Best App for spend analysis - Monzo or Starling?

sxgirl

Morning - recently retired, we want to open a joint account where we can categorise our spends to see how we’re doing against our budget. Our Santander 123 lite has introduced ‘Insights’ but it’s not working well at the moment. Eg it doesn’t pick up all the supermarket spends as ‘groceries’, and sometimes they are petrol etc. We want one where we can name the categories and re-designate transactions if the algorithm guesses wrong. Not sure from Monzo info if this can be done on its basic account or only if you pay £5 a month. Or whether Starling has this function?
TIA

Lightning360

Just so you know, you don't have to get Monzo or Starling for this feature. You can get a separate budgeting app and add all of your bank accounts to it (well, all of the ones that can be added to the app, which is most of them).

colsten

Agree, something like Yolt or Emma would do the job, for almost any UK bank, and most likely a better one at that. Such specialist budgeting apps have more functionality than a normal banking app, and the unbeatable advantage that you are not locked into a given bank account.

If it has to be a choice between Starling and Monzo, my preference would be Starling because I feel they are a more solid, less cultish and gizzmo-ish, company, with probably a more promising future than Monzo.

sxgirl

Thanks both, I will check out those apps. As you say, not desperate to open new accounts unnecessarily.

wiseonesomeofthetime

Between Monzo and Starling, I would go Monzo. I have both and find the Monzo analysis clearer.

Like suggested previously though, Emma or Yolt may be the better option.

Creating or renaming categories though requires Emma Pro (subscription) or Monzo Plus (subscription).

Changing category to another pre-defined one though, is covered in the free versions.

IvanOpinion

I played around with the online tool moneydashboard for a while.
It wasn't bad and at least was free to use but after a couple of months I felt it was all just a waste of time

thriftytracey

I keep a spreadsheet of non Bill spends (discretionary I guess) with categories "Food", "Pets" "Home" "Pleasure" "Personal", "Caravan" "Fuel" etc.  I then reconcile it to bank statements.  I never go overdrawn.  I'm not sure if these budgeting apps are any better really?

colsten

thriftytracey said:

I keep a spreadsheet of non Bill spends (discretionary I guess) with categories "Food", "Pets" "Home" "Pleasure" "Personal", "Caravan" "Fuel" etc.  I then reconcile it to bank statements.  I never go overdrawn.  I'm not sure if these budgeting apps are any better really?

The apps allow similar categorisation, but you don't have to enter your spend, unless you want to, as they work from your actual accounts (current accounts and/or credit cards), so the reconciliation is faster. They also 'have a memory', so automatically categorise, with an override facility. They also allow you to budget, and to reconcile your budget with your actual spend, and they provide colourful reports, and hints and tips which could be useful for novices. Some also offer adds-ons, such as energy switch deals, or gimmicky savings pots. Bottom line, they are more functionally rich than your spreadsheet if all you want to do is budgeting and analysing your ongoing spending from a small number of accounts.

Whether any of this matters to you is an entirely different question. I personally use a kind of spreadsheet approach (with AceMoney) as I want all my finances in one place, which none of the more recent apps can do. The apps are pretty much limited to accounts which they can read with the Open Banking API, and therefore many investments, pensions and savings accounts aren't covered. I also found that the apps are hopelessly lost when it comes to moving money between many accounts, which I do a lot, and many have rigid layouts that the user cannot customise. I also don't particularly care about categorisation but I know that others do. Luckily, there are plenty of choices, so everyone can find what suits their personal needs and preferences. 

RecoveringAndy

I had previously used Money Dashboard, Yolt and Emma as an aide to my budgeting. I was always disapointed with the result. The need to constantly reverify via the openbanking system grated on me and I found they didn't cope particularly well when moving money between accounts.  The banking apps that I previously used also added a barrier. The need to generate codes ect meant that logging in was a effort, albeit a small one in the grand scale of things.


Monzo has changed the way I bank and deal with my money completely. Just the act of dividing my money up on payday into pots does the job for me. Bills come straight out of that pot and nothing gets missed. I also have a bit of money in a Starling account but the lack of that feature means Monzo gets my daily banking.

Analysis is good. It's certainly the best bank I've used at recognising Merchant's and putting a legible name on the statements. I was initially very dilligent at adding notes / descriptions to transactions but I've let this slip. It broadly categorises your spending and you can manually add catergories where missed. 


You can definitely do what Monzo does with a spreadsheet or other apps but that never worked for me. I'm convinced because I no longer live in the monthly cycle of dipping into my overdraft. I'd probably say both Monzo / Starling are better for budgeting rather than analysis though. 

Downside to Monzo is that they are increasingly pushing the adverts for their premium accounts and if you want to see your other accounts in the app, it'll cost you £5/pm for Monzo Plus

PRAISETHESUN

RecoveringAndy said:

I had previously used Money Dashboard, Yolt and Emma as an aide to my budgeting. I was always disapointed with the result. The need to constantly reverify via the openbanking system grated on me and I found they didn't cope particularly well when moving money between accounts.  The banking apps that I previously used also added a barrier. The need to generate codes ect meant that logging in was a effort, albeit a small one in the grand scale of things.


Monzo has changed the way I bank and deal with my money completely. Just the act of dividing my money up on payday into pots does the job for me. Bills come straight out of that pot and nothing gets missed. I also have a bit of money in a Starling account but the lack of that feature means Monzo gets my daily banking.

Analysis is good. It's certainly the best bank I've used at recognising Merchant's and putting a legible name on the statements. I was initially very dilligent at adding notes / descriptions to transactions but I've let this slip. It broadly categorises your spending and you can manually add catergories where missed. 


You can definitely do what Monzo does with a spreadsheet or other apps but that never worked for me. I'm convinced because I no longer live in the monthly cycle of dipping into my overdraft. I'd probably say both Monzo / Starling are better for budgeting rather than analysis though. 

Downside to Monzo is that they are increasingly pushing the adverts for their premium accounts and if you want to see your other accounts in the app, it'll cost you £5/pm for Monzo Plus

The re-verification issue is down to how open banking works, not an issue with the apps themselves. It's to protect your data - you constantly have to opt in to share your data rather then having to opt out.

I use Emma (and have used Yolt in the past). I agree that they both don't cope with transfers between multiple accounts too well - I end up "excluding" those transfers from the analytics, but you have to keep manually doing it until it learns how to class these transactions. I don't use the analytics too much myself, but it's a nice feature to have. I'd probably recommend it as the preferred option over Monzo/Starling, particularly if you have multiple current accounts and don't want to lock yourself into a particular bank.

sxgirl

Had a look at the apps but in the end plumped for a joint Monzo. We do have a retirement planning spreadsheet and will record high level spend on there, including our personal accounts and pension funds, but the monzo breakdown will considerably speed up the data entry and possibility for typos! Will keep the joint Santander for DDs which are predictable and give cash back. 

Monzo spend categories don’t all match ours but we plan to adapt (if we can’t rename them) eg Personal care will be for wine, Charities will be for Pubs lol. (Charity donations will continue to come out of our personal accounts.) 
Opening the Monzo accounts was very straightforward and debit cards arrived within 24 hours (today). 

Hoping that after a year or so of ‘normal’ retirement living, whenever that is able to start, we will be reassured enough not to need to monitor quite so closely. 

Thanks again for all the advice.