It’s very possible I’ve over looked the function. So please nudge me in the right direction if so.
I’d like a way to prevent myself from spending my salary before all my bills for the month have come out.
Last month I Totally forgot about a direct debit and had to transfer money from my savings to cover it.
I’m dyslexic and dyspraxic. A blind spender and crap at simple maths. Monzo has been a life saver so far.
Ideally pay day to pay day Monzo would only let me spend, what I have available after my direct debits for the month have been paid/accounted for.
My regular non negotiable payments are around 1k a month. I’d love for that to dissapear on pay day. Leaving me with whatever I have left to spend/save.
This is actually something Monzo have repeatedly mentioned they are looking at. It seems closer as we move into the new nav era and it has been hinted a few times that it’s something Monzo are hoping to solve.
You can cast your vote for the feature here:
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Anarchist
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Stick all the DD money into a pot. Then you’ll be dipping into the pot, and the money you see in the account is all spending money
Actually this is something you can already do. In the summary section, you can set an overall monthly budget that’s less than your monthly income - regular bills. Then look at how much you’ve got left in your budget, rather than how much you have in your account. You don’t need to break it down by specific category, but you can optionally set specific budgets for them too.
Might be best if you try the much touted two account method favoured by many on here. Put simply you move all your Direct Debits into a second account (Starling for example!) And then every payday you transfer over your bill money to cover all the Direct Debits etc. Everything that’s left in Monzo you can blind spend as you please!
If you have a few bills NatWest offer a reward account and give you a percentage back of every bill.
You can check your suppliers here to see if they offer cashback:
Yeah, but no one wants to be that guy transferring money from savings at the supermarket checkout while everyone else waits because his card didn’t work.
If you develop a habit of regularly checking your budget rather than spending everything in your account, it works.
I agree. I use the summary to the fullest in the way you describe. I wouldn’t say it’s the easiest way to do it though. Takes willpower too!
However, a committed spending pot would be a great way of enforcing a change of habit and helping people manage to pay all the bills in an easier fashion, especially, when dyslexic and dyspraxic.
I do hope people will start to learn that ‘developing willpower’ is not easy for many many people. Why do you think Monzo has their mission? If money management was that easy for everyone… well we wouldn’t need Monzo to help us be better.
@Myamyfication - I currently use two bank accounts. On payday, the amount to cover all my bills goes to a separate account and leaves me whatever I have left in Monzo as ‘cash’. Until Monzo have a simple, workable solution I’m in the same boat as you, the system doesn’t work. I hope some of the suggestions here have helped though, it’s never easy and can be a big cause of stress!
Great to hear this is on your radar. I like the idea of focusing on my budget instead of my balance. Maybe a logical step for some but something I hadn’t considered. I’ll give it a try from payday (already blown it this month )
Can you change the direct debit day to be closer to your payday ? Or maybe just add all the DDs up and write down the end sum and make sure you always have that amount in your bank account after payday.
Or as previously said. Have a second bank account for DDs, bills and Rents, and use Monzo for spending and saving money
Most of my direct debits go out within 4-5 days after my payday. I pay my rent and some of my bills early after payday just to get them out of the way.
It helps me tremendously knowing that whatever is left on my account is there to spend or save.
You could also set up a list in the Reminders app if you are using an iPhone , with all your upcoming bills and DDs and tick them off as they go out form your account. That way you could look on the list every now and then, and make sure that everything is ticked off.
I use Monzo precisely because it shows me how much of my budget I have left. I don’t think any other product makes this so easy, especially for joint accounts.
The other option is to get all your bills and savings to come out right after pay day. Most direct debit bills allow this, and you can usually change your standing orders for rent, etc. to an earlier date in the month. If all your committed spending comes out right after pay day, you can’t easily over spend.
No, it’s the last working day of the month, so I would schedule all my bills to come out on the 1st.
By the way, I’m not saying committed spending pots are a bad idea. I think they could help a lot of people. But I also think you can do a lot with what we’ve already got in Monzo’s budgeting features.
If you have a regular pay day yes. I and many others don’t so without a lot of effort on my part, the budgeting features are next to useless.
But yes, if you are in the majority then i’m sure there are ways to harness the budgeting features. That then becomes a question of energy/desire to do so which some people may find a challenge (because even by their current best efforts Monzo is not intuitive in this respect, IMO).
Until such a time that committed spending is a rolled out feature. I’m trialling a combination of IFTTT triggers and native in-app payment scheduling to move money in and out of pots.
I divvied up my month into 4 quarters and broke down the sum amount of DDs per quarter month - then at the start of a new quarter month my current account is credited the value from my Bills pot
The idea is that I don’t have to “pretend” the balance on my card isn’t what it is. I guess an alternative Monzo could provide is an option to display your “budget” value rather than actual value on the home tab
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