Iāve been doing a ton of research on banks to replace Simple. My husband and I have used the Expenses ābucketsā since they were introduced. Our financial situation before them was a bit rocky, and very āpaycheck to paycheck.ā In the last few years of using them, weāve really been able to truly get ahold of our finances, never been late on a bill, and havenāt come up short on funds. Weāve built a savings account (technically 2, with Goals), and weāre in a better financial situation than ever before. Plus, I stopped having to use my Excel spreadsheet for budgetingā¦ We tried budgeting sites and apps like Mint, but they still canāt get our transactions tagged correctly, and Iād spend hours fixing it.
Our hearts, and stomachs, sank when we got the alert that Simple is no longer come Mayā¦ So, Iāve spent hours, days and weeks combing through bank after bank, feature after feature. Iāve done my own searching, and used the Reddit spreadsheet (now a website). Here are the 3 Iāve chosen to compare:
Zeta- Similar to Simple starting out, theyāre ābackedā by a bank, but not actually a bank themselves. They feature ācouplesā account features, including funding for bill pay. Iām not entirely sure how it works, but the website features an image of a reminder that rent is due soon, and has the option to fund it.
In addition, you can create your own bucket like savings accounts for yourself or shared between you and your joint account holder.
One Finance- This one seems complicated and time consuming to setup, but does seem like it could be a good replacement down the line. One is boasting a direct comparison to Simple. Their twitter account is littered with these, and even suggests their users share their own budgeting flows using Oneās āPocketsā feature to compare to Simple.
However, Iāve seen notes that there is no way to setup a āsafety netā pocket to fund your spending pocket if you drop below a certain amount (similar to an unprotected savings account). Iāve also heard that you have to actually set your card to a specific pocket before using it, which would make paying your bills via debit card extremely time consuming and complicated (especially with services that solely rely on debit card payments, like Netflix or Amazon services).
That said, it seems as though this might change later down the line with them being so heavy on their comparisons with Simpleās features. In the long term, this could be the bank to replace them, but for now looks very convoluted.
What sets this apart at the current moment is the auto savings APY (3% up to $1k, and 1% on the savings account up to $5k), and ability to share āPocketsā with other account holders. It removes the need for joint account holders, and expands the ability to share money. Their āBoostā feature seems like it could be a very powerful tool as well, which finds places where you can save automatically as well as tracking your spending habits.
Then thereās Monzo. Iāve seen other banks that tout bucket saving, including Ally (which is a strong competitor even without the Expenses feature), but without automated spending from these buckets itās just not as much of a draw. Iām very curious how Monzo handles this feature, or how the IFTTT automation can be set to handle this.