Eating Out Category: Too complex

Is there any possibility to add within Eating Out Category or New Category: Beverage Category?

We do start drinking in pubs and after eating out, most likely keep drinking out too, therefore, the money spent in Beverage is significantly important!!

The fact that the beverage is literally more important that the food, since we start drinking and finishing drinking.

Thank you for the new Category;)

5 Likes

I wouldnā€™t say it significantly important. As someone who rarely drinks out I would think that either the eating out or the entertainment category matches this requirement

2 Likes

I can see the use case and that it can sometimes be blurry but I personally tend to categorise drinking under the Entertainment category.

I think the key is really that we avoid categories which are useless to some people or perhaps even negative. So weā€™d never have an ā€œAlcoholā€ category, for example, because it excludes people who donā€™t drink.

Thereā€™s an argument to be made that you could do ā€œBeveragesā€ through including going out for coffee. Thatā€™s admittedly a large amount of a transactions, but Iā€™m not sure that just two use-cases - no matter how large - justify a category. Thatā€™s just my personal opinion - feel free to disagree!

8 Likes

Which ends up with me ā€˜hackingā€™ the categories by choosing one I donā€™t use to stand in for ā€˜Pubs and drinksā€™.

ā€˜Beveragesā€™ sounds a good compromise, Iā€™ve no objection to lumping my beards beers in with my coffee.

ā€˜Eating outā€™ doesnā€™t work because Iā€™d prefer to track meals separate from social drinking. Put them both in the same category, I canā€™t tell at-a-glance if Iā€™m going to too many fancy restaurants or having too many nights with the guys.

ā€˜Entertainmentā€™ doesnā€™t work because for me thatā€™s things like buying a Blu-Ray or videogame, or going to see a show or a gig, or a night at the movies.

10 Likes

:thinking:

4 Likes

Here is Monzos reply from earlier today in regards to more categories/custom ones

1 Like

:grimacing:

Unsure if autocorrect or tired typing to blame. Either way, have edited now (and am suitable embarrassed).

2 Likes

Ultimate hipster category though :joy:

This was my initial thought, but looking back through my Summary history, thereā€™s not much usage in the Entertainment category, mostly just occasional trips to gigs and the cinema.

Iā€™ve also just realised that Iā€™ve historically been categorising physical media purchases from physical retail stores under ā€œEntertainmentā€, yet if I were to buy the exact same thing on Amazon itā€™d fall under ā€œShoppingā€ :thinking:

2 Likes

Have to confess to putting my Amazon purchases through my credit card rather than Monzo. Partially to keep section 75 protection when appropriate, partially through inerita (easier to carry on with exisiting card than add Monzo). But.

If I were to use my Monzo account to pay for Amazon purchases directly, Iā€™m pretty certain I would be adjusting the category as appropriate each and every time, if necessary. So only orders analagous to what Iā€™d buy from the supermarket or similar would end up under shopping, while Blu-Rays and books would end up under Entertainment.

Looking at my last few orders, the picture it a little muddier (because Christmas and therefore gifts), but thereā€™s a whole bunch of household goods (so, shopping), and only a few books (entertainment). My latest Amazon order rather screwed the pooch, though, by mixing household items and a couple of books in one order. Doh.

1 Like

This is the thing, especially with Prime Now. Itā€™s intended to be a grocery service, and thatā€™s mostly what I use it for, but fairly often household items get thrown in with it, or videogames. Iā€™d love if we could scrape an email or API to pull in the receipt data, but otherwise Iā€™ll just forgot which Amazon order refers to what, which makes categorisation hard.

Iā€™m not even fussed by having you split transactions using APIs and other things that need constant maintenance just let me me manually split a transaction across multiple categories!

4 Likes

Agree - just doing splits manually is ample.

This is, for me, where the justification for user settable custom categories lives. My very niche use cases are indeed very niche - they will never justify a category at a 1 million user wide level. But for me they make all the difference. (And because quite frankly if you did have a category with my Catā€™s name that would be silly).

Proper Categories and Budgeting are a powerful help me plan for the future about my spending decisions and priorities. Tracking the past is not as valuable to help with my Spending Plan as conscious decision making of the future.

3 Likes

I split food and drink into eating and entertainment.

Could eating out not just become food and drink?

2 Likes

Thatā€™s what I use the category for!

Same! Way over budget this month too!

1 Like

I think that could solve most of the issues actually. Also helps with takeaways that arenā€™t actually eat out :wink:

2 Likes

So weā€™d never have an ā€œAlcoholā€ category, for example, because it excludes people who donā€™t drink.

You could say that about almost every category, for example I know people who never eat out (yes they exist!) or who donā€™t have expenses (probably the most obvious)

Are they really excluded from these categories? I wouldnā€™t say so, they simply donā€™t use them.

However agree that Alcohol is narrow to be a category itself and perhaps something like Social would be better, although it overlaps with entertainment quite a bit.

Speaking of which I have often wished for a Fitness category, I feel like it doesnā€™t really fit anywhere, personal care dosent feel rightā€¦ :neutral_face: maybe its just me :sweat_smile:

5 Likes

Totally agree with the above.

I would say fitness falls within personal care - what else would go in there apart from maybe medication or health goods?

Honestly, I think the only logical solution is custom categories.

3 Likes