Monzo.. Your opinion?

Essex22011

I'm considering opening a monzo account for our' play money'.
Ie I have a nationwide account for mortgage, salaries and bills.

We have for example £800 for travel, food, going out, child classes etc.


I'm thinking of getting a monzo to transfer this at the beginning of the month and using this account monthly.
Just to track our money better, I seem to go over allocated budget every month and retransfer money from savings.

Does anyone else do the same, and how did you find monzo in general?

Ben8282

Why Monzo as opposed to any other bank for the second account?

Willing2Learn

Most people seem to use Monzo to divide their income into budget categories by using their Monzo 'pots'. This aids their budgeting and allows them to successfully gain control of their monthly finances. The feedback from MSEers is mostly positive.

Monzo definition of a 'pot':

A Pot is a space in your account where you can separate out your money from your main balance.

They are really useful if you are saving for a holiday or something special and want to stash away your money so that you don't spend it from your main balance, like a piggy bank.

You can earn interest on your Pot balance by setting up a Savings Pot.

Essex22011

Ben8282 wrote: »

Why Monzo as opposed to any other bank for the second account?

Because of the below really. They allow you to pot budgets and and categorise expenditure x

colsten

Essex22011 wrote: »

Because of the below really. They allow you to pot budgets and and categorise expenditure x

Monzo is ok but there are others that do the same and who pay you a small amount of interest. Virgin Money and Starling spring to mind.

If you use a bank's app for budgeting/potting, you are locking yourself into that bank to a considerable extent. A more flexible approach is to use a personal finance manager (MS Money, Yolt etc) which you can use with any bank, and which doesn't make bank account switching difficult.

Essex22011

Thank you I did look at yolt previously but didn't like the idea that I had to give them to access to all my accounts. Didn't seem safe x

colsten

Essex22011 wrote: »

Didn't seem safe x

What are your safety concerns, and what did the FCA, who have authorised Yolt, say when you made them aware of your concerns?

18cc

Monzo is excellent they have a large number of customers and growing I can certainly recommend it

hollie.weimeraner

Monzo is good at what it does but if you want a joint account you need to set up 2 sole accounts first and then join them together. You can't have a joint account without both parties having their own individual account. Other than that it's OK and no overseas fees I believe.

JuicyJesus

Absolutely fine for a play money account, arguably very well suited to that. We use a joint one for groceries.

Personally I wouldn't use them for a "main" bank account or something that I'd need to rely on, but plenty of people do and are quite happy.

IvanDP

I've been using Monzo as my everyday spending account, and to cycle money through to meet other account pay in requirements for a while now and have no problems at all.
I can't comment on the budgeting features, as they are not something I have any need for.

As someone who is probably a few years older than their target market, the "hot coral" (bright pink) took a bit of getting used to, and they do seem to focus more on the tech than on banking products.
But as a general spending account, it's just fine.

As previously mentioned though, Starling is an alternative, which also pays a small amount of interest.
(We also have a Starling account which is used as our travel account)