Currently there is no way to track cash spending inside monzo, the closest you can get is to assign an ATM withdrawal to a single category with a note. Which is okay if you’ve spent the whole withdrawn amount on the one thing.
What if instead you could assign that amount to a pseudo pot where you could manually add custom transactions (like we can on a shared tab)?
It would be even better if these transactions would also interact with your budgets but wouldn’t affect your left to spend, I think the left to spend should remain focused on your card balance but it would be nice to see how your cash spending affects your budgets.
You could also add other sources besides ATM withdrawal to the “Cash Pot”, such as birthday money, bet winnings, someone paying you back for something else in cash, etc.
Example
I usually do all my spending on either my card or Google Pay but yesterday I went to bingo with a few mates and they don’t have a card machine inside, so I withdrew £20 in cash before going in. The bingo cost me £10 and I ended up winning £150. Woohoo .
So I ended up with £160 in my pocket with no way to track my spending. It would be great if I could add these custom transactions to monzo so that I’m still held accountable to my budgets.
You could say that I should just deposit the cash but for anything less than a few hundred I’ll just spend it and then go back to using my card again.
What do people think? Would this be useful to anyone else?
It could be massively useful for some people and massively confusing for more people.
Accounting for other income/spending sources outside of Monzo’s control relies on the user inputting the data and managing it properly. The app would quickly become more of an offline budgeting/forecasting app.
While I do like as much control over my finances as possible, I treat cash as ‘gone’ as soon as I withdraw it. If I spend it on something, then that spend may or may not affect what I’ve budgeted for the app - but it doesn’t matter. I don’t need that level of granular reporting. So long as the app tells me I’ve withdrawn £xxx and therefore my available balance is -£xxx than it all tallies.
I would like to see a rolling forward-forecast feature in the app through - the ability to add future transactions (not scheduled) that are variable - fuel, school fees, drinks/meals out, etc., that are there for calculation purposes and the app can show me what level of money will be available at a future date, no more than 6 months into the future realistically. This could be a reporting feature for the new Summary…
Very fair comment. I would envisage it to be very much an optional feature, like adding a 3rd party credit card to monzo.
I’d actually like to see those credit card transactions play a part when it comes to budget categories though, and in that case a self managed Cash Pot wouldn’t be a huge leap for those who wanted it.
It sounds very messy and complicated. If it boils down to the below:
Then surely you just want the ability to split a transaction into multiple categories? This has been suggested before and you can vote for it in the below topic:
Perhaps for some, but I don’t think it’s any more messy or complicated than custom bills on a shared tab which is currently available.
You would just be adding a custom bill/income to a different kind of pot instead. You don’t even have to call it a pot if that makes this simpler, call it your pocket.
Nope, as that only covers the ATM withdrawal and doesn’t allow for cash received from elsewhere. It also doesn’t account for cash withdrawn in one month but spent in another.
I’m more in agreement with @davidwalton. Cash withdrawn is usually for a reason and is therefore already spent in my opinion.
Having it in a state of flux where it is or isn’t spent over several months would play havoc with your budgeting. As a result you could have more or less money than you expect because you need to remember to manually input cash expenditure - this is why I think it could be messy and confusing.
I’d just deposit it back into my account and then it can be allocated to any budget. Monzo would prefer your money in your account too for obvious reasons.
Why take it out early? Just take money out when you need it?
If it’s useful to you then there is nothing wrong with suggesting it but personally I’m struggling to see a need and I’m playing a little devils advocate too
Some people like to keep a few quid in their pocket as cash, it doesn’t always have to be withdrawn for a specific expense.
Also as in the example in my original post not all cash is withdrawn from an ATM, you can end up with cash for a few different reasons. A win at the bingo, someone paying you back for something, birthday money, some people get paid in cash.
This is also a fair point but when you’re not talking about massive amounts I’d rather just spend it as cash rather than having to deal with Paypoint, I’d just like a way to factor it into my budgets as well.
I’d argue that not having it accounted for at all would play even more havoc with budgets if you are aiming for accuracy.
I just think an optional space within the app to keep track of non card spend would be a good way to keep track of things. To be honest all you would really need is to be able to create a shared tab that wasn’t actually shared with anyone, with a few minor tweaks allowing you to add plus and minus amounts.
I would have struggled to see a need for this too until yesterday because usually I don’t use cash at all. But now that I have a sum of cash in my pocket I have a different perspective.
No worries at all, if I can’t defend the idea it’s not a good one.
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but personally I’m struggling to see a need and I’m playing a little devils advocate too 