I’m the Co-founder of Homewards - an online and in-store (Monzo/Starling only initially) cashback programme for first-time buyers and their family to boost savings for a home deposit, effortlessly.
With over 4000 retailers available from when we launch, you, and your family can shop as normal and receive cashback directly into a Lifetime ISA (this is for our first phase).
To give you an extreme example of how much can be made using this, a friend of ours managed to save £7,000 in 13 months by getting his family to buy everything through his cashback account - we just make this process better/simpler.
We’re not yet ready and are currently working on building the app and new partnerships, but we are taking signups for first access.
Be great to hear your thoughts (good or bad ).
Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions.
Hi Ben, this sounds very interesting. I currently have a lifetime ISA with Moneybox, does this compare with Moneybox+?
Just wondering how your service handles £7,000 savings with £4,000 being the maximum which can be put in during the tax year. Would the additional 3k go into a standard stocks and shares ISA or is it ringfenced to be put into the LISA in the next tax year?
Moneybox+ currently offer deals on 40 retailers+ (I think). It’s not their core, but an add on. Sure they will look to expand this. Whereas for Homewards, our mission is to harness the latent value from your existing spending habits. So we will dedicate more focus on increasing number of retailers and exclusive deals. Think of Homewards as a cashback layer on top of Moneybox’s LISA - allowing your family to also get involved e.g. they may not have a Moneybox account.
RE £4,000 limit - we are figuring out the workflows with LISA providers now. As you might imagine our target audience are those that more likely struggle to hit the limit - the average in LISA I believe each year is around £1.5k, but of course we want to cater to those that may exceed the limit too.
Hope that helps. Please ask for clarification if needed .
How does the cashback work? Is homewards a facilitator towards a card I use already and they just obtain the cashback and send it into my LISA? or is it a specific card in which my payments have to run through?
I can’t tell if you link cards or you have to shop through specific links? If it’s linked to cards I’ll sign up straight away. I hate having to shop through specific portals.
I’m already a bit dubious about this service from your activity on this forum since you signed up.
You’ve created 2 topics discussing cashback purely to promote your business and then you’ve “spammed” your website link when replying in some other older topics too.
I may be alone with this but in my eyes it’s not a good start. You’ve contributed nothing else to the community and so far it seems that your only agenda is to push this.
As mentioned, hopefully I’m mistaken so it will be good to hear back from you.
Hi Ordog, that’s a fair point. And more than happy to contribute more moving forward RE saving for a house. I just knew that the Monzo community is particularly good for gathering feedback, but just needed to find the right thread - looks like it is this one. Hope that makes sense. Ben
Why is it only open to Monzo & Starling accounts? Have you contacted Monzo and formed any kind of partnership? Companies that have done similar would be Octopus Energy and Flux for digital receipts.
I’d be interested to see how this “£7,000” is calculated.
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tbutz
(🏳️🌈 Producer of "low value commentary")
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Right, so this is a cashback variant where the money goes into a LISA.
Firstly, I think if you’re going to promote your own business you should have that front and centre, particularly on your profile (other “partners” do this, such as flux). You should speak to one of the mods.
Secondly, why is this restricted to a LISA? I can’t work out why this restriction exists.
It’s also strange that the money is paid directly into the LISA from yourselves… I work work a company that provides LISAs and the HMRC rules are quite clear about third party payments being paid into any sort of ISA.
When we launch our pilot, we want to gather as much feedback as possible and as I mentioned before we recognise that the Monzo community is highly engaged, so a good place to start.
Hi Matt, it’s not a calculation, but a true example of how much someone managed to make. As I highlighted, it is an extreme example. Unless you meant the breakdown of spend to achieve that?
Yes, appreciate now that I may not have gone about sharing Homewards the right way. I had hoped my disclosure of being a Co-founder would show that I was upfront in my interests. But a good suggestion, and I will get in touch with a mod now.
Three main reasons for using a LISA: 1) You are ultimately in control of the account 2) 25% bonus for first home 3) parents wanted to be safe in the knowledge that their efforts resulted in helping their children’s future, not just giving extra money.
As we expand we would hope to offer more accounts. This is just our starting point.
Our main USB is getting the family involved to help you save. A good example of where this has worked already is Kidstart.
We really wanted to make it only linked to the card, however, retailers do not like it for online particularly. This may change in the future, but we wanted to make sure we could offer the most value from day one.
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