Hi all, we’ve been using Monzo for a couple of years but feel we have not yet used it fully.
We used to use YNAB a few years ago and quite liked seeing exactly how much money we had planned left at the end of the month and our forecast spends by category.
Now we could do this by putting all of our money into pots, but wouldn’t this mean constantly having to move money from pots to our current account to ensure that there is enough money for the transaction to run?
Are there any blog posts or guides that show in detail how people use Monzo to budget?
I think there’s a fair few people on here who either use YNAB, have used YNAB, or tried to implement a YNAB style system in Monzo - so hope you can get a good mix of experience.
I personally found it very hard to embed a YNAB style philosophy into the constraints of the Monzo app - as you say on Pots - it can result in the constant moving of money. YNAB is “location agnostic” where as Monzo is not.
If you don’t want to use an external tool - your best approach is by doing the Pots thing as you say - but you’ll have limited categories you can use.
Some (myself included) have set up Dashboards using Google Sheets - which can give more flexibility to set up how you want - but is a lot of effort.
But honestly, I genuinely think that if the YNAB approach works for you, the best thing is to just use YNAB - and avoid the Monzo budgeting features because it confuses things.
Personally, I went back to YNAB and just decided to embrace their approach and hide away all the other features of Monzo that make it convoluted. Some pros/cons either way, but I found keeping Pots and Budgeting YNAB style isn’t compatible.
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