Budgeting Bank Account

steven141

I was wondering if anyone has experience of a good bank account for budgeting. I’ve heard that Starling Bank and Monzo are good for this but I’m not sure if there are any others?

I currently have the following set up:

Main account - Lloyds Bank Club Lloyds account - wages go in and my own bills get paid from this. 

Joint household bills account - Nationwide Flex Direct account

Spending account - Chase with 1% cashback

Groceries account - Bank of Scotland no benefits

Santander Edge current account - No monthly fee charged as only have it for transferring money in and out of my Edge Savings account 7% and Edge credit card 2% cashback (I put all of my spending here to earn the £15 per month then transfer from Chase or Bank of Scotland as required into my edge saver until it is due)

Royal Bank of Scotland Reward Silver account - I keep this as I’ve had it for a long time and I have 2 charity direct debits and access to the Digital Regular saver 6.17%

I also have an American Express credit card 0.5% cashback and a Royal Bank credit card which is only 12.9% APR and fee free spending abroad. I have also had this a long time. 

I have a Club Lloyds monthly saver 6.25%

It all feels a bit messy but is there any improvements that I can make to this set up or suggestions?

FlorayG

I use Monzo I think it's great because you can have as many instant access pots as you want (no interest paid on these) so every month I put aside money for car repairs, horse food, holidays etc. You can also have a 'real' savings account with interest, you need 24 hours notice to withdraw from that. You can move money about endlessly as you need to. You can 'rob Peter to pay Paul' but you clearly know what you are doing when you do that and where you are going to leave yourself short!

friolento

I would not use a bank account for my budgeting. What if they block or close your account?

There are independent budgeting apps, some of them ancient like MS Money or Acemoney but still good, and in use by many, particularly if they have multiple accounts to manage. You could search the forum for more info and suggestions

Rob5342

Monzo and Starling are great for this kind of thing, you can put money into pots for different things and have direct debits come straight out of the pots. It's much simpler than multiple accounts as you can see it all in one place and create or delete pots as often as you like.

I use Monzo but I could easily transfer over to Starling or Chase, it's not that likely that all three of them would close my account. I have a couple of accounts with old fashioned banks just as a back up.

steven141

Thanks for all of your comments. I use Snoop to see all of my accounts in one place but use a spreadsheet for my budget but just wondered if it’s worthwhile looking at another bank account. Is there anything different that Starling and Monzo do that Snoop doesn’t do? I know that some of you mentioned the savings pots. How does this work? Do you see your full balance or only what you have to spend and the rest is reserved for bills, savings etc?

Kat78MFW

I use savings pots within Chase and get 3.85% interest. I have separate named pots for holidays, dentist/opticians, kids music lessons, car costs, professional fees, home insurance, emergency fund etc. I transfer a budgeted amount to each pot on payday. It is great to see the amount in the pots growing each month and knowing that annual bills are going to be covered.