I find it exceptionally useful as a looking back tool. Together with custom categories, it’s helped me answer questions like:
How much am I spending on energy? What was my average monthly cost last year?
How much did I used to spend on holidays pre-plague?
How has my salary and other income changed over time?
It’s really exceptional (so good I said it twice) and better (imo) than the dedicated aggregators. But it’s suffering from the standard Monzo approach of not being finished and not enough aggressive focus on improving it.
I’m drawn to something that (I think) @edo1493 said: Emma iterates quickly and rolls out new features because their business depends on it. I think as this is just one of many Monzo bits, it’s got a bit lost in the wash. Which is a shame.
Sorry, but I still don’t find trends useful. I still use summary, both for budgeting and tracking my spending/committed spending. It would be great to understand what’s coming down the line to integrate the two.
I don’t think so, depends how you do your budgeting I guess.
It would be a lot more useful if it actually matched my pay cycle. Monthly is pretty useless to me. I need to be 4 weekly to properly play around with it and see if it’s useful.
Ah ok, so for you the issue is limited pay cycle options, rather than a lack of per-category budgeting which I suspect is an issue for some when it comes to Trends vs Summary.
One thing they really need to do if/when they sort out budgeting/pay periods is to recognise their other feature - get paid early.
For me, it’s pointless in Summary as I know the past period will always end the day before it thinks it will.
Because I don’t use Trends for budgeting, it’s helpful to look back on previously completed months where it doesn’t really matter when it started. I keep it as calendar months for simplicity.
That said, having custom periods would be super cool. Like most things, it feels very doable but needs a lot of thought and effort to make it simple and flexible.
I’d like to see merchant trends that include connected accounts - something similar to the average spend and total spend on Monzo transactions but for connected accounts too.
I’m wondering (/hoping) if they might look at the problem of budgeting and forecasting future spend in a bigger way, bringing in connected accounts etc. That would mean being able to plan for longer term goals (perhaps by setting up regular transfers) or finding a better way to distinguish committed/bill and discretionary spend.
But on previous form it’s doubtful they’d do it all in one go, isn’t it?
“WE’RE GOING TO HAVE THE MOST AMAZING AND TRANSFORMATIONAL EVENING OF OUR LIVES, REALLY COMING TO TERMS WITH OUR OWN INNER SELF AND GRAPPLING WITH SOME OF THE MORE EXISTENTIAL ISSUES PLAGUING OUR GREAT SOCIETY AND HOW WE CAN RESOLVE THE PROBLEM OF THE GREAT DIVIDE, AND I BELIEVE THE LOCATION TO THESE GREAT ENDEAVOURS PROVIDES THE BEST SPACIAL DYNAMICS TO ACHIEVE OUR OBJECTIVE IN THE MOST EFFICIENT AND COST EFFECTIVE MANNER!”
“… Peter we’re just having a pint in Wetherspoons…”
