Hi all,
I’ve been using Monzo for quite a while but not fully, but really want to switch over fully when they launch. I like to keep track of all my spending, and currently have a very convoluted process which takes me time and will hopefully be something Monzo will get to eventually. I currently use Xero to manage my personal finances. I consider myself a user with quite a complex financial situation but was keen to share thoughts to see if there are lots of people in the same boat. I’m hoping Monzo will eventually provide what I need, or perhaps would need something built using the API.
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Joint accounts - my wife and i share everything. We just have one account that all our money goes in and out of. This is useful and not useful. The one downside is if we want to buy each other a gift then the other will see and ruin the surprise. But if I/she doesn’t see it then we can’t include it in our budgets. Not sure how to solve this - unless you can mark a transaction as a gift, and hide it until the gift date. Bit complex.
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Multiple accounts - we have multiple accounts including credit cards. So the budgeting / targets features don’t currently work since it only considers Monzo spending
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Credit cards - we put tons of spending on an Amex Cashback card - it gives 1.25% so not giving that up anytime soon. The issue here is again that the budgeting/targets on Monzo aren’t really useful as they don’t provide a holistic view. Got me thinking, when the full current accounts are launched, there will be direct debit from my Monzo account to my Amex for a fixed amount (say £1,500). What would be good is if it got the Amex spending data and included the relevant spending in the relevant categories (e.g. £250 Eating out, £250 travel ++)
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Cashback on current account - this is something i’d consider ditching if the other points were addressed but i get 2% back on household bills with Natwest
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Annual costs - a lot of payments I make are annual costs (e.g car insurance), but on Monzo they would appear in the month they are paid from. In Xero i reverse this and split over 12 months, but it would be good to not do this. One thing I thought was to have a rolling 12 month average spend figure for budgeting which would automatically take this into account.
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One off costs - similar to point 5, if you go on holiday you will spend lots more than normal, but for the remaining 11 months won’t, so it skews things. Again i split over 12 months always. Same with Christmas gifts. There are lots of examples where you ‘overspend’ one month but that’s because it’s a one off. If you don’t take these into account you don’t really know if you are over/under spending each month really
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Cash pots - every year i have to renew both mine and my wife’s season tickets for commuting. this is £10k. so i ‘set aside’ in Xero £833 each month to give me a true picture of my ‘free cash / safe to spend’. I think this will be addressed by Monzo’s ‘Pots’ feature
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Capital spending - there are lots of examples where I have transferred money to a pension, or investments, and i keep a lot of cash in Ratesetter. If i use my Monzo card for this when current accounts launch then how will this be categorised? I imagine it would show as an ‘expense’ but actually that money is sitting in another account. So again the budgets/targets are completely pointless after this. Or you buy a car, so you have an asset, but it would show as what? Or what about when you buy a house?
Given the above I’m not sure if i’m the right customer for Monzo - i seem to have lots of peculiarities although I do feel like a lot of the above issues are the same for everyone, and not addressing these degrades the targets/budgeting side of Monzo which seems to be one of their big selling points. I have lots more examples I’ve probably forgotten, but lots of people have more complex financial positions than simply money goes in and money goes out on bills, eating out ++
Keen to discuss further with people and get thoughts!
