This is silly, but I am addicted to food deliveries. Ubereats, just ear and deliveroo are my worst enemies.
The slightest sense of hunger pushes to order food uncontrollably, worse yet, I rarely like the delivered food, but that never stops me for some reason. Even deleting the apps doesn’t help that much. Even browsing the web all I get is food deliveries ads that make me salivate.
I finally realized I am addicted to food being delivered to me. I am overspending on it, I am gaining weight, and it’s a fwp I know that, but I can’t stop it. I don’t have a spendy personality actually and I am quiet stingy which helps me save good amount of money monthly… Until food deliveries happened.
I called my main bank and asked them to block my ability to pay the merchants mentioned above, they said they’d only do that for gambling addicts. Well… I am addicted to something else, and it’s affecting my mood and my health because I am growing fatter and my wallet is growing thinner.
So my question is… can I block certain merchants we think we’re addicted to if I switch to monzo? I don’t want high interest rates, I don’t want credit cards with paying rewards, I just want a bank to help me save my money. Any suggestions you guys? If Monzo offers this feature I am closing all my bank accounts and switching today.
Merchant blocking was definitely being worked on in January, but I’ve not heard of anything since then.
You may also be able to ask COps (Customer Service) in-app to block certain merchant groups, too. But someone will need to confirm that for you as I’ve never asked and I’m not completely sure. Maybe @Dan5 knows?
However, you should be aware that Uber, for example, seems to process Uber Eats transactions through both Uber Eats and Uber for some reason - so some transactions in that case may still go through unless you blocked all Uber and Uber Eats transactions.
Similar to the gambling block function. I have to say, whether or not merchant blocking becomes a thing, this forum shouldn’t be your main option for addressing the issue.
You can get in touch via chat and request a block of a merchant. However we can only block certain payments - basically ones where the card is not present.
Some merchants are notoriously hard to block, such as Uber/Apple/Amazon because they use so many different merchant details that once the payment fails they’ll often come back and use a different one and that won’t be blocked.
In that case replacing the card is often a better experience (and in the long run, more cost effective for us!)
So, in order to get it done, I need to follow these steps in the following order:
Disable my current card, order a new one and wait for it to arrive.
Get in touch through chat and ask you to block Uber/Deliveroo/Just Eat before attempting to add the card to to any of these merchants.
Thank you so much Dan. I’ll try to fight off the temptation on my own for few more days. If I fail, I’ll just switch completely to Monzo and get rid of my main bank cards (but continue to maintain the account because I still need international transfers).
Thank you sooo much for helping us save our money. I am so excited for the future of banking you guys are paving.
Instead of contacting your bank, could you try having the merchants block you from ordering to start with? I’m sure they would have a ‘do not deliver’ flag which they can apply to addresses (for example aggressive dogs, abusive customers, high complaint rates etc). Just a thought.
Ultimately, you have to seek the help to solve your dependency on it.
You could work out a way to block Monzo, but what about the account you have now, will you close it? Do you have a credit card? A partners card you can use? Etc etc. If you really want the food which it sounds like you do, you’ll find a way.
The gambling one is the same really. It’s a hinderance and that is often enough but you have to want to stop first.
Having allies helping me achieve my goals is nice too
Monzo has successfully established itself as an ally to its customers I do want it to stop, I am looking for ways to increase the friction between wanting the food and having it delivered. If Monzo is willing to help, I’d feel supported.
The friction you seek honestly, does not lie within Monzo’s gift. You’ll surely get supportive comment within this forum, but you’ll be wise to discuss your condition with a clinician (although you may already be doing so).
To do so you need to setup an IFTTT account and link your Monzo card to the account and script. For me: it stopped me spending too much money at KFC… it was simply Laziness and acted as a nice reminder.
I was going to suggest similar but it goes from your account first. You can “Spend” from a pot for KFC, but really all it’s doing is replacing what you just spent. And if you don’t have enough money, it just doesn’t run.
Thanks everyone. I have had problems with food all my life. The best solution that has always worked for me is to stock the fridge daily, just the minimal daily requirement, and never buy food for two days, not even bread, because I know I will not stop eating what’s inside the fridge. But now going to Tesco is a chore because of the social distancing measures, and takes a lot of time to wait in line, and unlike most people, I can’t stock my fridge weekly, I have to go daily to keep myself from over-eating. So this small deterrence has worked for years… saved tons of money and lost weight too (mind you, I am not obese to begin with). So I began ordering food online to save up some time and the rest is self-explanatory.
By no means I am going poor because food deliveries, I am just over-spending, and it’s only been weeks (although, I understand that my original post sounded dramatic but I woke up really frustrated with myself and I am a bit of a drama queen ).
I personally feel that I need the deterrence or make online deliveries more inconvenient than they are right now. If Monzo is willing to help, that would be great. If I feel like this has become something that I can’t manage with the help of the bank, I’ll seek professional help.
And no, I don’t have a partner living with me, if I did, I’d probably think about food less
Thanks everyone for showing concern and helping with plethora of suggestions. Have a good day
I think that’s a great idea, I don’t think I have any use for it currently but can think of only good uses of the function as there are lots of people out there who just can’t help themselves when it comes yo spending.
Its currently not a problem but could see Amaxon making it onto my list.
I totally support this idea and I do not understand why so many people are suggesting to seek help or look elsewhere for the solution ?
Everyone works differently and for some of us seeking help is not the best approach.
Myself I started getting addicted to fast food orders lately simply due to it being there and working from home, which doesn’t give me too many things to do throughout the day. It’s not at a point that I need behavioural/specialist/clinician help, but I know that having a simple feature such as merchant ban list which is pretty easy to implement would likely solve the situation before it becomes an issue.
I personally think there’s no excuse not to implement this as soon as possible. This is insanely useful not only for the scenario presented in this thread, but in a whole lot of scenarios where you simply do not want to be able to spend money at a specific merchant.
There are some reasons why it isn’t as easy as gambling block in this thread, including from Monzo staff. Whether you think ‘there is no excuse not to’ or not is irrelevant.
And anyhow you could just use another card. For the big ones, which are also the hardest to block eg Ubereats, just have them block your address, then it covers all your cards too.
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