Decline Transaction once monthly budget has been spent

It would be great to be able to have a feature that declines purchases (not bills or recurring payments ) once you have spent your monthly budget.

The budgets are great, but I always find I go over them. If I could set it to decline purchases like lunch or takeaways if i have already spent my budget on that category. That would be really helpful.

:flushed: I don’t know if many people want to be caught out at the till by having it rejected.

What would be cool is using location detection, send a push message saying you’re over eating out budget entering the food retailers doors. Or even pickup the pattern that you’ve repeated visited the same retailer in the time period. “Tomorrow take sandwiches instead you can’t afford another trip to Eat” message if you have the Nag toggle on.

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Again we come back to the issue of time. With only a hew hundred milliseconds to work with, I don’t know that the relevant software systems will have time to retrieve everything from your account, do all the maths, identify the retailer, categorise it and then reply.

Generally, those sorts of operations aren’t something you’d want to insert into a time critical software operation like a payment flow.

Post transaction reporting is probably the best you can hope for.

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Gotta agree with the others here, especially having your transaction declined in a shop. Surely you’d just move some money over to get out of the embarrassing situation?

I’ve got into the habit of checking my budgets every week just to be sure I’m on track. This helps me plan for the upcoming weeks until next payday :slight_smile:

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Suggestion: after you’ve worked out your monthly budget, put the rest of your balance in a pot.

That way, once you’ve spent the budget, anything further will decline.

(Granted, you’d have to be more careful with bills and always make sure you’ve enough to cover them.)

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The budgets are great, but I always find I go over them. If I could set it to decline purchases like lunch or takeaways if i have already spent my budget on that category. That would be really helpful.

Fix your budget or exert more self-control.

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While I suspect the system could handle this. Imagine if you went to pay for fuel and your card declined. Panic will initially set it.

It’s an interesting concept but sorry I’d rather just have a notification that I’ve over spent my budget, as happens now.

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You could just
 freeze your card when you know you’ve spent the limit?

Wanting the transaction to be declined feels a bit drastic to me. However, I could see some mileage in the app generating a different sound if you’re over your budget.

Each transaction currently sounds like a cash register. Would it make sense to change it to something that implies a greater sense of urgency/distress if the transaction takes place when the customer is over their budget? :open_mouth:

Maybe the sound effects from the shower scene in Psycho?

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Or the Shark’s theme in Jaws!

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Have to agree with the majority of the above (even if it was possible in the very short time frame) being scolded by not being able to buy things (could be something like a weekly food shop) because you are over is a bit drastic.

Imagine being over by 1p and the transaction declining - you’d be horrified.

I think the answer is to either - increase the budgets so it fits how much you actually have in your account to spend - or tighten your spending if you are continually going over your budget.

Yup I agree, I said the below too.

Everyone should be periodically checking their banking activity anyway, so just a slight change in habit to check and tweak your budgets will help you to keep a grasp on your spending :slight_smile:

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I haven’t actually set up a budget (don’t particularly like the wheels and other bits and pieces) - but I do monitor the categories I spend most on and try and shave off every month when I feel I’ve gone over too much.

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Well changing the kerching can already be done. Tempted to swap for permanent Jaws. :thinking:

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I usually use the iOS app, and wouldn’t know how to do that. Will try on Android later (though I quite like the current sound!)

I would love this. Not that I don’t have tight control over my money, but sometimes I’m like “well this will only take me a few £ over my budget” - if it got rejected, it would make me second think it!

Nope. Not for me.

I think the location based notification could work (my phone knows when I’m about 100m from my home, so why not 100m from my favourite sandwich shop?) so as I’m walking towards a place, I get a 'you are close SANDWICH SHOP, your balance is £0.01"?

Aside from that no, please don’t decline transactions. And changing the sound isn’t enough either, my phone is always on Mute (are YOU THAT PERSON with keyboard clicks on too?!!) :smiley:

I love this idea about the location, maybe even “it looks like you’re at KFC, freeze your card? You’re over your eating out budget”

Sounds like a terrible idea. Imagine going on a lunch break to Cafe Nero let’s say. You get your tomato and cheese toastie and chai latte. Yesterday’s TfL transactions have just quietly cleared in the background, taking you over your budget. The barista takes the steaming toastie out of the oven. You move your card towards the reader and
 oh no! Declined. What would you do then?