duncang
9 November 2023 15:46
802
There’s a lot of talk in this part of the thread of how making everyone use one pot that has interest breaks forward-budgeting. That’s true. And I think that Monzo should do something in the app to help people to split that pot up into separate savings goals. This has been talked about a bunch on the boards before, e.g:
This post by me in 2018, which basically suggests the exact thing people have been asking for in this thread.
One big pot with an associated list of items (TV, holiday, house deposit, …) that you want to buy. The user inputs the items and their costs, and the app calculates the date at which they will be able to purchase each. The list is re-orderable, allowing the user to quickly and fluidly create future scenarios. The app knows the user’s effective savings rate which, when combined with the item costs and item order, is used to calculate the dates. Transfers happen into the account as infrequently as possible - ideally once per income period (typically a month), but only at the end of the month once the money is definitely saved.
Or this more expansive post Where @Peter_G talks about financial projections being incorporated into the app.
I’ve never been one for envelope budgeting, or to set budgets by categories. I was though, thinking this morning about how I’d want to have financial projections or modelling in the app. Put another way, I’d like to see what my finances will look like at the end of the year with no change, with saving a bit extra, or if I shell out on that big expensive thing.
It struck my that the answer could be quite simple (from a user rather than a technological perspective). What do you all think about this?
Somewhere in Monzo we have a new feed. But this time it’s for the future, rather than for the past.
Future feed would have all the committed spend that summary currently picks up - but with the ability to tap and edit details, dates, amounts etc. You could also create new entries manually.
Future feed would also show credits to your account. You can either add entries manually or have it recognise recurring things like salary.
If the Future Feed were able to show, say, a rolling period (next 7, 30 or 365 days), or until a fixed period (until the end of the year, month or week) you could then see the predicted balance at that time. And if your scroll up or down the feed, I’d hope the balance changed to match the predicted balance at that time.
Once you’ve done that, you can do some fun things:
Add an expected debit for a PS5 in November. The app calculates how much you’ll need to put away every payday and let’s you set up a pot and transfers for the exact monthly amount to meet that goal.
Create scenarios or models that you can save: what will thinks look like if I go away for August therefore am not working and will have additional expenses? Or how much will I save if I give up chocolate?
You could extend it to cover connected accounts
Tell you your average daily spend (by weekday and weekend?) and let you account for that too…
I’m quite taken with the idea (partially inspired by @N26throwaway ). But what does everyone think?
Perhaps Monzo will do it… at some point in the next five years.
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