✅ Bill Pots (previously Committed Spending Pot)

Just a thought from me here:

Now that committed spending has been (mostly) worked out, how about if we could have a pot named Committed Spending, which would work as follows:

  • Every payday, the exact amount you need for your committed spending (plus maybe a specified-by-you “buffer” amount in case your DDs go up in a given month/pay period) is automatically placed into this pot
  • Then the committed spending DDs and standing orders come out of this pot

This way, your committed spending money is automatically ring-fenced to prevent you from accidentally spending it and you know exactly how much you have left to spend every month.

Any thought/improvements?

EDIT: Monzo guys, is this feasible?

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This is the exact kind of feature I have been hoping that Monzo will implement. It will mean I can close my account with my legacy bank and finally go #fullmonzo

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Ditto, admittedly my savings would stay in a legacy bank as ‘Pots’ don’t give interest (to my knowledge) but it would make me more inclined to make my Current Account #FullMonzo (I’d also want Paym though)

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@KH1988 They are hoping to offer competitive interest rates on Pots in the future:

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Hopefully it’s on the cards! :smile:

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this is exactly the kind of feature that I had hoped monzo would include. Please can we get this included!!

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Hopefully with the Rules for Pots and all the additions in the making, we will be able to do the committed spending pots and make them suit exactly what we need.

Making Monzo today posted on twitter about the Pot Locks they are storming around as an idea, so maybe we can lock pots, except for certain payments, genuinely excited to make my pots sing and dance !

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Yer I think this is a great idea. There’s so many things that could be done with pots. I’m excited to see how they developed. Would love to be able to move percentages of income into specified pots as well. Would be great for following the 50-20-30 rule.

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Being able to have committed spending pots would be such an advantage!! I get paid weekly so budgeting efficiently is a little difficult, but if I could put away money from each week to cover all the bills, it would be great!

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Especially if it could work out how many paydays you have per calendar month (e.g. you’re paid on a Friday so could have four or five pcm) and therefore how much needs to come out of each week’s payday to cover all your bills for the month!

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Hi Monzo,
My rail travel expenses to work come out at £267 monthly. I’ve created a pot with exactly that. It would be great if I could add a query to that pot so all TfL/Southern rail payments are deducted directly from that pot. Then I never have to see that money in my current account and pretend I have more money than I do. I’m sure everyone has a daily expense that they could work out for the month and copy the model using a query of their specific retailer. Please let us know your thoughts and feasibility’s.
Thanks
Jonny

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Hi, welcome to the community :slight_smile:

This is already in the works to pay out of a pot but in the meantime you can use IFTTT to set up that when the transaction gets taken from your main balance then the money from your pot is automatically withdrawn. I know it does mean you still have to have the £267 in your main balance but is a workaround for now.

Edit: on mobile right now but let me know if you want more information about what to set up in IFTTT and I’ll add a reply in a bit.

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Good call. I’ve used that applet. Cunningly clever

HEy Sean, thanks mate!
That’s absolutely brilliant, will be a lot of help for budgeting once fixed costs are stored behind the scenes.
IFTTT means nothing to me, yes please would appreciate some guidance once you get to a desktop. Thanks again
Jonny

I’m just trying to set an applet up on IFTTT and get the following message, any clues?image

No problem.

There’s a Monzo Blog Post that includes: what IFTTT is, how to create an account and how to link to Monzo so I won’t cover that. Once you have an account you can set up an “applet” to do what we’re talking about here:

  1. Go to “My Applets”
  2. Click “New Applet”
  3. You will see the word “this” highlighted in blue, select it
    1_this
  4. You are now setting up a trigger, search for “Monzo” in services
    2_trigger_monzo
  5. You will now see a list of available “triggers”, select “Any card purchase at a merchant”
    3_trigger_at_merchant
  6. You will now need to give the merchant to use e.g. “Southern Rail” but make sure that you enter the merchant as they appear in your transaction feed, then click “Create Trigger”
    4_trigger_fields
  7. You will see the word “that” highlighted in blue, select it
    5_that
  8. You are now setting up an action, search for “Monzo” in services
  9. Select “Move money out of a pot”
    6_out_of_pot
  10. You will now need to give the pot you wish to use from a drop down and then in the “Amount” section either enter a static amount or click “Add Ingredient” and select “AmountInAccountCurrency”
    6_action_amount
  11. Click “Create Action” and you’ll get an “Applet preview” where you can amend the title if you wish, then click Finish

You will need to repeat the steps for as many merchants as there are on your journey.

If you want to be able to use IFTTT on the go download their app (Android IFTTT or iOS IFTTT)

One thing I am interested in, if you could update us on it, is that TfL typically pre-charge you 10p and then settle the proper value later and I’m not sure whether that means that only 10p will get taken out of your pot or whether it will be the transaction amount +10p. In either case we can still get IFTTT to take the correct amount out of your pot but will just be a little more involved.

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TfL only do the 10p thing if you haven’t used the card to pay for travel recently. Not sure what the time out is. Might be a week.

So after the first transaction TfL payments are processed next working day, with the whole amount taken at once.

Hey, I’ve figured it out!!
Did some reading this app is brilliant.

Exactly what I needed. Thanks for your help!

J

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I like to have pots for each direct debit so I know the money is there ready to go out for the direct debit.

At present I have to withdraw money from the pot to the main current account in time for the direct debit.

What I propose is enabling a feature where inside a direct debit item there’s an option to link it to a pot.
That would allow monzo to auto withdraw required amount directly from the nominated pot and pay the direct debit.

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Hi @Rhysjtevans lots of people are crying out for this and it’s something Monzo are working on so hopefully we’ll see it :soon:

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