I totally agree that it would make like easier you you could have 2 account and use one for bills, just seems so easy to me, Monzo just needs to give everyone 2 Accounts and then everything is sorted. This is how I did things with Lloyds and it worked so well
@Marc-M in the mean time, couldn’t you set a regular payment to put money into a ‘Bills Pot’ and then the day before the direct debits are due, automatically transfer it from the bills pot back to your main account, that works
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I’ve got as far as getting my salary paid in and its been great since they fixed the predicted pay day thing in summary.
I however haven’t gone ‘Full Monzo’ as I share a joint account with most of our bills and rent coming out of that. I do it this way for one main reason, if I had the bills coming out on my monzo account, I would need the ‘balance’ to actually represent ‘balance after bills’ or i’d be worried that I would spend it.
I know I can schedule pots to empty before debts are taken out but this should be automatic.
A ‘Bill’s’ or ‘Committed spending’ Pot should be available which you can tie repeating payments and Direct Debits to that and then they get taken directly from there. that would separate available balance and committed spending.
You could take this a step further and have your salary payment, which is predictable, trigger the movement of all the balance that is necessary to pay off your committed payments for the next month in that pot. then you only receive what you can actually spend in your main account.
Until there is a system close to that, I think i’ll have to stick with keeping bills coming from a legacy bank account and just balance transferring an amount over to it manually each month.
I’m very tempted to do this - I kept my legacy accounts and in general I use my Amex for spending due to the rewards scheme.
Just need to choose between HSBC and Nationwide FlexAccount and then manually shift DDs back out again.
I recently moved over, I’ve not used CASS. I was initially resistant but now I’ve set up a transfer into a pot the day after payday and then on the days my bills are due I’ve got transfers going back.
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Summary and left to spend should be just as good as a spending pot if you are paid monthly and can set a budget. If the issue is that you still spend money over and above left to spend then a spending pot isn’t the solution.
Much easier to simply use another account at another bank for bills, I think.
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Especially when NatWest give you good cashback to do so, makes it a no-brainer for me.
Limited overdraft limit (£100) compared to Starling. Also, they don’t charge you for overdrafts when your pots exceed the amount you are in overdraft by. So that’s cool. Ultimately it’s the buffer of overdraft stopping me. My big annoyance!
Simply that my Monzo overdraft limit is £0 and they won*t budge on that.
Have a good quality credit report, no loans, a couple of credit cards that are always repaid in full. Homeowner with no mortgage. Current bank (first direct) has given a £1k limit since day 1 (over 30; years ago now).
Having a decent overdraft limit available is more of a comfort thing than an often used necessity, BUT I’m sorry to say that it’s the one thing that stops me from going full Monzo.
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Some good advice on that here:
Coupled with this so you’re not wasting money by paying fees to the bank 
I think the idea is that you aren’t actually in your overdraft if you have money in pots. Starling don’t have third party pots like Monzo so all the money is effectively still with Starling.
If you are -£500 in your CA but have £500 in pots Starling net you out at £0 so you wouldn’t incur fees.
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&Just to add to my earlier comment in this thread. I think that, when I joined Monzo “back then in July 2016”, I naively thought that Monzo would eventually be a better version of “my bank” (in my case first direct) and would at least match it in EVERY respect.
Today, it mostly is, for me. Don’t get me wrong, I think Monzo is fab, a breath of fresh air. In terms of functionality and operationally, it’s still ahead of the mainstream banks, in my opinion. And I totally get their cautious lending strategy, now that I’m aware of it. Maybe one day that will change and they will want to be that better version of “my bank” (and I’m guessing many other legacy banks) in the one remaining area (overdrafts) that they simply just aren’t right now.
And I now see my own main bank (and others) actively becoming “more Monzo”. It’s taking them some time, no doubt struggling to bend old legacy systems to satisfy new requirements for snazzy features, but slowly they are getting there. Probably too slowly but in the meantime, the need for me to go full Monzo is slipping away because of this one key issue that is the stumbling block for me.
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So is the issue that you want an overdraft but Monzo wont currently give you one?
To be clear. If an overdraft facility was available to me from Monzo, I would go full Monzo. It’s the one thing I would lose by switching. Rarely use it, but it’s like a security blanket, knowing it’s there gives me comfort. Like for the time I accidentally went £850 overdrawn because I set up the wrong date on a transfer of some money from an external savings a/c to cover a big bill. Been a customer for almost 3 years now. Love them so much I even invested via crowdfunding rounds. But they cannot offer me an overdraft (says the app), which I understand and accept in view of their cautious lending approach, perhaps that will change sometime in the future when their policy becomes more relaxed with age. So I suppose it’s become a sort of “mexican stand off” situation between us! That’s it really. That’s the story of why I haven’t gone/what’s stopped me from going full Monzo…
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One of the things I was told to check when I wasn’t eligible for an overdraft was my Noddle report, if the information on your Monzo and Noddle account doesn’t match up perfectly it can appear as if you don’t have any credit history, when I checked it mine was indeed slightly incorrect.
Might be worth a check!?
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Monzo gives notifications a few days before direct debits etc. leave
They also give you a chance to redo the direct debit etc. once you have moved money later in the same day
Which to my knowledge legacy banks generally dont
Most of the big banks will try a direct debit twice before rejecting it.
Yes but (at least with Santander)
I dont get a notification that the first one failed
