ADHD & Finance: strict limits and pot widgets

Feedback & Ideas
1

Hi there,
Just wanted to share my experience as someone with ADHD who struggles with managing finances.

Like many people like me, I am very prone to impulsive spendings and really struggle to stick to a budget. I have found that the existence of pots and the ability to attach specific virtual cards to them has been a step in the right direction as it allows me to split my money by categories and allocate a budget . For example, I have a specific pot and card dedicated to unplanned and fun purchases like clothes and books. I have also put things in place like blocking my access to specific website during times I know I am more prone to spend impulsively . All of these have helped but they are not enough. To be frank, I am quite desperate to get my finance in order.

I have given some thought about what could be helpful to me, and I have come up with the following:

  • Blocking vendors beyond a certain amount. For example, I know I spend a lot on books, specifically at Waterstones, could I set a monthly limit on transactions from that vendor for a month and have my card be blocked for any transaction above it. There could be an option to adjust amounts during a strict time windows once a month like the day before I get paid.

  • cool off period for large transactions. A lot of large impulsive spending online come from boredom or sudden excitement about a brand new project. If there could be some form of cool off over large transactions, it would be very helpful. For example, if I was about to spend a 100 on Amazon, a notification saying “hey, that’s quite a lot of money, what don’t you think about it. You can retry ordering the same amount from the same site in 24h if you still want it”

  • Making the most of pots. Pots are fantastic and I
    also think they could be much more powerful with some extra tools. 1) widgets, having a widget on my home page or, even better, my Lock Screen, telling me how much is in my chosen pot would be INCREDIBLY helpful. 2) Having a notification when I spend from a pot with how much was spent and how much is left on the pot would be also amazing. I know Revolut shows the remaining amount on their notifications. I tried it out as a pot alternative and find it amazing. 3) Being able to set a weekly limit on my pot and getting notification when my burn rate is too high like “hey it’s Tuesday and you’ve spend 40% of the money on your pot, slow down or you’ll run out”

I am aware all of these are extremely blue sky thinking and probably represent technical challenges, but I would appreciate any of these being considered at all.

Thanks!

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Waterstones Pot > Virtual card assigned > once the balance is spent it will decline any further payments.

The rest I don’t have an answer for, sorry :sweat_smile:

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I think when it comes to hard-stopping payments like you mentioned, that would result in confusion. Maybe for merchant hard limits like Waterstones it’d be more possible. I mean, they can already do hard blocks on merchants full stop, so I dont see why it cant be spending linked.

I very much wish they reintroduced the left to spend indicator on the main account which they removed from some bizarre reason (and I miss to the point I learnt how to make an iOS widget, and remade it myself)

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4

I don’t believe Monzo can develop these features for mainstream use.

However, they do have a Vulnerable Customers Team that assesses individual situations and may be able to provide assistance beyond the usual features. It might be worth reaching out to see if they can help.

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This is available, in Spotlight.

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Simple swipe down on the Home Screen.

6

This requires you to set up a spending target, a system that doesn’t work for me. The old system just worked on your balance.

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d

Left to spend doesn’t, but also doesn’t give a bar sadly.

Easy enough to change the target every month when you know what’s left in the account.

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Hello and welcome.

Monzo really helped me get in top of my finances and I hope it can for you too.

This is where the old way was slightly better than target but since that’s what we’ve got I’d suggest investing time in this area since it’ll help answer this a little.

A suggestion which might work. I used to, after pay day, put everything in either a bills pot or a “month spend point” and leave no more than 20 in my account.

This way every time I wanted to spend I had to go through the process of withdrawing it from the pot first, which was enough for me to control the impulse of seeing all that money just sitting there.

It might be worth thinking about.

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