Would love to get your thoughts on something. Right now the team are doing a lot of thinking about spend management, to see what we can learn from how people spread their spending across different accounts. We’d love you all to weigh in on this and understand your experiences, so I’d be really keen to hear your thoughts on the following:
Think about all the cards you have in your wallet (digital or otherwise) that you use for day-to-day spending or one-off purchases:
How many of these do you have? Do you use more than one?
What do you use them all for?
Are there certain retailers or types of purchases that you associate with one card over another?
Monzo personal - for all my spending
Monzo joint - for house spending
Lloyds credit card - just in case
Starling - My mums card if I do any shopping for her
Monzo Debit: Most things
Monzo Flex: Expensive things
Tesco Credit: Wife and I both get groceries and petrol on it for the clubcard points, and with the amount of petrol I buy it’s a substantial wedge of points
First Direct: Day to Day Spend
Barclays: Bills and big purchases
Set a total amount for the day to day spend at the beginning of the month, aim to keep the number as high as possible for as long as possible. Do check per category but only at month end
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tbutz
(🏳️🌈 Producer of "low value commentary")
#7
I have:
Monzo main #TeamYello (used for day-to-day stuff in-person)
Monzo Virtual (no pot) for occasional online purchases
Monzo Flex for larger purchases I want to pay off over a few months
Starling for car stuff (insurance, tax, servicing)
Starling Virtual (linked to space) for petrol
Various credit cards for larger purchases I want to pay off in full
I also have other accounts which are “in flux” at the moment whilst I work out what to do with them.
First Direct - Landing account for salary, monies disbursed on payday to Monzo Personal, Monzo Joint, Starling Joint, HSBC account and a few other monthly commitments. I don’t need to pay much attention to this. The free £250 overdraft is a comfort although it never gets used.
Monzo Personal - My personal spending account. I really want to analyse balance, spending and have category budgets on this account so I can control my spending.
Monzo Virtual - 5 virtual cards linked to personal pots for specific purchases
Monzo Flex - used for larger purchases split over 3 months interest free
Monzo Joint - Household account that pays bills, mortgage ad-hoc household purchases and travel costs. Most of these payments are pretty static other than travel costs which are variable. We have several pots set aside for quarterly bills and small emergencies.
Starling Joint - used for household groceries only; both online groceries paid for by Halifax CC and in store purchases via Starling card.
AMEX - Used for car rental / hotel reservations / large purchases that attract cashback
Halifax Credit Card - Used weekly grocery spend, and instances when AMEX is not accepted
For me, tracking spend makes most sense at an account level. some categories such as groceries / bills / etc will be spread over one or more accounts/cards, but I don’t budget for those categories as a whole I budget within an account. This is the main reason for having separate accounts; Separation of funds is very important to me/us. In a perfect world Monzo would allow multiple personal and joint current accounts, but hey ho!
Having a global view of spending / budgets is okay to get an overall feeling , but it’s not what I look at to plan my budgets.
Amex - for everything as long as it’s accepted (UK only because of the fees)
Nationwide credit - anywhere I can’t use Amex
Starling - travel card
Revolut - FX and for paying and receiving money between my friends.
Monzo - For everything that I don’t use my other cards for
Monzo Virtual Card - I have one of these for subscriptions like Spotify, Graze…
Nationwide Credit Card - I use this now and then for (mostly) small online purchases, like a takeaway. I don’t like to spend too much on it but I have it so I can ‘build’ my credit score.
Then I have a Starling card for my business account’s spending (since I do some freelance work in the evenings/weekends).
Monzo Personal - My salary is paid into this and bills and DDs go out from here. Most spending done on here.
Monzo Flex - Recently used the 6month interest free offer on two purchases.
AmEx - Fuel & Large food shop for cash back / points
BarclayCard Platinum - For large purchases and holidays (has a very large credit limit)
Barclays Premier Debit - Transfer money into here to take advantage of ISAs and the personal banking features - use for travel (underground)
Monzo Flex for big things I want to spread out over more than one month’s pay;
Monzo Virtual x3 for paying: bills from a pot; credit card bills from a pot I can fill up over the month as I make purchases; pre-orders so I can put money in a pot even if payment won’t be taken for a while;
Monzo Joint for household bills with partner;
Barclaycard for credit card purchases when Amex isn’t accepted (e.g. a hold / reservation) and separately for buying travel/accommodation/tickets for a group of friends so I am not out of pocket whilst waiting to be paid back and also keep it clearly delineated from my day-to-day Amex spending.
hope you’re all doing well.
