Each pay the monies go into checking (some for short term goals and some for biweekly spending - keep those as two separate balances in the same checking account), and if I have monies I won't be using for a while for short terms goal, I will do a transfer to the high yield saving account to earn more interest which can go into one of the goals buckets. I usually don't bother doing the transfer from checking to high yield savings unless total funds I won't be using for a while are $1000 or more.
Here for example is how I am tracking and saving for my Glacier National Park vacation for next year (a big trip for me) and fairly expensive to fly into a little airport, lodging is high because of the short season, my needing two rooms, and my going high season, etc. It was a lot cheaper to do National Park trips when I used to camp. And Glacier is actually about twice as expensive as other National Parks have been for me to visit that have more cabins and condos near the park with two bedrooms and bathrooms (maybe that's why I haven't done this one yet and put it off so long). I have other saving goals in the same spreadsheet (monies needed to pay taxes and insurance, a home maintenance fund, etc.). I update my spreadsheet every paycheck. I am one who likes spreadsheets, though, and I like playing around with my budget, savings goals, and expenses. Others might have a more straight forward way that they do this.
| Total | First Bank checking | VAN - High yield saving account | comments | comments |
| Glacier National Park July of 2025 (P/K/E/J) July 1 2 Aug 1 2 3 Sep 1 2 Oct 1 2 Dec 1 2 2024 Jan 1 2 3 Feb 1 2 Mar 1 2 May 1 2 Jun 1 2 Jul 1 2025 ($300 per pay) - on track | 4,722 | 600 | 4,122 | Total budget for trip is 13,882. Expected expenses spreadsheet total is 13,600. | Paid $1525 in full four nights Deluxe Cabin St. Mary's KOA, paid $174 J and E's camping Cabin deposit, $522 still owed, Paid 307 two one night rooms Bear Mountain Motel - paid in full // Paid 50% 254 for two rooms first night at Beargrass Lodging and RV resort |
That total budget number in the comments field includes what has already been paid for the trip, what is in savings now for the trip, and what additional is expected to be in savings before the trip ($300 per pay times the 23 more pay periods where monies will go toward this goal) with each pay period before the trip still remaining listed in the far left column. If that budget is higher than the expected expenses spreadsheet, it may be that I ended up putting some interest earned from the high yield savings account into this particular budget to have a little bit of a cushion.
There are other rows on my spreadsheet for other things that I have money saved up for or that I am saving monies for (e.g. Taxes and Insurance, Home maintenance, etc., maybe another little trip I have already saved up for)
