Payday has been the last working day of the month, or the last Friday of the month. There could be four or five weeks between paydays, even six weeks if being paid a week early before Christmas.
Dividend income from a variety of investments can typically be paid monthly, quarterly, semi-annually or annually, resulting in uneven amounts each month throughout the year. Pay dates within the month can vary.
Christmas and birthdays could see higher income if receiving money as presents.
Bills (direct debits) aren’t necessarily every month (e.g. one of my water utilities has 10 monthly installments, with 2 months of no payments). Council Tax also used to be similar. I pay my gas and electric bills manually, quarterly.
I have direct debits for magazine subscriptions which are quarterly or semi-annually.
Most direct debits are within the first 10 days of the calendar month, but one or two are around the 20th.
Credit card bills are paid manually each month, usually in full, and could significantly vary in amounts.
In general, and as per comments about the Pulse, not everyone is going to follow the same patterns of income and expenditure with regular amounts or timescales.
I’m paid monthly on the 28th or the cost working day before it, if it doesn’t fall on a working day. In December I’m paid somewhat earlier but I’m not sure about the exact rules for that
My monthly bills all go out on the 1st ATM except for rent which is the 18th. That’s a little annoying so I may try to move it all to the 18th to make it cleaner
I have a few other things which I pay for longer periods like a prescription prepayment certificate
I personally don’t care much about the day a ‘spending month’ starts since as long as they’re consistent everything will balance out with spending based on a monthly budget
That said, with the pulse graph it would make more sense for it to start when I’m paid and given this is no longer a prepaid I’m topping up it is not a pulse at all but a burn down chart !
I’m trying to make my money last from payday to payday so my Targets mean more if they’re aligned with that timeframe.
Once I receive my pay, I sweep my money into Pots, to save until I pay my bills which I try to schedule so that they come out soon after I’ve been paid.
If I have money left over, I move it into my savings Pot when I get paid.
TL;DR - All of my finances are orientated around the date when I get paid.
I have always tried to orientate finances around the date major outgoings occur (mortgage and rent for example) instead of income.
The problem with baseing it on income is you can’t just take one figure into account, you need to take a few. You take your income PLUS any left over from the previous period MINUS card transactions since income came in MINUS any scheduled direct debits, so it becomes complex.
Basing it on outgoings, You take whatever your current balance is that time/date MINUS upcoming scheduled payments like direct debits, and you know what you have left to spend on cards or save.
My planning is based around paydays. For me, the ideal start of a period would be payday. I setup direct debits and standing orders to go out 3 days later (as far as possible).
On Monzo my graph spikes up when I get paid and then down again on the main bills day. It is only the rest of the month I find useful as I can judge how quickly I am spending on discretionary items (although I will often scroll back to compare my balance on a day to that on the same day a few months ago to provide a benchmark).If I’m ahead of where I want to be I will sweep money into pots and vice versa in the occasional expensive months like December.
Personally I have 3 sometimes 4 income streams. Some are paid via Bacs on a monthly basis (last Friday of the month), one is paid whenever I get round to sending off my invoices, and the last is paid in cash as soon as I complete the days/weeks work.
Therefore my income is all over the place. I just generally try to live cheaply and earn as much as possible. If I see a major build up of cash in my account I buy some new luxury products.
I get paid on the 20th of each month. If the 20th lands on a weekend/bank holiday, I get paid the Friday before or day before.
BIlls are monthly on the 21st (most), 29th and 1st. I’ve been trying to get them all to the 21st. I had issued with bills coming out on payday making me overdrawn so I changed it to the day after.
I get paid from my main employer on 20th but if that falls on a non-working day I get paid the next working day, not the previous. I get paid from my secondary income source on the last working day of the month. Most of my DDs come out on the 1st with a few later in the month.
I get paid 4 weekly so pay day is different bill day are set to the same day each day of the month so I had to keep money hanging on in my account and to stop using the money. It a pain.
I had one local council agree I could pay my council tax in 13 instalments in the past, but with my biggest bill of a mortgage they were totally inflexible
Usually paid within the last 3 or 4 days of every month.
Big bills come out within the first 10 days, everything else comes out a different account that i just put money in purely for bills (Starling, because they gave me an overdraft so I’m covered for the unexpected).
My council always wants it across 10 monthly payments
so do mine, but when I tell them I can not pay it in 10 installments and need to pay it in 12 they adjust their billing accordingly. Someone once suggested it as a better way to budget, and they claimed, though I have no proof if it is true or not, that they are required to be flexible to local residents’ requirements.
EDIT: looking into this it appears that councils are only obligated to accept money in 10 installments but they were advised to use discretion and accept payments over 12 months if requested. The majority of councils will now accept 12 monthly payments instead of 10 when requested. Some councils are flexible and will accept weekly and fortnightly payments. They do however want payment completed before the following year’s bill is produced, so usually need the last payment made about 3 weeks
I get paid on 24th or closes day before… so if 24th falls on Saturday I will be paid on the 23rd…
90% of my bills come out 1st, with the odd DD coming out through the month thereafter.
I ideally want my financial month to run pay day to pay day, else like now I have some in 1 month and some in another so Targets don’t work for me right now and I really really really want them too
I want my spending analysis to reflect my payday to payday as a ‘month’ , I think customers need to be able to customise our month view, maybe from weekly to fortnightly to monthly setting a start and end date.
Or auto adjust based on our payment patterns?! I know that’s more maybe a more complex implementation but it’s a simpler front end solution- there must be an existing algorithm for a task like this ?
Custom monthly view seems the way forward and we’re capable enough consumers not to get overwhelmed by a few aditional options!
At the moment I am told each month I am spending to quickly as I get paid a 5-6 days before the month resets again. The spending analysis has no use to me while it does not align with my payday. This feature is the one feature I have waited for from Monzo or last 3 years - the most early anticipated and yet the most delayed. And honestly it is the main reason I haven’t switched to banking with you completely. It can’t come soon enough!
Thanks for the work you’re doing on it and for seeking feedback. I hope it becomes a priority. I’m less concerned about spending categories and nearby friends, these all feel secondary to me versus the basic functionality of a spending analysis that works and gives an accurate and true picture.
!
