I have a few expenses which come out every week or month which aren’t always the same amount, and I’d like to be able to adjust the total amount before it leaves my account, or the ability to just cancel that payment completely. For example, sometimes I have my dog walked twice a week, sometimes only once and sometimes not at all - so I’d like to set up a recurring weekly payment but have the ability to adjust the total each time.
It’d be good to be notified in the notification bar about these payments, as well as in the app. I think the option to not allow the payment unless I’ve manually confirmed it would be good as well as the option to just have the default amount go through if I don’t do anything.
It is needed. A common example of this is credit card bills, mine can vary wildly each month and summary isn’t very helpful in working out how much money I have left
Personally I don’t think this is something that I would use.
If I was in your situation with the dog walker I’d have the person under my recent payees so it would just be a tap to send them money each week. I think having a whole new feature set with notifications and approvals etc is making it unnecessarily complicated. Depending on how well established the dog walker business is, they could always setup a direct debit instruction with you that varies as you mentioned.
Not saying that it’s a bad idea and others wouldn’t use it but for me I don’t see a need
Most importantly for me, if this were to happen, would be calling it something else. By the nature of what you want to do, this is no longer a Standing Order but something different.
I have to say that I wouldn’t personally have any use for it but that doesn’t invalidate it as an idea.
I guess the feedback so far has made me think about what I’m actually asking for. I agree that Manual Confirmation of DD or SO is an overload of both phrases and would probably be confusing.
Boiling down my initial idea of the dog walking payments, it feels like it’s irregular payments but on a regular schedule. I feel like I don’t really want a change to the way existing DD or SO work, so perhaps a rework on the original idea would help?
How about this: Outgoing Payment Reminders
Get notified on a regular schedule of outgoing payments which need to be made. You can prepopulate with a recipient, a description, a label, a start date, repetition details (weekly [day of week], monthly [which day of the month] yearly etc) etc and the app will notify you at that time that you have an outgoing payment you have scheduled. You can then go into that notification, adjust the amount if needed and pay, or cancel.
I have a standing order that puts some money into my savings every month. I’d love a prompt to skip the transfer that month. Currently I have to delete and recreate the standing order which is a real pain.
The same reason I haven’t stuck with HSBC, or don’t go into a physical branch every time I want to carry out banking transactions. I understand there are other ways of doing things, but I’m trying to suggest ways which I think the Monzo app could work better for me, in the way I want to work and hopefully, other people will find it useful too.
Personally, I have a couple of recurring payments which I’d love to schedule, but they aren’t consistent enough that I feel comfortable setting up a standing order and it mildly stresses me out every week because either it’s on my mind more than it should, or I forget about it and hence forget to pay. Having some functionality in the app to assist with these things would instantly mean that I don’t have to remember to pay or worry about forgetting. It could be useful for other things I didn’t originally think of, as @Throwingspoon has already pointed out.
Doesn’t the dog walker person ask for payment or send you an invoice? They should be the one reminding you, not the other way round
Keep doing this, it is great
This is a community to openly discuss things so when people are commenting they are not attacking you and your ideas but simply sharing their opinions too. My comments for example are because I want a better understanding of what this functionality would be called and how it would be used in real life situations. Once I understand my aim is to hopefully help by suggesting an alternative way to achieve the same results.
Tell me about it! Despite my repeatedly asking, they don’t and I always forget, then what should only be a few quid every week turns in to a couple of hundred when I remember to get around to actually paying which causes more stress.
I’m not feeling attacked - apologies if I’ve come across that way I appreciate the conversation and if there’s an existing or better way of doing what I’m suggesting then I’ll be happy to take that onboard
Wow! I can see why it would be stressful if the debt gets to that amount!
Good luck with your suggestion, maybe Monzo will look into this as a future addition.
In the mean time what I’d do if I was in your situation would be to create a pot called ‘Dog walking bill’ then schedule an amount to go in there every week. I’d probably over estimate to make sure I’m covered. So in your case if it’s a max of 3 walks a week then put 3 walks worth in. Then only pay when the company requests payment so you can sleep better at night because you’re covered and this money is segregated from your main account so it is safe from being accidentally spent.
You could also use IFTTT. So you would have a button on your phone that when pressed transfers the cost of 1 walk into a pot. So you could just press this each time you book a walk.
Or… just find a new dog walking person that manages their finances better
Interestingly, expressed that way (second iteration) I start to see some more relevance to it. A reminder with embedded transaction details males it a one-touch transaction (plus authorisation) when required.
I guess the value of marginal gains over a calendar app reminder and a manual transfer is what would need to be evaluated to see if it’s worth development time.
I appreciate the conversation and if there’s an existing or better way of doing what I’m suggesting then I’ll be happy to take that onboard 
