Goal Funds

You do not create a fund from scratch. It is offered on a Saving Amount goal that has reached its target and is on Manual tracking:

1. Open the finished goal and tap Create a Goal Fund.
2. Check the name, icon and amount. All three are prefilled from the goal, and the amount is what the goal actually saved, which may be more or less than the target you set. Use full Goal amount is ticked, which locks the amount box to that figure. Untick it if you want to move only part of the goal into the fund.
3. Create it. The original goal is archived on the way, with nothing to answer - it keeps its figures and moves into the Archived section at the foot of the Goals page. See Archiving.

Other goals do not offer it, each for its own reason:

• Paying Off - the figure is the balance still owed, so a fund built from one would hold a number meaning the opposite of money to spend.
• Account Linked - the value keeps moving with the account behind it, so there is no settled amount to take.
• Ongoing Percentage - a savings rate has no dollar figure at all.
• Monthly Saving - it is a monthly commitment rather than a target, so it never completes and never reaches the button.

Full detail on the goal types in Goals.

Cadence has three containers whose spending is held out of your monthly numbers. They are not interchangeable, and the third has its own article: Out of Pocket Budgets.

The bar on a fund’s card fills as you spend, and what it counts is lifetime spending, not this year’s. A fund you opened in 2026 and are still spending from in 2027 shows the whole story - a January reset would hide every dollar already spent.

Overspending a fund is allowed and the remaining figure goes negative rather than stopping at zero. That is the honest reading: you spent more than the fund held, and the extra came from somewhere else.

A fund has no linked categories, so no category can route spending into it on its own. You spend from it by choosing it in a transaction’s Budget field, the same picker that lists your monthly and annual budgets. It is offered when you add a transaction, when you edit one, in the bulk Change Budget action and in the CSV import row editor.

That is deliberate. A fund holds a finite pot of money saved for something specific, and the number it exists to answer is how much of it is left - so money leaves it only when you point a transaction at it.

There is one way to make that automatic. A transaction rule (Settings → Transaction Rules) can set a budget, and its budget list includes Goal Funds alongside everything else - so a rule matching a merchant will keep filing that merchant’s purchases against the fund until you change the rule. Worth knowing if a fund is draining faster than you expected.

Sometimes the money in a fund is better used topping up something you are already spending from - the fund saved for a kitchen renovation can cover the month the appliances arrive. That is Add Remainder to a Budget, the fund’s counterpart of “Create a Goal Fund”:

1. Open the Budgets tab, find the fund under Goal Funds and tap it.
2. Open the Details tab and tap Add Remainder to a Budget.
3. Choose where it should go. Every budget you can credit is in one alphabetical list with its own icon - there are no headings to read past.
4. Add full remainder to Budget is ticked, which fills the amount box with everything the fund has left and locks it, so the figure on screen is the figure that moves. Untick it to type a smaller amount. There is a note field below, but no screen shows a note back to you, so nothing is lost by leaving it empty.
5. Tap Add Remainder.

Three kinds of destination are offered:

• Your WorryFree monthly limit - only when WorryFree is switched on.
• Any monthly budget - the credit applies to this month.
• Any annual budget - the credit applies to the whole calendar year.

Out of Pocket containers and other Goal Funds are not destinations. An Out of Pocket container’s money comes back on its own when you are reimbursed, so crediting it would double-count; moving between two funds would just relabel money that has not been spent.

You cannot add more than the fund has left. Money already spent from the fund cannot be allocated a second time, so the ceiling is the Remaining figure on the fund’s Details tab - which is the same figure the ticked checkbox fills the box with - not the amount the fund started with.

The money arrives as a one-time credit for the current period only - this month for a monthly budget or the WorryFree limit, this calendar year for an annual budget. It is not a raise: the credit is not repeated, and the following period opens with the destination’s own amount again.

The budget’s own amount is never rewritten. Open the destination and you will see the amount you set, with a separate Credited from line naming the fund it came from and how much. A budget credited from two funds gets a line each rather than one anonymous total, and the WorryFree limit breaks its credits down the same way when you open it.

The WorryFree spending card - the one that replaces the budget list at the top of the Budgets tab - is the one place that combines them: it adds a single line under the limit reading “Includes $150 from a Goal Fund”, whether that came from one fund or three. Carried-over money gets its own separate line there, so the two are never rolled into one figure. See WorryFree.

The fund’s own balance goes down by what you moved, so the two sides always add up to what you saved.

Changed your mind, or the month ended up cheaper than expected? You take a credit back from the budget that received it, not from the fund - because the question that decides how much comes back is “has any of this been spent yet?”, and that is a question about the destination.

1. Open the budget you credited and go to its Details tab.
2. Under the buttons you will find a Remove button naming the fund and ending in Credit - one for each credit the budget is holding, so a budget credited by two funds can unwind either.
3. Tap it. Cadence states how much is unspent and will actually go back, then asks you to confirm.

On a monthly or annual budget, only the unspent portion comes back, and the credit is the last money you spend. The budget’s own amount is used up first, so a credit is only eaten into once your spending for the period goes past what that budget would have held without it.

Say Groceries is $400 a month and you move $200 in, making $600 for the month. Spend $350 and the whole $200 comes back, because the budget’s own $400 already covered it. Spend $520 and $80 comes back - the other $120 is how far past $400 you went, which the credit is covering. Cadence works this out and states the figure before you confirm, so the number on the confirmation is the number that moves - not the larger number on the Credited from line above it.

A partial take-back leaves the rest of the credit in place, so the destination keeps covering the spending that went past its own amount.

Your WorryFree limit is the exception: the whole credit always comes back, however much the month has cost so far. WorryFree has no per-budget amount for spending to be charged against first - it measures your whole month of everyday spending against one limit - so there is nothing to price the credit against, and taking it back simply undoes it. The full amount returns to the fund and the credit closes. See WorryFree.

Archive or delete a budget that is holding a credit and the unspent part is handed straight back to the fund, without you having to remember it was there. Whatever had already been spent stays spent.

The one case where the money cannot come home is a fund that no longer exists. Delete a fund while a credit from it is still outstanding and, on a monthly or annual budget, the credit stays put for the rest of the period - Remove declines, because there is nowhere left to return it to.

Your WorryFree limit takes the other route: Remove still works and the credit still closes, so your limit drops back to the figure you set - but nothing is refunded, because the fund it came from is gone.

Open the fund from the Budgets tab and use Edit to change its name, icon or Goal Fund Amount. Correcting the amount is the usual reason - a goal that was a little short, or money added after the fund was created.

Archive puts a fund away without losing it. It leaves the active list and collects under an Archived section at the bottom of the Goal Funds list, which starts closed. Open that section and an archived fund still wears its ordinary card: tap it and Restore is in the Details tab, in the slot Archive occupied. An archived fund offers neither Edit nor Add Remainder to a Budget, so restore it first if you need either. Its transactions stay reachable either way.