Reserve items and the weekly micro-form

The hardest expenses to plan around aren't the rent or the phone bill — those show up every month and your brain already knows about them. It's the car insurance that hits twice a year, the holiday spending in December, the property tax in July. They're predictable in size and timing, but they're not monthly, so they ambush the months they land in. Reserve items are how Haven turns those lumpy obligations into smooth monthly contributions.

What a reserve item is

A reserve item is a future expense you want to set money aside for, a little at a time, instead of getting hit with the full amount in one month. You give it a label, the total amount, and the due date. Haven spreads the cost across the months between now and then.

A $1,200 car insurance bill due in six months becomes a roughly $171 monthly contribution. A $3,000 holiday-spending target due in November becomes a manageable monthly chip. If the due date is this month or already past, Haven pulls the full amount in immediately — no smoothing, because there's no time left to smooth across.

How a reserve item changes safe-to-spend

Adding a reserve item carves a monthly contribution out of your safe-to-spend number. The engine sums every reserve item's monthly amortized cost and treats it as an outflow alongside your fixed obligations. If you add the $1,200 car insurance, your safe-to-spend drops by about $171 — that money is being claimed by the future you.

The Inputs Form shows you the suggested total as a hint, but it never overwrites what you typed. You're the source of truth; the reserve scheduler just helps you remember. If you want to adjust the contribution down for a tight month, you can — the reserve item itself stays unchanged, and next month's suggestion still reflects the original schedule.

The weekly micro-form

The cashflow dashboard has one input it asks you to update during the month: how much you've spent on flexible items so far. That's it. One number, replaces the previous value. No transactions to categorize, no receipts to enter.

Weekly is the right cadence for it. Daily is too much — you don't need to log groceries every night to know how the month is going. Monthly is too sparse — by the time you check in, you've already spent the money and the safe-to-spend number is a museum exhibit. Once a week, the dashboard shows you a fresh remaining number and a fresh daily figure, and you can course-correct while the month still has runway.

How reserve contributions compose with the mode

Reserve contributions come out before the mode math runs, in every mode. Strict, Balanced, and Flexible all subtract reserve contributions the same way. The mode only changes how much of your above-buffer cash is allowed into the calculation; it never changes whether reserves get funded.

That means a reserve item makes safe-to-spend smaller in every mode by the same amount. If you add a $200/month reserve, you'll see safe-to-spend drop by $200 whether you're in Strict, Balanced, or Flexible.

When to add a reserve, and when not to

A reserve item is for a real upcoming obligation with a real due date and a real number. Property tax. Insurance renewal. A holiday-spending target you want to hold yourself to. A trip you've already booked. Things that, if you don't set the money aside, will hurt the month they land in.

It's not the right tool for "I want to save for someday." That's an investment account or a savings goal — different feature, different mental model. Reserves are about smoothing known costs across the months they're owed across; they're not a general-purpose savings bucket. If you can't put a date on it, it probably belongs somewhere else.

The simple test: if the reserve item disappeared, would a specific month get more painful? If yes, it's a reserve. If no, it's something else.