Stop saving for a number: give your money something to do

By Staci West on 31 August 2026 in Basics

I got married at 24 and we never went on a honeymoon. Not because we couldn’t decide between the Maldives and Mauritius, but because we simply couldn’t afford one.

At the time, we were living paycheque to paycheque. An extravagant holiday wasn’t realistic, so somewhere along the way we made ourselves a promise: for our tenth wedding anniversary, we’d finally take the honeymoon. And we’d do it properly.

Next summer is our tenth anniversary and we’re currently planning that trip. Honestly, one of the nicest parts isn’t even the holiday itself (although ask me again when I’m lying next to a pool with my out of office turned on). It’s being able to plan it without worrying about every single price.

And that’s what financial goals mean to me.

A number isn’t really a goal

When I first started working at FundCalibre, I didn’t have a neat investment goal or retirement number. It was more: I work in finance now, I should probably understand this.

I also didn’t have much spare money to invest. So I learnt. I read. I asked questions. I tried to understand how everything worked so that, when I was financially ready, I felt confident enough to actually start. It’s one of the reasons I later created our investment courses. I wish I’d had somewhere to learn without feeling like I also needed thousands of pounds ready to invest.

But as my finances changed, I realised something else: numbers alone don’t particularly motivate me. “Save £10,000” means very little to me. Tell me that £10,000 pays for something I really want? Suddenly, I’m interested.

Giving your money a job makes saying no easier

I love a plan. Give me a spreadsheet and a savings target and I’m very happy. But if I’m being honest with you (and myself), what I’m less good at is recognising small spending as actual spending. I’m not particularly tempted by huge purchases, but anything under about £150 apparently doesn’t register with my brain as real money. Left unsupervised in Westfield shopping centre, I can somehow turn a collection of “little things” into a few thousand pounds disappearing in an afternoon.

But give that money another job and I’m surprisingly disciplined. If spending £150 means taking £150 away from our honeymoon or our next big goal, a permanent move to the US, suddenly the trade-off feels real. That’s one of the reasons I think financial goals can be so powerful. You’re not necessarily choosing between spending and not spending. You’re choosing between two things you want.

Your goals are allowed to change

There is another side to this, though: I don’t think ‘Future You’ should get everything.

Moving to America has been a long-term goal of ours for years. But we’ve deliberately pushed it back. We realised we didn’t want to spend a decade waiting for one enormous future milestone while saying no to everything in between. So we started taking more holidays, often around the UK with our dogs. That costs money and technically means reaching the bigger goal more slowly. I’m okay with that. A financial plan should support your life, not require you to put it on hold. Sometimes priorities change. Sometimes timelines move. That doesn’t mean you’ve failed.

Sometimes going backwards is part of the plan

There have also been two occasions over the past decade when we’ve had to completely wipe out our savings. It feels awful. Genuinely awful. You watch something that took months or years to build disappear incredibly quickly, and it can feel like you’re back at square one.

But then you start again.

That’s probably what I most wish I could tell my 20-something-year-old self: money comes and goes. Just keep moving forward. Using your savings doesn’t mean you’ve failed at saving. Sometimes that’s exactly why the money was there. You rebuild, adjust the plan and carry on.

There will always be another goal. After the honeymoon, ours is America. After that, I’m sure we’ll find another. But I don’t want to spend my entire life saving for Future Staci at the expense of the person who has to live all the years required to get her there.

Your money needs a job. But sometimes that job is also letting you enjoy your life.