Well thats no fun!
I used to see the loan option on my account with the old account screen, I quite liked the swipe left to go through my pots, but since then its vanished!
It will generally be under pots now like create a pot, and you may need to ensure the marketing options enabled to see them?
A few thoughts:
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You’re trying to fix a messed up budget in one month with a solution that, in effect, messes up your real–life figures and budget over the next eleven months.
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If your spike payment in one month is genuinely unexpected then your budget is already crashed, because you haven’t put anything aside for a rainy day. Your figures in Monzo should reflect that in real life you have had to deal with a big, unexpected, one–off payment.
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Good budgeting actually involves putting a little aside every month in advance for big purchases. Your figures reflect your exact position, not some nominal position which is trying to take into account numerous ‘smoothed–over’ payments, all for different amounts, all being smoothed–over for different periods of time and which will, in reality, be confusing as hell.
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Why does no one these days seem to want to wait for things? Stop trying to invent convoluted things which have to compensate your unhealthy approach to spending. Deal with your attitude to spending; you’ll find yourself better off for it.
In short, good budgeting isn’t just making the numbers in Monzo line up nicely every month, its actually a mindset that enables you to weather the ups and downs of life without having to rely much on anyone else to fix the numbers for you.
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I was waiting for someone to say that.
It depends on how we budget, I’d prefer to smooth over large payments such as holidays and big purchases that aren’t regular. I already have hack where I put a fixed amount into pots per month and use those as a funding source.
However it’s not ideal, and doesn’t really make sense for purchases that I will use in the future. I’d rather the costs be spread out in the future, not 12 months before I make a purchase.
In accounting terms your costs will include an ammortised for large purchases. For example large investments in infrastructure will cause a drop in net cashflow, but not on your profit and loss. Those payments will be spread across an appropriate time period.
I’m not sure spreading an already incurred cost over the course of X months in the Budget is feasible (not technically but visually) If you want to splurge (and don’t have the £££ saved) your best bet is to get a Credit Card and put in your budget the £x in say the “finances” part of your budget on Monzo - that way you are accounting for it whilst then also making the payments.
Otherwise you take a double hit, the initial £1,000 out of your account and then the subsequent £x to make it up.
Unless I’m missing something? If you have the money to pay the £1,000 - why would you need to budget the money to put it back?
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The initial £1000 wouldn’t be shown in your budget, instead the subsequent spread out payments would.
These could be shown as internal transfers, which show at the start of each month. These could be tracked in a similar way to savings targets are in pots.
Like saving up for something? Your solution is exactly the same as the thing you’re supposedly opposed to.
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I suppose what I would say then is that you have already made that payment - it has already left your account, so I would have guessed that you would have budgeted leading up to the purchase.
To my mind a budget is a breakdown of what I have coming in that month and what I have going out in that month - so when it rolls to the next month following the £1,000 payment, why am I still budgeting for it? It has gone its been paid for.
Internal movements to and from pots don’t make up any part of your budget because you aren’t actually spending the money.
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I think you’re missing the point. I already have the money but I want to spread the cost to my budget over future months because it’s an unexpected or unplanned cost.
Yes I could put the money in advance in a pot if I plan to save £30 a month for a new phone, but that’s not always possible
Just increase your actual budget by £1000 for that month to reflect actual expenditure, that’s how I get round mine.
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How does it mess up your budget over the next eleven months and who said anything about not having savings?
I’d argue that your Monzo budgets should not include unexpected one-off payments, otherwise your budgets would be so big that you’d have little chance to go over them.
This is how the “spread the cost over future budgets” feature would improve budgeting:
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Set a budget for your normal spending and that budget should include a certain amount of your income to be put into savings.
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If an unexpected one-off payment happens, then dip into your savings to pay for it.
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After making the one-off payment, you could spread the payment over your budget for a few months. This would effectively mean you spend less over those few months and so more money is put into your savings in those months until the amount you withdrew to make the one-off payment is effectively paid back into your savings.
Spreading a one-off payment over future budgets is definitely not “relying on anyone else to fix the numbers”, quite the opposite, it allows someone to maintain a long term budget after a one-off payment by reducing the amount they spend every month until the amount of the one-off payment has been returned to their savings.
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But how does this help someone maintain a long term budget?
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How can I then track my average spending? Do I just ignore that month, else it will ruin my averages and projections?
Surely this is entirely possible currently.
To make big purchase, you take 1000 out of savings pot and then spend it. You can exclude the payment from summary. Then make a new scheduled payment into your pot of 100 for the next 10 months (or whatever).
Or are we saying payments into pots arnt currently tracked in budgeting? I don’t set a budget so am unaware of this is the case or not.
But the budget is for that month: Expenditure IN vs Expenditure OUT - once you’ve made that payment, there is no more expenditure out, so why would you budget it? Surely the budgeting works from:
“I want that thing”
“That thing costs £1,000”
“I have £500 in savings so I will put £100 away each month”
“In 5 months time I buy that thing”
Again, please look at the many examples in this post.
I already have £1000 in savings. However when I spend the £1000 my budget is all messed up because it’s a one off large payment.
I want to be able to spread the £1000 over the course of a year, and automatically adjust my budget accordingly. I can then automatically refill the £1000 in savings ready to spend next year.
I’ve seen the examples, I just don’t think I understand the use-case.
If you already have the money, and it is truly a “one-off” then just exclude? If you’ve budgeted well enough to have the money available - you wouldn’t be “spreading the cost”.
Once you move into the next month after the one-off you could just continue to put away like you did and you’ll carry on.
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I think I’ve got it.
If you look at savings as deferred spending, then the monthly savings should count as spending in your budget, every month. But when you actually spend it, you don’t want it to appear in your budget.
If I’m correct, by far the easiest method to achieve this would be to trick Monzo into thinking the monthly amount is spending, by sending it to another account, and spending it from that account.
To me this definitely seems solvable by ‘paying monthly’ by aiming to top up your savings back to where they were. So you remove the amount from a savings pot and then set up a recurring transfer back into the pot over x months to restore the savings and it’s all sorted in your budgetting.