Issue:
Left to Spend is Different on Home Screen and Account Screen
Details to reproduce:
OS:
iOS 16.6
Device:
iPhone 12 PM
App Version:
5.38.0
Screenshots:
I don’t have the green line bar on mine and not many other people do with the new upgrade or the layout. Just the square box is now all that shows and that doesn’t automatically deduct any direct debits which come out. It’s horrible! I have to manually deduct my outgoings from my salary each month before I know what I’ve got left to spend on myself
This isn’t a bug, although it is quite confusing.
Monzo currently has two different budgeting/tracking tools available in parallel. An old one called Summary (accessed via the account card) and a newer one called Trends (accessed via the Trends tab) which works a bit differently to Summary. I believe Summary will eventually disappear.
The Left to Spend inside the account card is based on Summary, whilst the Left to Spend on the new Home screen (accessed via the “Spotlights” above the card) is based on Trends. So to make use of Left to Spend on the new home screen you need to start using Trends.
But that’s not where the confusion stops. There are two different versions of Left to Spend inside Trends. There is one in the Balance section (this represents current balance minus upcoming payments) and a different one inside the Target section (this represents target spend (total budget) minus spent). If you want to use the Target version of Left to Spend, look at the Target spotlight on the Home screen instead of the Left to Spend spotlight.
If you happen to want a Left to Spend which represents Target (total budget) minus spent minus upcoming payments, that doesn’t exist in Trends.
That’s terrible news
I also just discovered that the ‘Left to pay’ on the new pots screens is based on the old summary month reset days and not on the new trends reset days.
I had hoped the days of monzo releasing half finished updates was over 
Might be worth you sending feedback about how you would prefer the Trends tab/features to work. One option for this is via the “Share your thoughts” button at the bottom of the Trends tab.
I completely agree, Summary is my go-to and the current set up is very confusing. Target just doesn’t do what I need it to do in comparison.
I think it could though, by allowing you to set target to a ‘Left to Spend’ mode rather than having to set an actual spending target.
When you say “Left to spend mode” without having to set an actual spending target, do you mean account balance minus upcoming payments? If so, that exists in Trends.
What doesn’t exist is Spending Target (aka budget) minus spent minus upcoming payments.
I basically want what Summary currently does ie. how much I have left to spend taking into account any upcoming reoccurring bills/payments - with the RAG/days to go kind of view to give me an indication if I’m in a good position or otherwise.
Is that possible with Targets? I’m a bit of a geek and been with Monzo full time since 2017 and even I’m struggling with it.
How exactly did Summary work?
I never really made much use of it but I thought you had to set an explicit value for how much you would like to spend excluding upcoming/committed payments (essentially a discretionary spending target). And I thought the Summary left to spend then represented [discretionary spend target] minus [discretionary spend so far].
But you mentioned not having to set an actual spending target, so maybe I’m misremembering?
Nope, you didn’t have to set a budget and you could effectively run your balance down to £0 post your bills/payments etc. 
and then tell you ‘it looks like you’ll have X left over’ or ‘it looks like you’ll run out of money’ if you continue with the current trajectory.
So what is the equation for Left to Spend in Summary?
Current balance, minus any upcoming scheduled payments (& set budgets if you’ve opted to set them up). If no budget set then the left to spend figure is your remaining balance.
I’m not sure how set budgets would work within that equation, but the current balance minus upcoming payments bit is available in Trends. It’s on the Balance screen in Trends and also on one of the Home screen spotlights.
I think there was also a different way to use Summary which was based on setting a Total discretionary spending budget (i.e. specifying the max you want to spend excluding committed spending). I’m looking at my Summary screen now and my left to spend on there is a lot higher than my current balance, so for me its definitely not based on current balance minus upcoming payments. I think its [discretionary spend budget] minus [discretionary spend so far]. Unfortunately the option to edit Left to Spend in Summary seems to have been removed (in favour of prompt to use Trends instead) so I can’t confirm.
If I am correct that there was an option in Summary for Left to Spend to represent [discretionary spend budget] minus [discretionary spend so far], I’ve just realised you can actually also achieve this in Trends. What you need to do is set Target to represent your discretionary spend budget, and then make sure any bills/committed spending goes into the Excluded from Target section. @DR1989 you may be interested in this.
Another difference is that summary allows you to set individual budgets on a per account basis, whereas trends works differently and you can only have one “target” for a number of selected accounts. You cannot have different targets for each account .
I noticed this and found that it was caused by one Direct Debit that comes out on the last working day of the month. That causes it to drift around, and while Summary updates once Monzo gets the DD request, Trends doesn’t.
It’s a little hard to explain but this was the sequence last month:
I have the green bar. It still shows for me although this can be removed in Monzo labs.
Yeah but I think most people want the green bar but if we de-select in labs it still doesn’t show the green bar: Monzo keep changing and updating things but it’s all changes that are making this harder not easier for us to manage out finances and budgets
Very interesting, the green bar not showing fault I am not sure on but I’ve had experience where if let’s say I had £0.00 in the account and then the next month rolls in the green bars disappeared
When you say de-select in labs do you mean the “Hide Left to Spend” toggle (which applies to the Summary version of Left to Spend available when you click a card (rather than Spotlight on the new home layout)? For me it seems to be working (summary bar is hidden when I enable the toggle and it comes back when I disable the toggle).
