Savings and locks
Three ways to hold money. Each one says something different about you.
Savings goals pay no yield. They are a commitment device, and the strength of the commitment is exactly what the score reads. For dollars that earn daily yield, there is the yield account.
The three types
How hard is it to break?
That single question decides everything: what it is for, what it costs to change your mind, and how much the score reads into it.
Regular
Contribute at your own pace and take the money out whenever you need it, with no penalty and no notice.
Signal to the score
Consistency
Normal Block
Locked until the date you choose, with a way to close early that costs 5%. Strong discipline, with a way out if the month goes wrong.
Signal to the score
Discipline under commitment
Safe Lock
No access until it matures. No emergency withdrawal, no exception, except a free change of mind in the first 24 hours. The app warns you clearly before you choose it.
Signal to the score
Strongest in the file
Breaking a lock
We list what it costs you before you do it, not after.
Terminating a goal early is a flow with an explicit cost list, and none of it is in small print. You see all four consequences on one screen and then decide.
- 01
The goal closes permanently
It cannot be reopened, and the term does not carry over.
- 02
Your streak resets to zero
Consistency starts again from nothing.
- 03
The savings source of your score drops
Immediately, not at month end.
- 04
The 5% early close fee applies
On a Normal Block, and it is not refunded.
Safe Lock cannot be closed early, apart from a free change of mind in the first 24 hours. If that is not the right commitment for your month, the app says so before you pick it.
The fourth kind
There is savings with other people in it.
A circle is the same discipline as a lock, with a promise to a person attached. That is why circle faithfulness carries 65% of Community Credit and savings held carries 10%.
Circle faithfulness
Savings held
Why people save
Nobody saves for a balance. They save for a date.
School fees in September. A deposit in the spring. The savings that count toward Community Credit are the ones that are still there next month, which is why the weight is small and the record is long.
Questions people actually ask
- Do savings goals earn yield?
- No. Goals pay no yield. What holding a goal earns you is standing: it feeds Community Credit, which is what prices your borrowing. If you want dollars that earn daily yield, that is the yield account, a separate product.
- Why is savings only 10% of the score?
- Because money sitting still is weaker evidence than a promise kept to another person. A locked goal shows you can hold a line; a circle contribution shows somebody is counting on you.
- Can I add to a locked goal?
- Yes. Adding money is its own flow, and you can extend a term. What you cannot do is take money out of a Safe Lock before it matures.
- What does it cost to close a Normal Block early?
- A 5% early close fee, shown with the score consequence before you confirm. Safe Lock cannot be closed early, apart from a free change of mind in the first 24 hours, which is the entire point of it.
Hold the line
Pick the commitment you can actually keep.
A Regular goal you never break is worth more than a Safe Lock you wish you had not chosen.