I like the spending summary and I like the ‘round up transactions’ feature in pots. But together they cause trouble. Namely the money that gets rounded up and added to a pot doesn’t get included in the spending summary, so that by the end of the month I have less money in my balance than I do available in my spending summary. For example, suppose I start the week with £1000 in my balance and £1000 in my spending summary, and by Wednesday I’ve spent £100, exactly £10 of which is money that has been rounded up and put in my pot, while £90 was actually money I spent on stuff. Now my balance will be £900 but my spending summary will show £910. For these features to work better, the rounded-up part of a transaction should be included in the spending summary together with the actual money spent.
This has already been raised and was answered with the comment that the money saved in the round up was exactly that. Saved, not spent, hence, not included in Spending Summary.
I allow about £30 more in my balance than my monthly budget as I don’t think I do more than 30 transactions a month. As each transaction round-up would be 99p or less, that’s what I allow for.
That said, this month is the first time I have tried it and also the first month I have gone #FullMonzo and had all my salary paid into Monzo, and not just my budget, so still a work in progress.
Sorry, I missed the other posts.
In answer to your points, of course I realise the money is saved rather than spent. It’s just that unless the round-ups come out of the spending summary, it causes the spending summary to increase relative to the balance. Which means I end up having less money in my balance than my spending summary tells me I have left to spend. The workaround you suggest–of knowingly leaving an extra amount in your balance at the start of the month that is equal to roughly the amount you think will get saved through rounding-up–sort of defeats the purpose of the round-up feature. If you know you’re gonna save roughly £30 by the end of the month then just stick it in the pot to begin with and forget about roundups.
It’s annoying because I like both features, but as they stand they aren’t jointly compatible.
I’m confused, my summary already seems to work like this. I use the round up feature, and the “left to spend” balance always identically matches my real account balance. Am I miss-understanding?
That’s sort of what I used to do. This is me just trying to see if I can make use of the feature in a hidden savings way. Doesn’t mean, I’ll stick to it yet.
Mine worked like that until i used the round-up feature then the balance didn’t match the summary budget because extra was being withdrawn.
Do you have targets in Summary. If not, then it will match . . . . I think lol
Ah ok, yeah I haven’t set any targets so maybe that’s why.
In my experience, transfers into pots (round up or otherwise) appear in the pots section of the Summary. What am I missing?
The problem I’m highlighting affects the monthly spending target. So if you haven’t set yourself one, perhaps that’s why you’re not seeing the issue. I set myself a monthly target, and over the course of the month my expenses get deducted from that. It’s useful because it visualises how much of my target I’ve spent compared with how much of the month is left and tells me whether I’m on target or over/under and by how much. With the rounding up feature in play, that money gets rounded up but not deducted from the spending target, yet it is deducted from my balance. So that my balance reduces quicker than my spending target. So there will sometimes be less money in my balance than in my spending target, even if I’ve started off the month equal or with a bit more in my balance than in ST.
Matt, I guess your working off the premise that your account balance and your monthly budget are the same. I can totally understand this, as for a lot of us there is quite often not a lot of money left at the end of the month.
(or if your like I used to be then there is too much month left at the end of the money!)
Now your obviously wanting to save some money as you wouldn’t have turned on the round-up otherwise. So it might help you to imagine your money divided into 3 piles Needs, Wants & Saving.
Needs covers spending on things like rent and food and are usually kinda fixed.
Wants covers more discretional spending on stuff like entertainment & beer etc and this is probably were you can make some adjustments if you want to.
Savings - well that’s savings.
The relative sizes of these piles might vary. back when I was starting as Uni I was recommended an even 3-way split. I think something like 50/30/20 (Needs/Wants/Savings) is probably more realistic. So if we take a hypothetical monthly income of £1000. I would set the budgeted spending for the month to £800. So already on the 1st of the month we can see that the account balance and the summary will be different. By the end of the month round up might have moved £20 - £30 into my Saving Pot but I may still have a surplus in my account balance (if I’ve stuck to my spending budget) this can then me moved to a savings Pot.
I’ve only been following a pattern like this for a couple of months but I find that Its really helping me keep on top of my spending and even save a little. hopefully this might help you too.
That is something I don’t like either. It doesn’t make sense seeing my budget left for the month is more than the money I actually have in my balance.
I understand when Paul says that is money Saved , not spent but still that money is not available anymore in your balance therefore you can’t rely on it so your monthly budget should not include it.
Also I guess the point for rounding up the transaction is saving the change, but if I still see the amount saved as “available” in my monthly budget I would spend it and that completely makes the roundups meaningless.
I agree with this. I use the monthly budget/summary to track how much I have available left to spend in the month. Roundups go into a locked pot, so while they’re not classified as spending, they’re no longer available to me and I feel like my remaining budget for the month shouldn’t include money that is no longer available in my account.
Perhaps an option switch to ask for round-ups to be subtracted from monthly budget would be a compromise, so it doesn’t affect people who use the budget/summary differently.
This is a feature I’d like to be able to enable too.
I find it frustrating that I can effectively go over my budget because transactions have been rounded-up. Sure, I haven’t actually spent the money, and it’s saved ready for me to withdraw to my main account whenever I want, but having the option that would enable rounding-up to be included in my spending summary and having it subtracted from overall monthly budget would be extremely useful.
For me, the round-up feature is a way for me to save money almost accidentally. Not having it included in my spending summary and monthly budget though effectively mitigates the savings because I rely heavily on the budget trackers to keep me on track.
The main voting thread for this feature can be found here: