New user - so far disappointed (UK)

UK Help
1

Hi. Complete Monzo Newbie here - so completely happy to be told not to be so stupid, of course you can do that.

I was sold on the idea of having individual pots to manage my spending, as this was something i was doing with a previous account - just with the help of a spreadsheet.

However, I seem at every stage to be hitting limitations in the entire platform to the point where i’m seriously considering giving it all up as a bad job and going back to my existing provider. It just seems so poorly thought out.

In particular:

  1. I seem to be unable to categorise incoming money by reference. I want to be able transfer money in from another bank account, say, with the reference “Petrol” and have that money be moved automatically into my “Petrol” pot. I don’t want to have to keep an eye on what’s coming in and manually move it to the right pot

  2. I can’t seem to make a bank transfer from a pot straight to another bank - it looks like i have to move the money manually to the main pot before i can transfer it. That’s exceptionally poor. It requires me to perform 2 transfers on every occasion rather than 1 and actually makes the flow of money more obscure rather than more simple.

  3. It seems that when you perform a bank transfer, the saved destination contains the ‘reference’ field and there’s no way to change this at transfer time. That means if i transfer money to someone else, I can’t use the reference field to identify the purpose of that transfer. Not having this available seems like a massive step backward from the capabilities of even the most basic of the other banks out there (and i’ve tried a lot of them) The few that used to be this restrictive updated their systems many years ago.

Sorry, but right now i’m wallowing in deep disappointment and my plans to move most of my money management into monzo are completely on hold :frowning:

2

Hi. Welcome.

  1. Correct, you cannot do this.
  2. You can do this for scheduled but not for “Oh, I need to pay myself right meow”
  3. You can alter the reference each time you make a transfer.
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3

Overall it seems your problems stem from the way you want to use the account - which is to have lots of bank transfers in, automatically send them to various pots which have lots of bank transfers out.

You are right that Monzo isn’t really built for this and it likely isn’t going to work for your use. Unsure if there’s another bank that will support this idea better though.

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4

Hi.

For 3, i go into 'payments/pay someone/select a previous recipient from the bottom of the page. There is no option to change the reference on that page.
i put in the amount and select ‘review payment’ and there’s no option on that page either.

The only button left is ‘confirm payment’ - are you saying the option to change the reference is after that point?

(Note - UK version of the app in case this is different in the US)

6

If you can’t easily perform transfers in and out of a pot, both manually and automatically, i’m currently failing to see how it’s much use to anybody. It just currently seems half baked :frowning:

7

certainly sounds worth a look. Is that a UK view, or is this maybe functionality that’s only in the US?

Thanks

9

Payments > Pay someone

And it should look something like this. This field was pre-filled with the reference I used last time but easily edited

IMG_1417
IMG_14171320×1208 92 KB

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10

Thanks - got it.

I’d even seen it, but because there was no indication on the right like an edit button, i didn’t register it as an editable field - much appreciated. At least that’s one big frustration sorted.

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11

Looks good. Does their system give you an overview of the balance across your accounts or are they all completely individual?

Thanks

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12

Yes it’s the reason I use chase and not monzo the separate accounts are so useful for bills etc

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14

Looks good. How’s their web portal? being restricted to a mobile app was one of my main concerns while evaluating Monzo

16

google.com answers all this well worth a look

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18

This has caught me out a few times since it changed (fairly recently). I think it’s a step back from the old system as it also no longer seems to remember the old references I’ve used when paying a particular payee.

20

If you go to edit the payee then you can set a default reference there.

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21

Thanks both. I think I was confusing it with my business account which does not remember the references. Looks like my personal and joint accounts do. I didn’t know about editing the payee so I’ll take a look at that as well.

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22

Just to mention chase has no ability to pay in cheques or cash in any form.

23

That was my biggest deal breaker for Chase, much preferred the virtual cards link to Pots like Monzo.

25

I hear that, for me I used a virtual card for TFL, another one for all my streaming services etc. For day to day I just used my physical monzo card.
So for me the chase issue was that say I set the debit card to my TFL account, and half way through the day spotify hit my account, it would come from the wrong place.

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26

I just set up 4 accounts. Though not sure if it’s better to open saver accounts and earn interest on the money sat?

I struggle with budgeting in this format though, I used to be fine at it ie monzo Pots but as the years moved on I struggle big time :joy:

Am curious if it’s a form of ADD or similar (currently in motion with the psychologist).

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28

I honestly don’t know what’s changed but if you look at how many times I change my main account :expressionless: it annoys me but something just needs to do it in my mind.

As for having to move funds for spending, I probably have it too easy to spend via convenience ie either all on one card or over multiple.

Cant seem to find a way that works for me.

All in one account? Spend freely.

Multiple pots? Use a credit card as I cba to move it.

Impulse for sure, numbers and card types aplenty also don’t help, then a continuous sense of boredom (same in person, heavily distracted for no reason in my day to day). Work are supportive of my ways though :sweat_smile:

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