The idea is that you could set up a pot (or multiple pots) for ‘committed spending’, from which your bills would be directly taken. This leaves what’s in the rest of your account as guaranteed ‘safe spending’ and helps budgeting, etc.
You can do something similar now, by having x amount in a pot and then transferring back in when a bill is taken - a committed spending pot is simply an automation of that, which might help people budget.
I know there have been comments on and off in the Community about this over the last year… but I was wondering if we knew if this was in the works or not? I can’t see a definitive ‘Monzo is working on it’, just comments that it’s been seen somewhere or mentioned in addition to other stuff.
I do something similar as part of my budget with YNAB. I have a pot for irregular expenses which I define as bills that aren’t monthly. I’ve worked out the yearly amount, divide by 12 and put that aside each month. It’s a great relief doing it, when the bills come up, you take the amount from the pot and pay it without fuss.
You can kind of do this now with pots. As long as you know the amounts are going to be the same every month. You can use the automatic add and remove from pot function to acheive this.
It’s someway to get to what you describe, but not the ideal solotion I know.
@HoddzDJ, thanks, I’ve actually been looking at that today and debating whether to try IFTTT, I’m a bit nervous about connecting anything else to my bank account though
@HoddzDJ don’t get me wrong, the scheduling is helpful, but it’s not quite IFTTT, e.g. If I pay for fuel, take the value out of my fuel pot’. Actually, some of the categorisation that’s being discussed on another thread would impact this too.
I think what’s there is great and will be useful, but I’m still wondering if I dare connect IFTTT.
Why would you not dare, as in what risk do you foresee? The fuel pot example is my main use, although I’ve probably overdone it on IFTTT, and I really only got to test it properly for the first time yesterday.
Key thing to note is that an IFTTT setup for this sort of thing is ‘per merchant’ so if you don’t tend to refuel in the same place a lot, there isn’t a lot of automation that can be done.
@Feathers I suppose the risk is the bogey man (or woman!) stealing all my money. I just don’t know/understand enough about the open banking API yet (which is how I presume it works) and so it feels scary.
There’s also the after effects, so if something terrible happened, would I be covered because I’d allowed an external connection? And finally, what information am I giving away and what’s the possible impact.
Honestly, its like quicksand in my head, think even a little and I get stuck!
The open banking API isn’t involved in this, it’s a specific IFTTT interface. The key point of it (from a reassurance view) is that it provides no means of transferring money out of your account to anywhere else.
You can move money in and out of pots to your hearts content (or make spreadsheets, turn your smartlights on and off and all sorts of crazy stuff) but you can’t make money leave Monzo.
That’s interesting to know, thanks. So what do IFTTT get out of it? They’re a business, so they must be benefiting somewhere
Actually, I looked at Emma yesterday too, they talk in their T’s & C’s about them and 3rd parties selling my anonymised data. That scares the hell out of me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not that interesting but who knows what the future holds!
Gosh, I’m becoming very risk averse in my old age!
I think this is a great idea, it’s one of the only things stopping me from switching fully to monzo. If there was an option when you create a Direct Debit, Standing Order or Repeating Payment, which allowed you to opt in to setting that amount aside in a ‘Bills Pot’ each week/month/quarter that would be great!
This is a good idea. I’ve really messed up this month thinking I had more money that I did. My summary said I had hundreds left to spend and with it being Christmas I bought a few more gifts thinking I could afford it. Now, direct debit day comes, and it’s also the day I split up some money into pots for savings/petrol money etc, this adds to a couple hundred pounds. So since the money is now split into pots, now my left to spend is at £0 and effectively in debt to the amount I put into my own pots because the app didn’t take my scheduled pot payments into account for committed spending. Honestly, why isn’t this accounted for in commited spending?
I really feel committed spending should take into account the scheduled payments to your own pots. Not having this has put me in a bad position and I’m really annoyed at myself but more with the app as you would think it would take this into account, as it knows the money won’t be there in my main account, so why would it think I can use it?
So as far as I can see, using IFTTT for this, you need to set up the exact amount to put in the pot manually, and trigger it on a date, whereas what I’d really like is for it to be calculated from my committed spending, and happen immediately after I get paid.
Likewise you have to set up each merchant individually, which isn’t right at all - I just want to move money out of the pot for any committed spending transaction. I can’t necessarily say that one merchant is always “committed spending” either.
Also while I’m wishing for things, I’d love to see the original transaction and the corresponding “moved from pot” compressed into one line, kinda like how we do for the coin jar transactions.
