Budgeting with YNAB or Monzo

ccdorset

Hi,
I'm looking at ways of improving my budgeting and have watched quite a few videos about You Need a Budget. Just wondering if anyone has experience of this or another solution such as Money Dashboard?
I'm considering going down this route though it comes with a fee, or opening an account with Monzo and utilising the spending monitoring features on their app instead.
Not sure what would be best!
Thanks :-)

DCFC79

ccdorset said:

Hi,
I'm looking at ways of improving my budgeting and have watched quite a few videos about You Need a Budget. Just wondering if anyone has experience of this or another solution such as Money Dashboard?
I'm considering going down this route though it comes with a fee, or opening an account with Monzo and utilising the spending monitoring features on their app instead.
Not sure what would be best!
Thanks :-)

Why not give Monzo a try, ot is free afterall.

wiseonesomeofthetime

Basic EMMA is free too, as is Yolt.

ccdorset

Thank you both, I haven't looked at Emma or Yolt before, so will do a bit of research.

I do like the thought of Monzo as it would be more automated than having to use something like YNAB. I guess I just need to weigh up how much money I would lose in putting everything on my debit card instead of through my cashback credit card.

couth

I haven't tried Monzo - as it's a bank account, not a money management app - but I did test Emma, Yolt, and Money Dashboard and was not sold. I trialled YNAB for 3+ months (they extended my free trial) and liked their approach - spend only what you have and budget ahead for everything. I believe their web tool and app are great. 

It really depends what you are looking for and how much you want to pay... I do think YNAB is great for budgeting, but I am not happy to pay the YNAB subscription plus the extra £4 monthly fee for Sync for YNAB to import transactions from UK banks. I am not disciplined enough to enter manually all transactions either. For now I use Excel for budgeting bills from one month to to the next and I don't track spending in detail, although I probably should. 

YNAB works with USA/Canada banks for automatic imports, but not with UK banks and that's a shame (and missed opportunity) especially considering open banking. If YNAB expands into the UK market, then I will very likely pay for their annual subscription.

ccdorset

couth said:

I haven't tried Monzo - as it's a bank account, not a money management app - but I did test Emma, Yolt, and Money Dashboard and was not sold. I trialled YNAB for 3+ months (they extended my free trial) and liked their approach - spend only what you have and budget ahead for everything. I believe their web tool and app are great. 

It really depends what you are looking for and how much you want to pay... I do think YNAB is great for budgeting, but I am not happy to pay the YNAB subscription plus the extra £4 monthly fee for Sync for YNAB to import transactions from UK banks. I am not disciplined enough to enter manually all transactions either. For now I use Excel for budgeting bills from one month to to the next and I don't track spending in detail, although I probably should. 

YNAB works with USA/Canada banks for automatic imports, but not with UK banks and that's a shame (and missed opportunity) especially considering open banking. If YNAB expands into the UK market, then I will very likely pay for their annual subscription.

Thanks for all the info! I really like the YNAB approach too and I like that they have a lot of instructional videos as well on YouTube and their website, it kinda feels like a little community!

The fee does bother me a bit, though I wouldn't pay the extra for the Sync for YNAB. I will probably give it a go just adding the transactions manually for now.

I contacted YNAB support a few days ago about the automatic imports for UK banks and they said it was something they would love to do someday. Apparently they've brought on Plaid as an import partner and mentioned Open Banking in the UK. Though of course that could just be sales speak I guess!

Drawingaline

I use ynab and love it. I input everything manually and have no problem doing so. Took me a while to sort how credit cards work, but once you watch a few videos it's easy. I also track my mortgage which gives me a figure in my face which I want to reduce. 

I have friends who love Monzo and I see the appeal, my 16yr old has an account and is using it to save for some things. She had a budget on my ynab account but didn't like it, especially as she has no outgoings yet. 

ccdorset

Drawingaline said:

I use ynab and love it. I input everything manually and have no problem doing so. Took me a while to sort how credit cards work, but once you watch a few videos it's easy. I also track my mortgage which gives me a figure in my face which I want to reduce. 

I have friends who love Monzo and I see the appeal, my 16yr old has an account and is using it to save for some things. She had a budget on my ynab account but didn't like it, especially as she has no outgoings yet. 

Thanks for your reply!

I think I would be happy inputting everything manually as well, I guess it only takes a few minutes a day. I'm signing up now for the free trial to give it a go. Thought I would try it first before looking at Monzo, as putting all my spending through that account would lose me the benefits of using my AMEX card. Though I have to say Monzo still looks very appealing!

medias

The Monzo free current account works with "pots", but doesn't support custom spending categories, and you can't see accounts from other banks in there  - you need Monzo plus for that, for £5/month... so you have to think whether that's something you need when budgeting. 

ccdorset

medias said:

The Monzo free current account works with "pots", but doesn't support custom spending categories, and you can't see accounts from other banks in there  - you need Monzo plus for that, for £5/month... so you have to think whether that's something you need when budgeting. 

Ah I didn't realise the custom spending categories would only be available with Monzo Plus, I think I would need that so will need to take the £5 fee into account.

Does Monzo Plus categorise spending from linked accounts with other banks? Or does it just provide visibility of the accounts and transactions?

Thanks :-)

Jlawson118

I signed up for Monzo on the off chance back in August 2019 and I have to say it helped me budget a lot! I was struggling to budget a lot after getting my mortgage at the back end of 2018 and was juggling that and bills for the first time, and being weekly paid made it difficult for me to manage too. 
Monzo's features helped me with this. It allowed me to see what was coming in, what was going out. The main feature which helped me was the ability to open 'pots' and even set certain direct debits to come out of pots. My main bills are around £180 a month, so being paid weekly it allows for me to transfer £45 via standing order into my bills pot each week, and then the remainder can go towards other things. When my payments come out, these come out of that bills pot