Tracking the monthly progress of a savings plan is critical if you have multiple goals to fund. Knowing how much you have saved up for each goal and how far you still have to go is the only constant reminder you need to push yourself towards faster and more sustainable saving.
Whether you’re setting aside money for college, buying a new car, or planning a trip to Disneyland, you need an automated system to help you log monthly deposits, track withdrawals, and measure progress levels. Download WordLayouts’ saving goal tracker to monitor the real-time impact of your regular deposits using progress bars & monthly check-offs, ensuring you meet your personal savings goals on time.
Saving Goal Tracker
This template is a scalable Excel worksheet, available to download in Microsoft Excel. You can also access the tracker via Google Sheets. To support you in achieving your financial goals, we use auto-calculations, monthly checkoff tables, and % progress bars for each saving goal to help you build savings faster.
How To Get Started: Step-by-Step Guide for Saving Goal Tracker
This sheet is macro-free, so you simply need to download the file in Excel, enable editing, and start adding data right away. This savings goals worksheet lets you track up to three different savings goals, each with its own dedicated table.
At the top of each table, you enter your Goal Amount, view your Total Saved, see the Remaining balance, and monitor your progress percentage. The status indicator shows whether a goal is In Progress or already Achieved. In the table below, you record the Date, the amount Saved, and whether it is Utilized in the total.
As you update each goal monthly, the sheet automatically reflects your progress and shows how close you are to reaching each target.
Step 1: Name your goals
Personalize each goal by renaming the default (Goal 1, 2, and 3) to your individual saving goals & plan, e.g., a vacation, a new car, or launching a new business.
Step 2: Set your target amount
Make an informed decision about just how much money you’ll need to save up to meet each goal. Simply enter this amount in the “ Goal Amount” field for each saving goal. Feel free to pick an easy monthly minimum target since the goal here is habit protection, not speed.
Step 3: Log deposits monthly
Each time you make a monthly deposit towards a specific goal, update the monthly table below. Enter the amount you’ve saved in the “ Saved” section and check off the Status box in the next column for that month. The tracker will automatically update your progress in the summary box at the top.
Step 4: Track withdrawals
If you are withdrawing money from your savings account, enter the amount withdrawn in the ‘Utilized’ column. The tracker instantly deducts this amount from your overall saved amount for that specific saving goal. Because this tool is designed to help you save more and spend less, each withdrawn amount appears in red text so it stands out immediately, reminding you that you’ve reduced progress toward your goal and may need to increase future deposits to stay on track.
Step 5: Track your completion %
Each time you deposit or withdraw, revisit the progress bars above to understand how far you’ve come and how far you still have to go.
Progress levels are automatically calculated by the sheet using a simple formula (Total saved ÷ Goal amount) and displayed as a clear percentage of your goal achieved. Any changes allow you to visually monitor how close you are to reaching your goal, motivating you to stay on track and make adjustments as necessary.
Step 6: Review your progress
When using a tracker, be sure to review the progress vis-à-vis each goal on a weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis. This is when you ask yourself…
- Did I deposit as planned last month?
- Have I utilized anything since I began tracking my savings? Was it necessary?
- Is the value in the Remaining column shrinking at the rate I expected?
- Do I need to increase deposits over the next few months to stay on track?
Based on your answers to the above, you should come up with a strategic action plan for the next week or month—for example, increase deposits or reduce spending.
How To Scale Up
Our Excel sheet is scalable. While our default settings track up to 3 separate savings goals, you can always track more.
If you want to track more than 3 saving goals, this is what we recommend…
- For 3–9 goals → simply duplicate the sheet 1–2 times.
- For 10+ goals → use separate sheets, and add a small “Master Summary” sheet later that pulls totals/progress from each sheet.
How to duplicate the sheet
Duplicating the sheet helps to avoid clutter and formula breakage. But before you copy the sheet, change the formulas so they don’t hard-code the sheet name “Saving Tracker”. Now duplicate the sheet using the following steps:
- Right-click the Saving Tracker tab.
- Click Move or Copy…
- Tick Create a copy
- Rename it to something like Saving Tracker (Goals 4–6)
How to add more rows in the monthly table
Each row in the table represents a specific month. If you want to add more rows to our default 24-month saving table, here’s what you need to do…
- Simply add values to the Date, Saved, and Utilized columns manually.
- Do not drag the entire row, as this can increment numbers or adjust formulas incorrectly. If you do want to drag columns for convenience, make sure you drag individual columns and not the entire row.
Once you do this, you can keep adding rows up to 120 without modifying formulas again.
How To Optimize Tracker Use
This sheet is essentially a tracker, not a forecasting or investment calculator. That being said, it is still a great tool for encouraging financial growth & stability. Here are some nuggets of financial wisdom to help you make the most of it…
- Pay yourself first: enter deposits right after salary day, not at month-end.
- Treat Utilized like a red flag: if you withdraw from a goal, write a quick note beside it (you can add a “Notes” column to do this).
- Set a minimum monthly deposit: even a small number keeps the momentum when life gets busy.
- Review at least once per week: check the remaining column values and decide whether next month’s deposit needs to increase.
This tracker is programmed to
- Make leakage visible: If values in the Utilized column start rising, you see the goal slipping immediately.
- Ensure clarity: You stop guessing whether you’re “saving enough” because Remaining shows it.
- Support trade-offs: With 3 goals, you can decide where to prioritize deposits.
- Stop “out of sight” saving: You build a habit of logging deposits monthly, which helps consistency.
How To Sync With Other Tools for Better Personal Wealth Management
The right financial tools (or software) can help you save more money, repair credit scores, track investments, and visualize interest-based losses and gains over time. At WordLayout, our team has created dozens of simple but highly effective Excel tools—including loan trackers, smart mortgage calculators, and financial projection tools – to help you build a more financially secure future.
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For a budgeting view that allows you to factor household expenses to explain where saving capacity comes from, use this tracker along with our Home Expenses Calculator to stay on top of your housing costs all year round.
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If you want to see the compounding effect of investing savings, check out our free Savings Interest Calculator sheet to help you track and visualize interest-based earnings on your initial investment while looking at the compounding effect of regular contributions over a specific duration, such as 10 or 20 years.
Couple budget spreadsheet
If you are a couple living together, use our Couples Budget Spreadsheet to create a joint budget with your partner. With a solid plan on how you spend your combined income, you can better understand your spending and saving habits, identify areas to improve, and prevent money wastage.
Beginner at Excel?
Spreadsheets are fragile. There is always a possibility that you might accidentally introduce errors as you edit it. That’s why we recommend this template only if you are comfortable with Excel and are able to identify and fix errors that may be introduced.
To avoid and fix broken formulas, feel free to check out the official Microsoft Support page on How to avoid broken formulas in Excel – Microsoft Support. With that said, download & enjoy!
New here?
Explore our growing suite of retirement and savings calculators to plan your financial goals, estimate future balances, and see how small contributions today can add up over time.
