I’m trying to be money smart this year. I love budgeting, bargain hunting and reading Money Saving Expert (they have some serious advice on there! it taught me a lot of money) but even I didn’t know about Monzo Card till my girl Yass put me on! We were chatting one day and she told me about her Monzo card and how it’s helping her track her spending and after a little preview, I was sold. I have been using it for 2 weeks more or less and I have been so impressed by it that I thought I would share my thoughts on it.
It’s essentially a prepaid card but what makes this useful is the real-time updates you get on spending and how much you’ve spent in a day!. Monzo doesn’t have an official bank building, everything is controlled by their app. Monzo also groups your spending for you, so when you look at expenditure, it shows what you’ve spent where/what. The Monzo card is also genius for travel (although I have another card for that, more on that later) No fee for cash withdrawals( although that’s changing, now you can now withdraw £200 in 1 month overseas for free before getting charged. Read the update here). Another feature on there is called ‘pots’, which is basically putting money away for something. Don’t worry, Monzo has a banking license and your money is protected by FSCS. The card is contactless, can be liked to PayPal and your Apple/Android pay.
Experience
The app is simple to use and navigate. The sign-up process is what takes a while. You have to submit pictures of your ID and record a short video verifying your identity. Then you join a waitlist. When I did mine, the waitlist was around 46,000 and a 2-week wait but I think it was approved with a day or 2 and in a couple of days, my Monzo card arrived. I was so excited. I ‘topped up’ my card with my ‘spending money’ for the month and I was ready to see what nonsense I was buying lol. (Again this is changing soon, from April you have to open a current account with them, read the update here).
So here’s the interface
The app opens straight into your homepage- this is my only CON. There no PIN/passcode like some banking apps. So homepage, you have your current balance in the top left corner and the money you’ve spent that day on the opposite side. Then you have your itemised statements. Down at the bottom, you have the tabs.
In addition to the instant notifications of spending, the spending page is what impressed me the most. At the top, you have the total money spent and all the things you’ve spent on. Monzo groups these for you so you can actually track what you’ve spent the most on. So in Feb, I spent £194.30 and most of that was on shopping
Once I click Shopping, it will then take me to another page where breaks down my transactions for me.
Under the merchant tab, Monzo goes a step further and shows you how many transactions per merchant and how much spent with them.
Thoughts
It’s been a real eye-opener, getting those instant notifications is really making me not want to buy anything lol but also how quickly my spending money goes SMH. I also really like the itemised statements and how it groups everything for me. Yes, I could easily get that with Barclays and my bank statements, but grouping them together this way really shows me where I am spending the most, PLUS those notifications really get to me. LOL. Nowadays I’m really like
But then I’m like, it’s a sale though and feel judging eyes like LOL
But guys, this is a good app and great way to keep track of spending. Btw, you can ‘view pin’ on the account tab, but it will ask you to verify yourself, by pic and video! If you lose your card, you can freeze it too. I really wish they will think of setting up a passcode for logging into the app. If you’re worried about anything else, you can download an anti-virus app for mobile for an extra layer of security. But to be on the safe side, I use Monzo as a cash card so I only put spending money on there and the rest is in my main accounts.
So I hope this sheds some light on the Monzo card. If you’ve been wondering about it, it’s really helpful and if you haven’t heard of it, hopefully after this post you will consider it! Visit their website for more info obvly, Monzo, it really is banking for the future.
I will talk about another card Yass told me about called Revolut card! This card is better for travelling in my opinion. I’m still playing around with it but I should be back to tell you all about it soon!
P.S- I’m really going hardcore with my budgeting, I have an excel spreadsheet tracker. The thing is I want to be realistic, I want to spend smarter and less obviously but also want to save. Sighs, why can’t I just win the lottery and invest a lump sum and spend a few cointts and pay my tithes. Sighs
In the meantime, check out my other posts
Why I travel & budgeting tips!
xoxox
sarah fynn 