Targets

Once targets have been set for each category, I think it would be better from a UX perspective to have the whole bar showing as green if nothing has been spent yet, rather than just the greyed out bar like it is now.
One thing I like about budgets is the opportunity to spend (guilt-free) on things such as entertainment, knowing that I’m using what I have budgeted for at the beginning of the month. If I see a green bar with £50 left of £50, it will a little more obvious that it is there to spend.

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One (minor) thing I would like is for any categories that are not being used (i.e. no targets set) to be auto-sorted to the bottom of the list.
For example I have no targets set for Holidays but I do have something set for General and at the moment Holidays is above General.
Even better would be the ability to set the order ourselves by dragging items up and down in the list.

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How would you feel if you could have even more freedom by having the remaining allowance of that target category rollover to the following month? Also the ability to sacrifice some of next months if you want to spend more this month?

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@beningreenjam Actually I was thinking the other day, I topped up £50 in petrol on the last day of the month (September). This meant that the money was put into that month but actually the fuel will last for half of October. It would be good to assign the transaction between the 2 months. Or perhaps it would have been good to bring some of my budget for October forward in the way you have suggested!

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Ah, I see what you mean here, but your problem might soon(ish) be solved by the upcoming improvement to targets which will allow you to define when your budgeting period starts and finishes. Currently runs from calendar month to calendar month.

I agreed with this. But I’ve just seen the logic behind the ordering - the categories that you’ve spent the most on i.e. the ones that you need to pay the most attention to, are at the top of your list.

So I’d actually prefer that order remains the same, my guess is that most users will spend most of their money on categories that have a target so the categories without targets will naturally sort to the bottom of the list (mine have already), although there will be exceptions.

@beningreenjam my only concern with using that particular improvement to solve the problem I’m talking about, is that the day that I buy fuel towards the end of the month is always different, so it would mean I would have to keep changing the budget period

Errr actually no (at least not in my case).
The second item in my list is Transport on which I have consistently never spent more than £50 (since starting using Mondo in Jan) whereas the third time in my list is Groceries which is always more than £200.

But which of those categories have targets?

Actually, never mind, it’s pointless for us to discuss our two use cases, Hugo will have the data to determine what the majority of users experience, that was just my guess ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Well actually the first three items in my list all have targets but the order seems to be random.

But you are right: Hugo will have the data…

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Targets is an absolutely brilliant feature!

If I was able to create my own categories, this could basically replace my budgeting app. Any chance of that in the future?

It’s unlikely, for the reasons Hugo’s explained here. But the categories are being reviewed in a few months. There’s been some more discussion about sub / custom categories in this topic -

Just to pick up on this point, those categories should be ordered with the category that you’ve spent the most in at the top of the list & the one you’ve spent the least in at the bottom. Is that the case for you?

What are the chances of a simple update that will allow users to customise the start date of their month? I love targets, but am one of those people that doesn’t get paid at a month end. Changing the date would make targets really useful as opposed to just interesting

That feature is being developed

https://community.monzo.com/t/targets-custom-timeframes/6242/2?u=alexs

but bearing in mind that the pulse graph, the target’s alerts calculations & perhaps some other features that I haven’t thought of, will need to adjust themselves to work with the new start / end dates, it’s a little bit complex to implement.

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One little design issue I have with Targets is that the overall monthly target and specific categories lines do not match up. It bothers me as I cannot tell straight away which of my specific category is doing badly compared to my monthly target.
Here is a little before and after.

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I struggled to spot this but the transport bar is longer in screenshot 2 vs screenshot 1 :thumbsup:

Neither the target nor the amount spent for that category or the total has changed though which is pretty odd. Had you made a transaction since you took screenshot 1?

Sorry for the confusion but the 2nd screenshot is photoshopped. I just think the bars on the categories should go all the way to the left like the monthly target bar. It would make it easier to see which category is doing badly compared to the monthly target.

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I guess no-one knows yet as we havent had a month but was wondering - is there any congratulations messages/feedback etc for meeting spending target? Would love to have something like this ala Apple Watch activity

Yes there is, Hugo shared this preview of the summary that you’ll receive at the end of each month

https://community.monzo.com/t/new-targets-feature-now-live/6236/15?u=alexs