Savings target · GBP
Save £500 in 3 months
That is £167 every month for 3 months, which works out at £5.48 a day. The number is the easy part; which envelope pays for it is the question this page answers.
At this level you are looking for one habit to redirect rather than a budget to rebuild. The ledger will show you which one within a fortnight of honest entries.
Three months is short enough to run on momentum, which is its advantage and its trap. It works when the target is fixed and the date is real, and it fails quietly when it is a rehearsal.
What this asks of your income
Read it as a sanity check rather than a rule. If your take home salary is around £833 a month, this target is a twenty percent savings rate, which is demanding but ordinary. Well below that and the horizon is doing the wrong job.
| If you save | Take home pay that implies | Left to live on |
|---|---|---|
| 10 percent of your pay | £1,667 a month | £1,500 a month |
| 15 percent of your pay | £1,111 a month | £944 a month |
| 20 percent of your pay | £833 a month | £667 a month |
| 25 percent of your pay | £667 a month | £500 a month |
| 30 percent of your pay | £556 a month | £389 a month |
Which envelope pays for it
Kakeibo sorts spending into four envelopes rather than dozens of line items, and that is what makes a question like this answerable. Survival is what keeps the lights on (rent or mortgage, the weekly shop, energy, council tax, travel). Optional is takeaways, subscriptions and the shopping you would not miss. Culture is a course, a museum membership, books. Extra is the irregular hit: car repairs, a wedding gift, the vet.
Splitting it across Optional alone keeps the target inside discretionary spending, which is where kakeibo does its best work. Optional is takeaways, subscriptions and the shopping you would not miss, and the ledger will tell you which line it actually is within a couple of weeks.
| Envelope | Share of the monthly figure | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Optional | 100 percent | £167 a month |
| Total moved to savings | £167 a month |
At this size the money is a cushion against small emergencies, which is exactly the shock that turns into debt when it is not funded.
The four questions, against this target
The method is four questions asked once a month, in that order. Here they are with this page's numbers in them. The long version of each, with the reflection prompts, is in the four questions guide.
- 01How much money do you have?Everything that lands in the month, before anything is committed. The plan below only works from a real figure rather than a remembered one.
- 02How much would you like to save?£167 a month, or £170 if you would rather set a round standing transfer and finish early.
- 03How much are you spending?Recorded by hand, in four envelopes, as it happens. This is the part that makes the £500 possible, and the part every method skips at its peril.
- 04How can you improve?Answered once a month for 3 months, in writing, against the running total rather than against a feeling.
The same target on every other horizon:
- 6 months · £83.33 a month
- 9 months · £55.56 a month
- 12 months · £41.67 a month
- 18 months · £27.78 a month
- 24 months · £20.83 a month
- 36 months · £13.89 a month
The same target in another currency:
Or work from your own figures in the save an amount by a date calculator, and start from the method itself in what is kakeibo.
Common questions
- How much do I need to save each month to reach £500 in 3 months?
- £167 a month. Set it to £170 and you arrive early with a small cushion, which is usually worth more than the exact figure.
- What is that per week and per day?
- £38.46 a week, £76.92 a fortnight, and £5.48 a day across roughly 91 days.
- Which kakeibo category should the money come from?
- Start with Optional. On this target it carries about 100 percent of the monthly figure, which is £167. The ledger tells you the specific lines within a fortnight.
- What happens if I miss a month?
- The shortfall spreads across what is left. Missing one month here adds about £83.33 to each remaining month, so it is recoverable, and the monthly reflection is where you decide whether to absorb it or move the date.
£167 a month is arithmetic. Holding it is the ledger.
Kakeibo works because you write the spending down as it happens and read it back once a month. The app does the totals so the writing down is the only work left.
