They make profit more often than loss. I agree banks in UK suck but at least big banks will always be bailed out by government in case they were in too much trouble, see last financial crises.
A private startup running on VC money would not be bailed out in such case and be allowed to fail. I know that up to 85k of my money is in theory insured and I would get it back.
But it’s still better to derisk so I don’t have to deal with that process in case of financial calamity (it would probably be very stressful process to go through the bureaucracy to get your FSCS insured money back and might take weeks or months).
Monzo is my primary spending account and most of my bills go out of it too. But I get my salary paid into my First Direct.
I like having some of my not at all discretionary spend come straight out of my FD before it gets to my Monzo, feel like it helps me budget better as I never get my full salary into Monzo.
I’m also back at uni part time and had to take out a small loan to cover a portion of fees. Monzo won’t offer me a loan, despite offering a 1k overdraft to me, but FD approved me over the phone in minutes and got me out of a huge bind. Again, fantastic reason imo to have another bank given the opaque reasons for lending etc. More I have, the more likely one of them will help me I feel.
I am full monzo in that I have a FD account that sits empty doing nothing, whilst all my money comes in and goes out of Monzo.
However, I am occasionally tempted to go back to keeping bills etc in my FD account because I like them ring fenced and out of sight, but every time I do, my husband convinces me to wait for the next feature (bills pots, then salary sorter). Although we are getting closer to perfection, some small part of me feels like my finances would be better if Monzo allowed my husband and I to have two joint accounts between us, one for committed spend and one for disposable spend.
Also, I wouldn’t count on the government bailing anyone out right now. Thomas Cook was left to go under at the cost of thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions to the taxpayer getting everyone home.
The Plus thing(s) happened. I needed phone & travel and breakdown cover (as I finally decided I should start driving at the ripe old age of 31) for myself and my wife and Nationwide FlexPlus was too good value to pass up, even with the upcoming changes. I don’t feel like I’d be getting the same benefits for 2 people (judging from the last iteration of Plus that was scrapped) will be anywhere in the same universe as the value we get from Nationwide, especially in that it felt like a double dip to get us both covered had Plus in that iteration stuck around.
Having an account separate for all of mine and my wife’s wages and bills, means I have to check the account once a month to adjust a couple standing orders for money to our personal accounts of our choosing for spending/saving/personal bills. Other than that - out of sight, out of mind.
Joint accounts have less features than personal accounts on Monzo.
We just found that using Monzo for both personal and joint accounts in a single place didn’t really do anything for us. And counter to what we thought when we did switch to Monzo, we found we didn’t like having everything in one place.
Issues paying in cash. I never bothered trying again after the first night of running around trying to find somewhere that knew how to do it. Depositing cash should not turn in to me having to train their staff. Plus the whole charging me to do it…
I get cheques a few times a year with no way to deposit these (and I’m not going to mail it, again, at my expense).
I’m not going to beat a dead horse, but I hate the new app layout and it’s making me use the app as little as possible, I just use it now for personal bills.
Overseas withdrawal limits is low compared to other accounts I could use.
Thomas Cook was a travel / tourism company. It’s not really comparable. Big banks are systemic, if they fall over it will cause a domino effect in financial markets and potentially other bans failing. Company like Thomas Cook can be allowed to fail as it doesn’t cause systemic risk to financial system.
If it is to hold only that one account for everything, then I suspect many that are claiming to be #fullmonzo are not actually, based on that criteria. Who would genuinely place all their eggs in one basket nowadays?
Many on here may hold a Marcus savings account alongside their Monzo account. Therefore, not #fullmonzo as Monzo do not hold their savings.
ISA is likely to be held elsewhere too.
I consider Monzo to be my main account.
My main income goes in to Monzo each month, and it is the one I use on a daily basis.
Basic DDs that would not earn cashback elsewhere with one of my legacy banks are also paid from my DD pot within Monzo which is funded monthly (DD date is several days past my salary date).
It will never be my only account due to:
savings interest rates
zero DD cashback
resilience against account access issues, for whatever reason
cash and cheque deposits (this is rare issue though. I use FD for this)
I have a legacy account which I use for household bills, mainly because my mortgage is with the same bank. I like having that completely separate as well, as we put enough away each month - plus a little extra - to cover the bills and can sort of forget about it.
I use Monzo and pots for everything else: savings, personal bills (mobile, Spotify etc), budgeting and day to day spending and we recently got a joint account to help budget the groceries! I consider it to be my main account and it’s where I have a better oversight of my finances.
Personally, I’m much better at handling things with 2 separate accounts - one where I just let it work on a cycle and fund as much as it needs, “out of sight out of mind” so to speak, and then one with more customisable use-ability and visibility for the daily stuff, enter Monzo
The expense is in the form of the envelope (I know, a trivial sum, but an expense is an expense), plus I’m also not willing to trust Royal Mail on larger amounts (however unlikely it would be to get lost), so would need insurance on it or have it tracked. I’d also have to wait an extra day or two for it to arrive and be processed.
My local Natwest (of which I have an account doing nothing) is a 30 second walk from the post office. I don’t know why I’d opt to mail the cheque rather than just go up the road and deposit it there and have access to it the next day (as was the case recently).
While I absolutely agree that they need an actual method of processing cheques, I disagree with your argument as it sounds like your just going out of your way to make it sound the worst.
You need signed for delivery. It’s £1.81. You don’t need anything else.
Monzo is so crap another day to get there doesn’t matter. You don’t need tracked and you don’t need insured delivery. Cheques can be canceled and reissued.
And your right. Use NatWest. Don’t use monzo if it doesn’t fit your needs. I don’t understand why people struggle to make a bank work, just switch to a better bank for your needs and stop using monzo.
2 Likes
Anarchist
(Press ‘Help’ search ‘Contact us’ or email help@monzo.com or call 0800 802 1281)
34
I’d forgotten about the cheque thing. I don’t get many, but I appreciate the ability to pop them into an ATM.
1 Like
phildawson
(Sorry, I will have to escalate this.)
35
#fullmonzo
was originally coined to mean just having your main salary paid in (and possibly main bills taken from it), not that you’ve shut all other current accounts.
Thats the problem with such an ambiguous phrase.
Full could also mean you only use Monzo and don’t have another current account, loan, savings elsewhere.
Full could also mean just one current account held with Monzo, but you might have a loan or savings held elsewhere where the rates are far better.
It would be irresponsible imo to encourage people to put eggs in one basket, and lose benefits of better customer services, free cash deposits without limits, cheque deposits/imaging, better travel cards, balance interest, loans and savings rates just for the sake of having it under one roof or being loyal to the brand.
I don’t see a problem using Monzo for your main salary, with the paid early feature that beats others I haven’t seen that elsewhere. It does lose on not having interest paid on current balance. It does have bill pots, but loses out with DDs being paid cashback by legacy current accounts and that would naturally be separated from spending money by running multiple current accounts.
ATMs are a good alternative to branches imo. You can do so much with the advanced ones. It’s a shame there not more widely publicised as they’re useful and use up almost no space.
I did go full Monzo then found you don’t offer joint account overdrafts and have cancelled plans for cheque imaging so I had to reopen a Nationwide account recently
Also although my duplicate payment issue was resolved today it took a long time to get response from second level support to get resolved so I am nervous to go without an insurance policy in case things don’t improve
Been #fullmonzo since December everything goes in to it, wife still has a legacy account as has an overdraft on it and used it recently for a large PPI refund cheque as cleared with in 2 days.
Not fussed about the Plus option and the mess it was as for me the offering with any packaged account is pointless.
I could get peanuts of interest elsewhere but say 50p a year is no use to anyone
Never really needed to contact support so again not an issue for me granted from reading the forums support has been slow.
Reporting to only one CRA dosent make any difference to ur report that lenders see, I have got 2 credit cards in last 4 months after being discharged from bankruptcy in December 2018 and wasnt reported correctly to CRA’s until April/ May by myself
