Bank ac with separate pots?

[HoliHormonalTigerlilly]

I'm terrible at saving!

I have heard about a bank ac which lets you put money into different pots. Rather than having loads of bank accounts. For eg:
Holiday
Kids
Car
Spending
Etc...

Does anyone have one of these & can you recommend a good one please?

I have 10 pots with my Barclays current account.

Starling bank is brilliant for this and has recently been voted best bank or something like that.

I have loads of pots with my Monzo account. Its great because I get paid weekly different amounts each week and bills come out monthly. Before I didn't have a clue what was coming out when and was always struggling to make sure there was enough money in there for upcoming bills.

I have a pot for each bill and have put the date it comes out in the title so I can easily tell. Then when I get paid I can fill the closest pots and know the bills are covered. It has made such a difference.

Also I will come up the day before what is due to come out the next day so you can make sure there's enough money in there.

Thank you so much!

@CrimbleCrumble1 I have barclays , no idea how you do that? Would be super helpful if I could set that up

Any thoughts on the differences between Starling & Monzo? Or are they pretty much the same thing?

iwonttaketheeasyroad try online chat and ask if your account offers this option. I’ve named all my accounts, such as Christmas, holiday etc. the downside it there’s no or only a tiny bit of interest.

I have both Starling and Monzo. They both do basically the same but I far prefer Monzo.

@StarryNightSky26

I have both Starling and Monzo. They both do basically the same but I far prefer Monzo.

Ooo why do you prefer Monzo?

Can I ask a question to those who use this type of account? What happens if there isn’t enough money in an individual pot?
For exemple if you have £100 in your electricity pot but the bill is actually £120. Does it bounce? Or does it «borrow» money from another pot to ensure this bill is paid?

There's no real reason to be honest, just personal preference - I just like the way Monzo looks more and find it easier to use!

What happens if there isn’t enough money in an individual pot?For exemple if you have £100 in your electricity pot but the bill is actually £120. Does it bounce? Or does it «borrow» money from another pot to ensure this bill is paid?

With Monzo, neither of these!
So you have your pots and then your main account. If there's insufficient money in a pot to cover a DD assigned to it, the extra will come from your main account - but it won't take money from another separate pot, other pots are kept completely ringfenced. If there's not enough in your main account to cover any shortfall in a pot, a DD will bounce but there will be an option to pay it (subject to having sufficient funds) until about 2pm ish from memory.

Thank you @StarryNightSky26 , I only have a normal account and I’ve always wondered how these worked.

Interested too - do any of these banks have apps?

I don't have an account like this, but I use the same principle with a simple spreadsheet and keep track of it that way.

So for example I might have £1000 in my savings and my spreadsheet will total that amount:
Holiday £250
Christmas £300
Furniture £400
Car £50.

I total it at the bottom, and whenever I add any into savings, I make sure the pots balance. I do the same with my current account and bills, it works really well.

I use Monzo for this. You can set up as many pots as you need and it has an app.

We've recently joined Starling and use that as our spending account. My DP was very sceptical but has been totally won over by the app and how easy it is to use & how useful it is (eg classifying spend into types, showing how much you've spent that day and month). Got to say I love it. Don't know anything about the other options like Monzo.

I don't work for Starling, honest.

I just have an ordinary current account that all my money gets paid in to & a savings account that runs parallel to it. I can move money backwards & forwards whenever I want. All my DD come out of my main account & every night anything below the nearest £10 gets moved over to my savings & again this year I'm doing the Martin Lewis savings thing that starts with saving 1p & increases by 1p per day so by the end of the year you have saved £600. There is an excellent budget planner on Moneysavingexpert.com.

I use Monzo for this and it’s excellent, would definitely recommend it. The App is very good

We have about 4 regular joint accounts with Halifax and use them for different things.

@OUB1974

I don't have an account like this, but I use the same principle with a simple spreadsheet and keep track of it that way.

So for example I might have £1000 in my savings and my spreadsheet will total that amount:
Holiday £250
Christmas £300
Furniture £400
Car £50.

I total it at the bottom, and whenever I add any into savings, I make sure the pots balance. I do the same with my current account and bills, it works really well.

I do this. Works really well.

I also have Starling and Monzo - they are both good (basically the same) but I prefer the design of Monzo and enjoy using it more. They are both completely app based - you do all banking via the app. I find it a brilliant way to manage my money.

I choose Starling over Monzo as I sometimes have to pay cash in at the Post Office. Not sure what the rules are now but the charges were much cheaper with Starling.

Love the fact that I can automatically set up how much I want to transfer to my pots each month.

Another Monzo user here. Highly recommend.