Please please please don’t get rid of the “left to spend” chart.
Being able to easily see a real-time, accurate indicator of how much money I’ve spent vs how much I can afford to spend has changed my spending habits and changed my life.
It’s something other traditional banks can’t even dream of (eg transactions still take days (!) to appear in my old bank’s app). It’s one of the features that sold Monzo to me in the first place and it keeps me coming back to the app regularly.
I completely agree that budgeting features need more work - I don’t use detailed budgets at all currently, as the categories don’t match how I want to categorise my spending.
But it feels like “left to spend” became a second class citizen in the redesign and it shouldn’t have. Even without detailed budgets, the “left to spend” bar is extremely helpful.
Before Monzo, I was really struggling with an overspending problem. I was like a frog in a pot of slowly boiling water; ending every month just a little bit further into my overdraft than the month before. This went on for months and months, and I’d slipped into nearly £2k of debt. I couldn’t imagine a way out, couldn’t tell anyone about it, and all my best efforts would only have a temporary effect; I’d keep trying, and keep eventually slipping back into bad habits.
“Left to spend” fixed my debt and changed my life. I could immediately track my spending and challenge myself to make the right choices every day. I repaid all my debt, got better spending habits, and haven’t significantly gone back into debt since.
I can’t imagine banking without Monzo now, and will be your customer for years to come. It’s the “left to spend” graph, more than anything else, that has convinced me of this. Please be gentle with it.
Couldn’t disagree more. I find it a distraction. I look at my balance and that tells me all I need to know; if there was an option to hide it I would switch it on instantly.
You’ve removed the main feature of using Monzo. It’s now incredibly hard to track spending through the month without the graph and updated balance when you scroll through spending.
Monzo was always so good for budgeting but now it’s just the same as my HSBC. Might as well open a Starling or Revolute account.
I’m curious as to how the graph helps give you any detail, or was it just easier way to navigate your transaction feed? I was not a fan of the Pulse graph but aware my usage is likely different from yours so trying to understand why you miss it.
The drag down thing! This is the biggest issue with the app for me. I wanted to add a new pot today and I clicked around for AGES trying to remember how to do it. I eventually dragged down twice (once to show the blue circle buttons and then eventually remembered to drag down again to get the overall list). And THERE is the new pot button. Then I clicked it on my personal account rather than the joint one. In some parts of the app, the controls are related to the account you are “in”, but in this part, there are two separate headers and two separate New Pot links. It’s not very intuitive, and a step back I think since earlier versions.
Data is always better when it’s visualised. I use monzo to budget and it was good to scroll through my outgoings and see where the big drops were and then I could track and adjust my spending habits.
Though they still have the summary splits of spending but it’s not quite the same.
It’s simple really. The graph didn’t make any sense when you use monzo as your main current account and get paid into it. It was much more useful when you just use monzo as a spending account. This is the opposite of what Monzo want to be, so it only made sense to remove it. The good news is they are currently working on a new budgeting system that should include an easy way to look at your spending habits over time similar to the graph but better for full monzo users.
I’ve just been switched over to the new layout and it leaves me cold. When I open the app I just want to see recent transactions, not select an account and then select a card to view transactions. It’s a huge backwards step, all it seems to do is bring things like loans, overdrafts and other stuff I don’t want to the fore. Really thinking of leaving Monzo now
It opens on the transaction feed as it always has. That’s one of the things that hasn’t changed with the New Navigation.
Of course, if you navigate elsewhere and move away from the app then come back it may well stay where you left it. If it doesn’t because it gets closed in the background then you’ll be back on the transaction feed next time as always.
Sorry to hear you are thinking of leaving Monzo after having only just been switched to the new layout. From previous feedback on this forum, others haven’t liked it at first so maybe use it for a week or so, then decide? Up to you of course.
