How about location-based locks? Like, I’d have to be at nan’s house to unlock the pot 
4 Likes
This would be useful for me, I use IFTTT quite a bit to force myself to put more money into savings instead of having it in my main balance (treated as spending money) I set myself weekly/ monthly budgets and IFTTT triggers eg “if raining, put £2 into pot” force me to save more aggressively than I have.
But there is no friction to take the money out, so I sometimes cheat and take out the balance to make it seem like I’m on track for my spending limits. A locked pot would make me rethink doing this- if in an emergency, I could get the money out by messaging COps but a trivial purchase like getting out £5 for bubble tea would mean that I would not want to trouble them to do so, then cutting down on my frequency of impulse purchases.
I think this kinda works like debit top ups. When top ups were still around, I used to keep a very small amount on Monzo and tell myself I would only top up weekly when needed. Obviously this never worked out since it was so easy to top up whenever my balance ran low. When it was removed, I ended up moving a monthly equivalent in instead to save the hassle- and it helped me budget better and really forced me to look at my money as a whole rather than a never-ending magic pool of money I could draw on.
I hope this clarifies what I think is the reason why locked pots is useful- I don’t think I’m a compulsive spender, but I defo have purchases that I could have gone without making. I think I can say the same for many of us here and that’s why locked pots is yet another tool for people to better portion out their money- maybe it might not work for everyone, but i don’t think it is something only “vulnerable customers” would need.
I hope Monzo continues adding more controls and tools in this vein though. There have been lots of good suggestions lately for the vulnerable customers team on the forum that I think should be taken on board!
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What would be cool is if you could have two pots linked one Soft locked and one hard locked.
Soft locked - psychologically locked (will power required!). Just a normal pot
Hard locked - Locked Pots
Soft lock pot would be a pot with a IFFT function.
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Negative reinforcement if it works for you:
That says if I take any money out of this soft locked pot then charge me x from my main account (x being anything from a set amount e.g £5 to 90 days interest if interest was 100%) The destination of this penalty could be the hard locked Pot(penalty Pot for failing to not use your will power) -
Positive reinforcement if it works for you:
if I don’t any money out of this soft locked pot then put x amount into my special locked pot named “treat yourself” (x being anything from a set amount ) The destination of this reward pot could be the hard locked Pot that unlocks after a certain time maybe a birthday etc to spend on yourself
I think Locked Pots are good step for some but I think what is more important is empowering people to make better financial choices rather than controlling it as this still allows you to be rewarded either positively or negatively. Plus COps workload unless there will be an automated chat box
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Agree with this a lot 
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In one way, I use the savings account as a form of locked pot. It prevents me having instant access to additional funds as withdrawal won’t occur until the following day. This is enough to make me not do it and keep saving 
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I’ve been using Atom for my locked pots. Once they hit their target I send the balance over to Atom and lock them for a period.
You get way better rates then at Monzo and the deposit limited is much lower. (2.05% on a 1 year lock).
For me, I would have much preferred link up with Atom rather then Investec.
I’ve seen this is now live on my account!
Very intuitive to use
1 Like
We’re now live! Let’s carry on the discussion here: