Savings Goals

Computes required monthly savings to hit financial targets like retirement nest eggs, college funds, and down payments. Built around the sinking fund formula and includes inflation-adjusted projections, 529 plan mechanics, safe withdrawal rate targeting (the 4% rule), and a priority framework for balancing competing goals. The worked examples are solid, one walks through an 18-year college savings plan at 7% returns, another shows retirement accumulation with employer match factored in. The goal priority ordering is opinionated but reasonable: emergency fund and employer match first, then high-interest debt, then max out tax-advantaged accounts before touching taxable savings. Most useful when someone asks "am I saving enough" or needs to figure out the monthly number to make a specific future dollar amount happen.

skills.sh installs: 741
GitHub stars: 224
last updated: Aug 21, 2026

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Install

$ npx -y skills add joellewis/finance_skills --skill savings-goals --agent claude-code

Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.

Files

Savings Goals

Core Concepts

Required Monthly Savings

To accumulate a future value FV in n periods at rate r per period:

PMT = FV × r / [(1+r)^n - 1]

This is the sinking fund formula (future value of annuity solved for PMT).

Inflation-Adjusted Targets

Always compute goals in future (nominal) dollars:

FV_nominal = FV_today × (1 + inflation)^years

Then solve for the required savings using the nominal return, or use the real return with today's dollars.

Education Funding

529 plans: tax-free growth for qualified education expenses, state tax deductions in many states
Current costs (2025-26, total cost of attendance, College Board Trends in College Pricing): ~$30K/year (public four-year in-state) to ~$65K/year (private nonprofit), growing ~5%/year
Front-loading: maximize early contributions for compound growth
Superfunding: 5-year gift tax averaging (contribute 5× annual exclusion at once)
Financial aid impact: parent-owned 529 assets are assessed at a maximum of 5.64% in the federal Student Aid Index (SAI) formula — FAFSA has used the SAI in place of the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) since the 2024-25 award year

SKILL.md on GitHub