Something that really bothers me about budgeting is having to move money around into different pots for bills etc. One of the biggest problems is forgetting to put money aside each month for particular bills. Another thing that is slightly annoying is seeing an available balance that isn’t a true amount of money you can spend.
I think it would be great if Monzo could take some of this away from the user and automatically put money into virtual pots each time you get paid or at intervals you set yourself. That way you just have to set it up once.
On top of this I think it would be great if Monzo could automatically figure it out for direct debit and standing orders too so that if you set one up it will assume you want this money putting aside.
Perhaps this could be a feature you have the option of Turing on or off.
There may be some issues with this kind of feature but the idea of having your bank automatically budget for you is great.
The idea of virtual savings pots has been discussed at length (targets is an early version of this) -it makes total sense to be able to automate these, so you have a good overview of your disposable income for the month as soon as you’ve been paid. I think for this to work well though, we’ll need to have introduced custom timeframes, so that you can set the ‘beginning of your month’ on a day you choose. Otherwise I think it might get a bit confusing when trying to work calculate an accurate overview of what you have left to spend until your next payday rather than calendar month.
I have made a previous suggestion on how this could be done, and there could be even more added on top of this.
Maybe being able to lock certain savings pots until the day that you would need them so you can’t spend that money? You’d maybe need to set a pin on the pot itself or have a family member set the pin so you can get into it.
Essentially what you are describing is like setting up a standing order into a savings pot which is pretty simple to do.
What I’m referring to is an automated way for Monzo to determine that a bill will be coming out on a particular date (perhaps due to a direct debit you’ve set up) and automatically puts money into a savings pot, so it’s not shown as “available” but can always be moved back if an emergency occurs or is no longer required.
Not sure locking it is great idea. Whilst it’s important to budget correctly, taking away control is an overstep.