Ideally, I’d like to be more granular with my budget and specify how much I’m putting aside for council tax, mortgage, electricity, gas, gym etc.
Then I’d like to have any money I don’t spend out of a budget swept to savings.
For example:
January budgets:
£500 mortgage
£50 gym
£50 gas/electric
Actual spend:
£498 mortgage - £2 goes to savings
£50 gym - £0 to savings
£30 gas/electric - £20 to savings
This way, I’m incentivised to live within my means, but also to actively reduce my outgoings. For example, if I get a better gym deal, I know that I’m actively saving the extra money, rather than just losing it in daily spending.
I kinda do this already as I have a separate (not Monzo) bill paying account.
I take all the direct debits and round them up, and every few months I check it and there is £40… 50 extra so I ‘take it back’. Bit like roundups for bills.
Which, if Monzo ever offer a second ‘bill paying’ account (just a second account would do) would be perfect. A round up pot for all your bills!
Without wanting to get off-topic, I’m still not sure why a committed spending pot is a good thing. If it’s in my list of pots, unless it’s HEAVILY locked down then the temptation is to start shuffling and ‘micromanaging’ that money.
“Ohhh I could take £50 out and put it back in two weeks before bill X is due” which is precisely the sort of behaviour that drove me to a second account just for regular bills. If Monzo allowed us a separate account, that would be a bigger barrier I think, requires a tab shift, and more steps… or they could allow us to ‘hide’ that account…
Anyway, in principle, regardless of where the ‘bill money’ goes, the ability to add roundups to them would be great.
I was able to switch all my direct debits over to Monzo using CASS last year but I wish they were all still with Barclays for the exact reason you mention here. I might move them back though because Barclays actually reward you for this by giving you £4 a month but I’ve got 20+ direct debits and Barclays can’t do a partial switch from another joint account, not an easy or fun task to do
