How do you use Pots?

  • Rainy day fund
  • Weekly grocery shopping
  • Christmas fund
  • Holiday
  • Assorted bills (rent, phone, Netflix, etc)
  • Date fund to treat the girlfriend

I have other pots in my Squirrel account for specific birthdays and a Foo Fighters gig I’m going to later this year.

I’m loving the way pots are allowing me to save!

My 1st pot is for my Bills. I get paid on the 25th of each month but my bills come out on the 1st of the month, so I pop the money in a pot and transfer it back the day before.

My next 2 pots are my savings for holiday (Milan in March and Florida in September).

The rest of my pots are my yearly sinking funds so my Car Insurance, Car Tax, iPhone Upgrade etc.

I’m fine transferring the money manually, but hopefully it’ll be automatic soon!

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I use pots to save for my monthly bills.
For example I have a pot for my monthly rent, and when EUR accounts are available I could save for my monthly mortgage and loan payments too.

Money I know I shouldn’t spend because I need it for something else.

ie travel, monthly food budget has a pot for now (until I can switch to a DD pot :pray: )

targeted savings, as well

Saving for my trip to Norway!
Holding my deposit on a property.
Keeping my credit card repayments to one side until the bill comes through.

I don’t use pots. They don’t serve a functionality right now for me. This is mainly because I would have to manually do things.

My banking structure for reference is:
Pay goes into current account ‘A’. Bills also come out of current account ‘A’, mostly on the day after payday. I have a standing order each week going from current account ‘A’ to current account ‘B’ for my weekly spends. Monzo is current account ‘B’. I have standing orders going from current account ‘A’ to my LISA, savings account and Nutmeg investment account. Any money left in current account ‘A’ at the end of the month is automatically swept into a savings account.

This is all automated each month and I get a text alert on current account ‘A’ if the balance drops below £50. This is usually fine a week before payday but it is helpful to alert me to any impending doom before then.

If Monzo could replicate this system somehow, I would be more inclined to use pots. If pots had more functionality like assigning certain payments, direct debits, account actions like standing orders or even their own sort code and account numbers, I would use them.

My ultimate wish, would be for you to replicate Bunq’s multiple current accounts. They give you 25 current accounts per month (they do charge this on their fee band but you can make them in the trial and keep them after it ends…). Each account has its own IBAN (sort code and account number equivalent). Your card is attached to the account you choose and can be changed in app. For my banking needs it would be perfect, its just a shame Bunq is in Euros and doesn’t work fully in the UK right now…

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I’ve only got a small savings pot that’ll only be a few hundred pounds at most. No automated movement of funds on pay day makes it too much effort to have more pots and the lack of any interest rate means there’s no point keeping any real value in them.

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I use Pot’s for a few things…

When my salary is paid in on the 24th of each month, I move money to my bills pot, money to my piggy bank pot (this is how much I ideally want to save but can tap into it if needs be, then next payday I move this out into another pot), my Vault pot (a core savings pot), iPhone upgrade pot, Holiday pot

Pretty varied stuff, DD from pots I’d love so I don’t have to remember to move my Bills pot over before the 1st… also pot rules and move money from one pot to another pot without having to put it into the main account…

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When created I’m using pots for holiday funds.

It’s just a different place to move money- what I want is a way of paying directly from a pot (Say a “Car” pot where I can pay my car insurance and MOT from) and sweeping spare change (round to the nearest £) directly into another.

Without that- well it’s not that interesting to me.

Thats one of the reasons I also have Starling- I get some interest, however small that might be. Ideally, I would like a savings pot that attracts interest and I would be happy if that is locked away for 6 months/1 year.

I dont use them. Even with the miniscule amount of interest I get from my savings account, it makes more sense to put any non spending money in the savings account, rather than pots

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I’ve also got Starling for the better than 0% interest and generally keep much more in there. I still have several other legacy bank accounts for the better than 0.5% interest for the bulk of my cash. One day I’d like to be rid of them :frowning:

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I’m only holding money in my pots that is likely to be spent during the year. I can sacrifice a few quid of interest for the convenience the pots provide(especially when we can start creating rules for pots). Longer term savings which I don’t need to access get moved to other providers

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I use my pots for short term cash flow or items I need access to funds quickly
Pot 1 direct debit float for when they need to be settled early than pay day
Pot 2 Cima Fees saved monthly no monthly dd option
Pot 3 Car repairs insurance monthly funding
Pot 4 saving for son completing odd jobs 50p here and there this is working and he loves Monzo
Pot 5 golf fees
I had a few other pots but I have moved this cash to other investment providers

I have only a single pot, Sequestered, where I put any money I’m not allowed to spend because I need it for a bill or something that’ll be coming eventually.

It’s mainly used to store money for my EE bill if I don’t know when I’m next getting money.

What is Cima?

Cooking food

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Professional body for accountancy. Basically you have to pay several hundred pounds a year to remain a member and keep the letters after your name (which employers require so it’s not like you really have a choice whether to pay it).

I pay another accountancy institute around £360/year to remain a member and be able to use the letters ACA after my name. Some employers cover the costs, but many don’t (although you can at least treat it as a legitimate expense on your tax return even as a PAYE employee if you pay it yourself, so you’ll get 20/40/45% of the cost back from HMRC).

I understand. Had similar circumstances in another industry.