New (hidden) feature: Macro-budgeting (USA only)

So the eagle-eyed have found a possible new Monzo feature hidden behind a deep link: macro budgeting!

Now itā€™s important that we donā€™t get carried away - this might not turn out to be a thing. Or it might change completely. But I thought itā€™d be useful to have a place to discuss it and to offer some feedback from what we can see so far. Iā€™ve had a play and definitely have thoughts!

Edit: looks like this is a feature for US customers only!

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Disappointed that the pulse doesnā€™t seem to be as useful as the old pulse

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I was hoping for some scrolling pulse action. (For those of you on iOS or who canā€™t access the deep link, the pulse graph is static unlike the old home screen where you could scroll to previous months).

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Hereā€™s my initial feedback:

  • Seeing ā€œcard balanceā€ really pushes my buttons! Monzo isnā€™t a card, itā€™s an account. And in the future if we have virtual cards then having a card balance doesnā€™t make sense because theyā€™ll be multiple cards - itā€™s the account balance!

  • I really want to drill down to transaction level by tapping the various categories or time periods (:soon:?)

  • Hereā€™s the biggy: it doesnā€™t work for me. Why? Because it lumps all spending, including pot transfers, together. So today Iā€™ve moved some money between pots but not spent anything - yet this is a thing:

  • And my monthly figures are also out because of that - and because I cycle money around different accounts my average monthly spend seems to be a multiple of several times my salary!

Visually, though, this looks stunning. Love it.

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Iā€™m struggling to see how this would benefit someone who gets paid monthly and uses Monzo for their main account. Of course we need to see the final version but it looks to me like it is aimed at those who want to budget daily or weekly or donā€™t use Monzo as their main account.

Makes it kind of pointless then

But itā€™s not been released yet so hopefully they were planning to change it

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Hopefully this is the power of community feedback! :crossed_fingers:

Hopefully this is the start of something greatā€¦ I really like the pulse graph and would love it to be interactive, maybe showing current vs average graphs for the currently selected time period.

Right now the comparison with previous period and rolling averages I find of limited value as my holiday spend really screws the averages; I would need a way to exclude this somehowā€¦ maybe only include selected categories in budgeting?

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Iā€™m surprised that they even put this into the live app in its current state, it doesnā€™t seem anywhere near finished in terms of styling/Monzoness and they know how nosey we are!

Could be a diversion tactic, distracting us from the new Plus development/launch :monzo::supervillain:

Where does one find this feature?

You need to navigate to ā€œmonzo://macro_budgetingā€, which is a deep link to the feature; you canā€™t navigate to it from within the app navigation right now.

Either get an app to open deeplinks such as (this one I just tested) or most people here will paste the link into slack.

The deeplink works ok for me if I paste it into Firefox browserā€¦

If you paste " monzo://macro_budgeting " into your mobile browserā€™s address bar and hit search, it should open it for you.

:warning: False alarm people :warning:

This is a US feature.

I was one of the haters of the pulse graph, I found it useless. Iā€™m therefore relieved that theyā€™re sticking with the feedback UK customers gave them and it isnā€™t making a comeback :relieved:

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In which case a lot of the above makes sense- ā€œcard balanceā€ because Monzo is still a prepaid card here, and itā€™s made the way it is for those who use Monzo for some day to day spending but not as their main account because the US product as it is now is not yet ready to be anyoneā€™s main account.

Itā€™s not a prepaid card in the US, itā€™s a ā€˜properā€™ bank account, just that behind the scenes itā€™s a US bank with a licence thatā€™s providing the accounts (though Monzo controls the interface and customer relationship).

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That is not correct.

It is a prepaid card.

https://webviews.monzo.com/assets/files/usa/Sutton-Bank-Cardholder-Agreement-v1.2.pdf?monzo_action=external

According to Monzo, itā€™s not a prepaid card:

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Then either the terms and conditions or Monzoā€™s communication needs to be updated depending on which is currently the case.

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