Giving it another go

Monzo Chat
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A little while back I decided to give Monzo a go, I over complicated things trying to use YNAB on-top of Monzo budgeting and totally made things really difficult for myself, which in turn put me off and I went with my tail between my legs back to HSBC.

I am back after a little time away and with a fresh outlook on how I am going to use my Monzo account.

I have decided for a little while NOT to use the Monzo budgeting but to keep everything available to spend (got some long terms bits in a pot) and use YNAB as my primary source of budgeting it may work, it may not but I want to give it a go as I really want to go full Monzo and leave HSBC.

Hopefully it all works out, I am just in the process of shuffling some money from HSBC into Monzo ready to start using the account.

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Iā€™d be very interested in how you get on. Iā€™m a big fan of YNAB and have been put off going full Monzo for exactly this reason - it feels like it would make things more complicated with both.

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Iā€™m actually the opposite and going to try and get away from YNAB and just use the Monzo budget features. Bill pots was a game changer for me so if I can save that subscription fee (YNAB) and in the process be a little more relaxed I hope itā€™ll work. Things were getting over complicated for me personally.

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I use both.

  • While YNAB has some incredible financial tools available, I donā€™t like the fundamental ignorance of forecasting. So Toolkit fixed that issue for me.
  • What I didnā€™t like about running YNAB & Monzo together was the lack of integration. So I fixed that by implementing the auto-update of YNAB following activity of my Monzo Personal account, my partners Personal account and our Joint account. Sorted.

Now YNAB runs perfectly with our own PAā€™s and our JA. This is almost financial planning bliss - just need to somehow claw this back into the Monzo app natively to keep things simpler.

Finance management & simplicity = relax (more)

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I wonā€™t get super personal or anything here but a few years back I had to make some BIG changes financially, one of them was YNAB and it helped me get out of a sticky situation and to be perfectly honest I have become super reliant on it to tell me how much I have available to spend for each and every little thing - something I donā€™t have in Monzo.

I decided to give Monzo a go without budgeting mainly so I could get used to how Monzo works and functions within my current ā€œway of workingā€ and slowly make changes as and when to integrate Monzo more into the way I bank.

Bill pots are still in labs arenā€™t they? If I could pot money for bills and have it automatically come out of the pot when the payment is taken that would be everything I ever needed.

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This now works for Direct Debits, Standing Orders & Scheduled payments - when they are allocated to one, or more speicified Bills Pot(s)
Recurring Card Payments (or ā€˜Subscriptionsā€™) canā€™t yet be added to this feature though.

It is pretty amazing tbh, and with the upcoming ā€˜Salary Sorterā€™ should be a finance organisational dream for a lot of people.

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Iā€™ve had a bit of time off from using YNAB - I tend to fall out of good habits and leave it too long to get on it.

But what I did find really helped, was massively massively simplifying all my accounts - I used to have like 3 credit cards, an Amex, a couple of current accounts I would put different things on - and honestly just embracing Monzo as fully as I could (minus one credit card) it really helped.

The other thing, is if you are using Pots - set them up as separate accounts in YNAB - I found that best replicated the reality I was trying to achieve.

There are tools, including IFTTT, that you can sync most transactions in real time. (Some things go a bit funny, but for the most part, itā€™s OK) - saves a lot of manual entry.

I find that the lack of specificity in Monzo categories always got in the way of my budget - there I some things I want really generic, some things I want to be more specific - and I never found a good way to get Monzo to properly capture my savings goals.

I really really like the YNAB Philosophy of ā€œGive Every Dollar a Jobā€ - that mindset helped me get my head away from spare cash or going out because Iā€™ve just been paid etc.

I get the feeling that Monzo is getting better, with the Sorter and what not, yet still thereā€™s a bit of a conflict [for me] between how categories/pots/tracking spending all interact.

I really like the control that YNAB can give me - and I found the cost of the subscription (Ā£50/y when I signed up) - I saved in making better decisions about my money.

Iā€™ve not use YNAB properly for a few months now, owing in part to better habits having stuck, some of them at least, but at my very very worst financial situation, YNAB helped me see that I could work past it.

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I have setup my pots as separate accounts in YNAB and it is much easier to understand when comparing the two for sure.

Start using my card again today for the first time and things seem to be clicking for me much easier than last time.

Hopefully working this way will get around the inability to use split transactions in Monzo but we will have to see.

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