I just went in to recategorize my joint account categories and was sad that it doesn’t have custom categories (I forgot). Would be really handy for categorizing the different bill types and without it I can’t really use trends properly for my joint account. 
3 Likes
So it’s summary but for all your accounts?
That’s useful for paying customers (since they can have more than one account) but if you’re a free member what’s the difference?
I love the idea of trends, but they do imply more than just a slightly enhance summary. Really looking forward to more 
2 Likes
This is exactly why Joint Accounts need to be at parity with Personal Accounts - we need Plus/Premium on JA’s for all the other nicey-nicey features to work properly.
I still can’t believe I can custom-category transactions in an external connected account but not in my Joint Account, never mind Trends operating on a lesser level than it should because a JA is involved.
14 Likes
You can see joint accounts as well so its integrated there. It sounds like this is just the first iteration with possible pots/bills being added nicely in the future but yeah right now its really really useful for plus/joint users more.
4 Likes
This, this, and this!
I’d expect / hope / want periods to align to those set up with the Monzo current account e.g last working day to last working day.
4 Likes
I have my salary paid into another account (linked in the app) and then the next day transfer this (minus some major outgoings from that account, i.e. mortgage and car etc, which I keep there) to my Monzo. So my Monzo summary starts a day later. I now have a pay cycle, a summary cycle and a trend cycle which are all slightly different. Ideally I’d like the trend to recognise the salary income in the linked account and then use that as the trend period, if that’s possible. That would make my life so much simpler.
3 Likes
If Trends can keep on top of my inconsistent income schedule and keep track of my weird subscription schedules that are currently outside the scope of what Summary can do and provide a better, more accurate, safe balance, then that’ll be good enough for me.
Am I understanding it correctly, where, when Family pay me back for their share of the bills, or pay me back for loans, these will now reflect in Trends to provide a more accurate picture?
I know if I set up budgets, those payments won’t replenish my left to spend figure, so my safe balance is always out of whack.
4 Likes
You are understanding this correctly!
This is huge for me, as I live with three others but I pay all the bills. Previously, my bills spending was always huge and I didn’t really know how much I paid personally. Now, my flow looks like this:
- I Salary Sort money into my ‘House Bills’ Pot when I’m paid – enough to cover the cost of all the bills
- The bills are paid from that Pot, and added to our Shared Tab automatically
- My housemates pay me back via the Shared Tab
- Their payments are shown as positive payments into the Bills category my Trends tab, and I can see what I’ve personally paid, less their contributions!
18 Likes
Isn’t this kind of… annoying? because at some points in the month (after they’ve paid you back) it shows the correct value, but at other points (before they’ve paid you back) your bill spending is wrong? Like, there are two quite distinct concepts here: one is “how much do I spend on bills” and the other is “have my flatmates paid me back yet”, and they’re conflated.
It’s annoying until they pay me back, that’s true… But it’s still an accurate reflection of my situation, right? If they don’t pay me back, then it’s me who’s covered the cost of those bills.
It actually really helped me out last month when I checked Trends and saw I’d way overspent – turned out one of my housemates hadn’t paid me back yet.
Agree that there’s some fun and interesting things to be done with sharing lots of different types of payments with people, though 
19 Likes
Could there be a way to exclude recurring payments, or split them and just show one part?
I live in a househare and pay all the bills, with everyone paying their monthly portion in one go. In trends it looks like I’m paying and getting paid £100s more a month than I actually am!
Also +1 to custom months, having only calendar months is pretty naff as I budget off my pay date and it means trends and summary are totally out of sync
1 Like
That’s a very good point. Pulse became essentially useless at precisely the time that things converted from a pre-paid card to a full bank account. But if the hard edges on discretionary spending are back, then you’re right it could, indeed, make a useful comeback.
Separately, I’ve been banging on (and hardly alone) about the desperate need to fix budgeting in the Monzo app for years now, so I am SUPER EXCITED for this new feature! Nice work!
8 Likes
Exactly.
Except that’s not the steady-state; it’s the degenerate state. If they keep doing that you’ll move out. Most of the time most flatshare bills money gets paid back. So you should probably optimise for the normal-case, IMHO, of course.
Except that’s a perfect example of the conflation: you used one feature (“look at my budget”) to indirectly tell you about another feature (“has my flatmate coughed up yet?”). Feels like some sort of reminders system is really what you want there, or a screen with “pending requests”, or whatever. You hadn’t really overspent, and you had to backwards-infer that the overspend was actually something else.
Anyways, that’s my ten cents. Congrats on a great product launch! 
.
2 Likes
Go on, open it up to anyone via Labs. Set the forum on 
FIRE .
7 Likes
I’ve been the person paying bills in my (now old) flatshare for the best part of 4 years and honestly while I did get the money back eventually it was often delayed or they would pay me back once they were paid themselves.
I could cover it, so it’s not an issue, but purely from my personal budgeting, some months I would cover the bill and have excess money in my next monthly budget once they paid me back. So for the month prior, I needed to be aware that I personally had spent the excess amount.
I know I’m not unique in this either. Sadly it’s really not uncommon to have flatmates not pay people back, particularly in London where it’s common to live with people you’re not friends with.
Now that I am, as of this week, living with just my partner it’s different because he pays me back immediately (I still pay the bills) so I budget for my half.
2 Likes
I imagine any set up where you pay for all your housemates bills and then collect the money off then later is inherently quite annoying in many ways 
. I think the new feature sounds like it covers the common situation of paying something, then getting the money back off someone for that thing. Even if it isn’t tailored for Jack’s exact situation, it’s good enough to cover them.
I will be sticking with manually compiling my own spreadsheet at the end of each month because that’s the only way to get a truly ‘bespoke’ budget that covers every unique scenarios, but most people aren’t going to do that so sounds like this could become a good compromise.
3 Likes
I have personally only just figured out how to use YNAB and it’s actually changed how I view my money/budgeting. Only took several years of avoiding what looked like really confusing budgeting 
2 Likes
I think if you put those in a category that is excluded, it will solve it for you.
1 Like
It really is amazing. I have recommended to several people who were in a lot of debt and they have totally turned their finances around and realise they have a lot more money than they thought if they spend it more wisely.
2 Likes
YNAB is awesome. Definitely my go to recommendation for personal budgeting.
I had it for about two years until I somewhat ironically looked at the £5 YNAB subscription line on YNAB and thought ‘there’s something I could save £5 on if I just made a spreadsheet’.
These days I find the act of compiling the spreadsheet is actually good for me
4 Likes