I’ve been a huge fan (and active user) of Monzo back when it was Mondo and I’ve been wanting to make a full move over from my current bank which I have had since I was 14, my problem is that I have a very particular workflow that I want to share today and to see if anyone can help me with an optimal setup on Monzo.
My current bank setup:
On my main bank I have three accounts - my current account, a bills account, and an ISA account. On the last day of the month I get my salary paid into my current account.
I have all my direct debits setup to my bills account (which come out on the 1st) and once the salary is paid in I move all the money needed for these bills into this bills account. I send some savings to my ISA and the rest is basically spending money which I send over to Monzo. Monzo is basically my bill free disposable cash.
I really enjoy this direct split of bill money to spendable money. I actually get quite bad anxiety around money and been able to move my bill money aside to another place really helps things.
How Monzo can fit into this?
Looking at this workflow, Monzo can handle most of it but falls short around the bill direct debits. Is there any other workaround on Monzo right now that would allow this kind of a setup?
I have a joint account with my wife on Monzo now which could work but not all the DD’s are joint. Will Monzo ever allow you to have multiple account numbers under one account, almost pots but with their own SC and Acc number?
Or is there any other way I can get a similar setup. Any advice would be appreciated!
I have the same setup as you but joint with my partner, and since we can only have one joint account with one bank we have 3 joint account and each 3 personal accounts plus one account in our childs name plus 3 credit cards… Messy!
I really think being able to pay from pots would change everything, I could close all but the joint monzo and life would be much more simple!
Does this work OK for you? I would worry that the payment dates for DD’s etc are not consistent…but maybe this is because I don’t drill down into my bills account and just have it there with a set amount at the start of the month and refill it every payday!
It seems the biggest thing holding you back is that you want bills out of one pot, and spending out of another. I have been looking for this as well and have utilised an IFTTT recipe which works for me
The day after payday, Monzo automatically transfers the money I need for my scheduled payments / DDs into a pot named ‘Monthly spending’ using the scheduled payments function (more details: https://monzo.com/blog/2018/07/16/schedule-payments-into-pots/)
I know the date of each scheduled payment / DD, so have set up an IFTTT recipes to automatically transfer the required funds from my ‘Monthly payments’ pot into my current account
The following day, the scheduled payment / DD comes out of my account and all is well.
This way works for me because I know for certain I have enough money aside to cover all of my payments and if it jumps up for any reason, its only short term until the payment comes out of my account
Edit: Just noticed that @Cheryl also mentioned this method
Thanks for sharing this guys - how does it work with varying DD’s like @thebaron1974 mentioned - I know that a few of mine vary by a few days. I guess this is a minimal issue but wondered if you’d encountered the same issues?
I know exactly what most of mine will cost, so it’s easy to predict.
With some though, the amounts can change (for example, my phone bill).
In this instance, although my plan is £36pm, I add enough to cover a bill of £45 (I have checked the last few years and have never gone over by more than £42 so I feel this is a safe buffer).
When the £45 is added to my current account, it covers the phone bill at least, and the remaining few pounds just remain in my current account.
Monzo can learn and predict regular payments like bills, so you could do away with the bills account and have them paid out of your main Monzo account, relying on the “spending” tab to tell you how much you can spend (it’ll account for bills and other recurring payments).
This is what I do. The only number I really look at is the ‘left to spend’ figure on the spending tab and trust that Monzo does the calculations correctly for me. It’s so so much easier this way! No worrying about bills as they’re pre factored in. The only thing I need left is the money in being predicted to (gf regular standing order to me to pay for rent) and the number will be spot on all month round.
I see a lot of people talking about moving money around for bills into pots, but if you just trust the monzo calculations then it solves this problem completely.
Yeah I can see this being an issue. For me I very rarely use the home tab and leave the app on the summary tab 90% of the time. This means the number I see when I open the app is the good one!
I have only got one bill that seems to vary by a day or two. My method did miss the due date one month, but they said they’d try again to take it at a later date so I was lucky not to have to do any more than that. I’ve since moved that transfer from my Bills pot to a few days earlier, so I will have it sitting around in my current account for a day or two but it makes sure that the same thing never happens again.
I make sure that I always get a notification whenever IFTT runs any transfer. That way, I’m always conscious of any money that has gone into my current account and that I need to be cautious of and avoid spending for a day or two.
Thanks for linking me 