If Monarch isn't for you, try one of these apps: ruclips.net/video/-3iL8siIf-8/видео.htmlsi=po_9msjAgRZYcXn9 Try Monarch: bit.ly/4e8oFfv Monarch Money 101: www.brittanyflammer.com/courses/monarchmoney101 (use code RUclips for a huge discount).
Brittany has done an excellent job breaking Monarch down. I decided to give it a shot after viewing one of her videos. Monarch fits my needs very well and I actually like it more than Mint. However, I'm unsure if it's $100 better than Mint. Luckily, I was able to get it for 50% off but I'm not certain if I'm in for the long haul, particularly if there's another price increase. I would love to see Brittany's evaluation of the more popular Rocket Money and Copilot. Her budget app summaries have been the most useful imo.
This was incredibly helpful Brittany...thank you. I feel much more confident in using Monarch now. Spent the afternoon getting familiar with it thanks to your video!
GREAT video Brittany. I was wondering if there is a way to use Monarch but withouth syncing my bank or credit cards accounts - I am not comfortable with that...
Yes. You can create a manual account or you can upload a bank csv file of transactions. Although, if you don't want to link any bank accounts then you could use EveryDollar for free. It doesn't have as many features, but the budgeting aspect still works great.
Thank you so much for this excellent tutorial!! Can you please do a video on recurring transactions and the relationship between them and your budget setup. It seems to me that it's redundant to set up my recurring transactions and then have to do the same thing in the budget. I'm new to Monarch, though and may be missing something. Thanks!
I hope it was helpful! As for recurring transactions/budget setup.....I'm not entirely sure I understand the question. I like to setup the budget under settings when you create your budget for the 1st time...just because it's easier to edit/rename/rearrange the budget categories. Monarch will automatically note recurring transactions and you can create rules so they get categorized correctly. If that doesn't help, feel free to explain your question and I"ll try to respond.
Apologies if I missed it, but how do you see a specific point in time vs budget? For example, I want to know year to date where my largest spend vs budget variance is so I can adjust accordingly. I know there's the 3-month avg on the budget tab, but I want to be able to customize my periods/see spending trends over longer than a 90-day period.
You can look at your budget for the year. If you go to the Budget tab, on the top there is a page called 'Forecast'. This shows you your spending over each month for the year.
@@BrittanyFlammer Yes, but this just shows my spending, NOT my spend vs budget. Is there anywhere that allows you to compare your spend vs budget on anywhere other than a 1-month look? Everywhere I look shows spending, but nowhere shows spend vs budget (other than monthly, which is too short for my spend cadence)
Hi there Brittany! My question on GOALS is how do I deal with the fact when I USE the money set aside in GOALS? So for instance if I have a goal of saving 10 000 USD for a car, how do I deal with the fact when I BUY the car on a credit car for instance? The transfer FROM my GOALS account to pay off my credit card will just be logged as credit card payment, or transfer. But what should I log the the charge on the credit card as? There is no space in the budget for a new car for instance. Should I just delete it? If not I will be heavily on the negative that one month.
Goals are tricky. I've been getting a lot of questions similar to this, so I'm going to share a video soon, but don't have one yet for you to watch. So, I'm going to do my best to explain it here via text. When you make the purchase for the car, you categorize the purchase as a car expense (or whatever category you have for car stuff). You want to make sure it's categorized correctly so when you run reports or look back at the year, you know how much you've actually spent in those categories. Since you've got cash saved up for the car (good job, by the way!). It sounds like you've got a goal for a car. Your goal is probably linked to an account. For example, if you're saving up for a car then you would link the savings account where the money is for that car. Anytime you transfer money into/out of your savings account it will be marked as a transfer. You can attach the transfers for that savings account to your goal (if the account is linked). When you actually purchase the car, you'll be WAY over budget for your car category. It will be in the red/heavily negative that month. But your goal should be accurate. After using monarch with lots of different clients, most seem to find treating their goals as a sinking fund category that rolls over is easier than actually using the goal. BUT, that's a completely different approach. I'm sorry if that was confusing. I hope it was helpful.
@@BrittanyFlammer yeah it seems like it would have been easier to work with the CAR GOAL as a sinking fund instead. Do you have a workaround for the budget to seem like WAY in the red when I will make the car purchase, since I HAVE been using GOALS? I have linked the account to my goal and it's been working well.
Thanks for a great video. So, I have all my accounts added into Monarch, including PayPal and Venmo. My PayPal account is linked to my Am Ex credit card, My Venmo is linked to one of my main checking accounts. Of course, my Am Ex and Main checking account are also linked to Monarch. What is happening is that a transaction for my Am Ex and PayPal show up in Monarch and are showing in my budget each as separate transactions so in my budget it shows having spent double... does this make any sense? I am not sure how to handle that unless I just don't include my PayPal and Venmo accounts. I really want to include them. Any ideas? Thank you in advance.
Makes complete sense. I don’t include mine for this reason, but I also don’t use them that often. If you want them to be included, I’d recommend hiding the duplicate transactions. For example… You could create a rule to hide anything from your main checking account that shows up from Venmo. Then it wouldn’t count that transaction, but would still count your actual transaction from Venmo. I hope that makes sense.
It is not perfect, but there is no perfect budgeting app. I have had a lot of clients using it lately and liking it. It’s great for automation and visualizing all your spending.
Great tutorial! Did I miss it or did you not mention how to activate categories? After I deactivate them I can't find them :D Also... How do you CREATE categories? That create category button you have doesn't exist in my trial version of Monarch.
for us, spending at Costco blends shopping and groceries, sometimes bleeds into home improvement or auto.. depending on what we bought. maybe Costco becomes its own category..
That's a great way to handle Costco. I have several clients who have their own costco category in their budget. Personally, we mostly buy groceries and occasionally clothes there, so I just split the transactions when I need to. But if I was using it for all those categories that would make the most sense!
Is there a way to split up a purchase on two separate categories? So like if you bought medicine for both yourself and your dog at the pharmacy, can you split that into 2 different categories?
Yes. I don't know of a way you could automate it, but you can open up any transaction and split it into multiple categories. It's not hard - if you need an explanation on how to do it just let me know.
How do you manage split bills with roommates? I pay all the bills in full and we use Splitwise to settle up splits at end/beginning of each month, then they pay me via Venmo. I believe Monarch Money does organizes Venmo's (debit/credit) by what the description/note says, but what would be best way to make it automated so I don't need to adjust every month?
Great question. For your situation, when you pay the bill I would categorize accordingly, but then when your friends venmo you their portion, rather than counting that as income, I would categorize it in the category of the expense. Ie - if your total rent is $1000/month and your portion of it is $500/month, the full amount, it will show you paid $1000, but after categorizing your roommates venmo as rent it will show that you paid $500. I hope that makes sense. How you handle Venmo depends on whether or not you have linked your Venmo account to Monarch Money. Here's a recent video where I talk about Venmo and reimbursements: ruclips.net/video/wP08rYcJym8/видео.html
Do you have a video on when a month is not matching up and categories are overspent how you attack that? Cause it sucks if you just wanna correct the budget that particular month (cause something came up), but not future months' budgets.
Yes - that's a great question. When you create your budget it's only a plan and nothing ever goes 100% according to plan. Inevitably you overspend in some categories. In Monarch, if you overspend, you can pull money from another budget category. I don't have any videos showing you my overspending months, because I don't actually use Monarch. I have lots of clients that use it so I'm familiar with it, but can't share my personal budget b/c I don't use it - if that makes sense. I do share my personal budget each month and I do an end of month budget report. Inevitably I go over in some category each month. You can see how I handle that here if you're interested: ruclips.net/p/PLOQUSZVhabsfm01pPb0fOc0htWLkBMuYf. Basically, I like to look at the overall spending. Even if I'm over in groceries, maybe I'm under in 1 of my utilities. As long as it balances out I don't worry about it. If I'm over and it doesn't balance out, then I pull money from a savings account. I hope that makes sense.
I have 2 checking accounts that our primary paycheck go into. One account has a set amount that covers our more fixed household expenses (mortgage, utilities, etc) that are paid by check or auto draft. The balance of the paycheck is deposited into the other account and is used for cash envelopes and other debit card expenses (gas, etc). This process works well for us on paper but I'd like to find an online budgeting system to help us keep better track of our expenses. Is there a way in Monarch to have specific expenses be assigned to those specific checking accounts?
You can create customized rules. In your example, any transaction from a specific account could be categorized a certain way automatically (or you could have it automatically tagged). If you go into the rules section you can see the different options for customized/automating and that might work for you.
The annual forecast is helpful when planning for that. You could also set aside some money each month and then you can use that as your ‘income’ during the summer.
Thanks. I have a question about your latter suggestion. How would you suggest reducing the amount remaining in the summer savings category to take the place of the income.
Why do you use the budgeting structure you suggest? Fixed/ variable/ sinking / savings? I started doing it this way but I fail to see the benefit. For instance, if I want to follow up on by budget to track my progress, I can choose to track that by category or group. But knowing how the group spending went over the course of the month is not so helpful if it's categorised this way. It's better that they are grouped according to "theme" (if you will) in that case.
Good question. I use it because it's what makes sense in my head. I have a category for our savings, a category for the boring/have to pay bills, and a category for the stuff I have a lot more control over. There's no right or wrong - just what works for you. I have lots of clients who organize it similar to me and then I have several who prefer to keep it in the different 'themes' you mentioned. It doesn't matter how you organize it as long as it works for you.
Can I roll over negative amounts with the sinking funds? For example, if I budget $1200/year ($100/month) for auto expenses, then pay $300 for an auto expense in January, can I roll over -$200 to the next month? Which will then become -$100? I'm a long-time user of YNAB but I don't like that it makes assign money to every dollar that was spend each month, as I like to think of my expenses in annual terms as there is too much variance month-to-month and I'm not living paycheck to paycheck. So I'm trying to figure out if Monarch lets me do this. Thanks!
I do both grocery shopping and get my pharmacy meds and walmart pharmacy. On my credit card statement the transactions end up in two different categories, such as "Healthcare/Medical" and/or "Groceries" Is there a way to see that in Monarch?
I know exactly what you mean....in my experience they will come in as the same category even if they show up differently on your cc. That's just what I've seen, but I'm not sure about every specific situation. You could create rules to prevent this. For example, if you are getting a prescription every month for a specific amount you could create a rule that any transaction from that store for that amount is under health/medical. You could also message Monarch Money to ask about your specific store. To do this
@BrittanyFlammer thank you I'll try that. I have too many prescriptions unfortunately and sometimes they end up being refilled at the same time, so I'll most likely talk to customer support. Thank you once again 😊
I've come to realise something about what us good about using GOALS instead of using a sinking fund. When you go over the dashboard to see your overview you might have spent your entire months' budget, but if there's something in any of your sinking fund (let's say you have 10 000 USD for a car) it looks like you still have 10 000 USD left on the budget, which might be the plan of the feature, but to me it would be better to keep your goals and such away from your progress of the monthly budget. Too bad...
I am thoroughly confused by this tool I have used it for about six months. you show courses on your website but no prices , they just say sign me up. I can't do that not knowing the cost.
I'm sorry you're confused with Monarch. If that's the case, then I would say choose a different budgeting app. EveryDollar is probably the simplest/easiest to get started with. As for my website...if you click the sign me up button it takes you to more info. For my financial fitness course it has you fill out your name/email to join the waitlist for when I sell it again next month. My 1:1 coaching takes you to my calendar to schedule a coaching call and it has the price listed for 1 coaching call. I hope that helps.
I created a category named "Savings Categories" but am unable to move "Travel & Vacation" into this new category. It won't let me even after several attempts. What am I doing wrong? Thank you. I appreciate all your advice.
It's so frustrating when things don't work how they're supposed to. Are you wanting a savings group and to move the travel & vacation category under the savings group? Or are you wanting to create a savings category and transfer all transactions from travel & vacation to your savings category? These are totally different, so I want to make sure I understand what you're trying to do. IF you want to create a savings group: Make sure you go to settings
A sinking account (or sinking fund) is simply a way of saving up money for a future purchase. I use these a lot for non monthly purchases. For example, my husband's life insurance we only pay once per year. It's $800 for the year. Rather than waiting until it's due, we create a fund for it and set money aside every month so that when it's due, we've got the $800. Common examples most people use are: vacations, holidays, car maintenance, house maintenance.
I like Monarch and just paid for a year. Only big problem I have is 15% of my salary goes to buy company stock, then those are sold every two weeks. So there are like at least 4 transactions that shows up for this.
That is kind of annoying. Their investments is in beta, so hopefully soon they'll be able to import investment transactions and you can link that to a goal.
@@BrittanyFlammer yeah, it gets even more confusing as I also divert some of that same back to checking account, but some to my Roth IRA. First month in Monarch my income was HUGE until I got most of it figured out ;)
@anderspedersen6750 I can definitely see how that would complicate things. I have had several clients come to me wondering why their savings was so high in the app at the beginning….once everything gets organized it’s much more accurate
How do you recommend that I use "GOALS"? Should they be entirely separate or can they connect to the other budget categories that are grouped? For instance.. you had a lot of categories as sinking funds grouped. Could you make it a "GOAL" that these sinking funds could reach a certain value? Or will that lead to "double budgeting" in the app" Also.. what if I have a rollover account (category)... I want to save for a new dishwasher for instance (50 USD a month). If I have an actual bank account that I need to tranfer that to, how do I do that for it to reflect in the budget? If I log it for the category of dishwasher then I will have 100 USD to rollover instead of just 50 USD. That's not very logical?? How should I do this?
I'm so sorry - this comment got hidden and I didn't see it. It's probably too late to be helpful to you at this point, but I'm going to answer because a lot of people have questions about goals/sinking funds. Based on your question, you wouldn't want a sinking fund and a goal because that would count it double, like you mention. Just choose one. Here's a brief overview of how to handle: 1. Sinking Funds. Let's say I have a vacation sinking fund. I have $100 each month transferred from my checking account to a savings account for vacation. I could include this as a regular monthly budget item and turn the rollover feature on. That transaction would show up as a transfer (because I'm transferring from one account to another). This means it would show $100 in the budget amount, but $0 in the actual column. Until I spend money on the vacation, then it would show up in the actual column. Transfers will not show up in the cash flow. Nothing will show up in the cash flow until you actually spend money. 2. Goals You could create a vacation goal. If you set a goal for your vacation, it has to be linked to an account. Using the same example as above, I'm going to budget $100 towards my goal each month. My transfer from checking to savings will still be labeled as a transfer. Because it's a goal, you can link the transfer to your goal for the account you're linked. So, for the transfer into your savings account (if you have your savings account linked to your goal) it can be linked. This means in your monthly budget, your budgeted amount will be $100 and your actual amount will show up as $100. You can use either, just not both. Goals tend to be a little tricker, so most clients prefer to use sinking funds, but using the goal feature is a little more accurate. My video on goals only shows an example of paying of a credit card. Here's a video from another channel that does a great job explaining the goals in more depth: ruclips.net/video/ex7pDDbWcLM/видео.htmlsi=hU7B4P5o4LaG7A3n
@@BrittanyFlammer Hi! Yeah.. I have been... I'm using both Goals as well as sinking funds. The Goals feature I'm connecting to an external savings account where I'm transferring money to (saving up for a car), but Monarch has had issues syncing with that account unfortunately. But it is working with some lag sometimes. The sinking funds are some of them not connected to another physical account and some of them ARE connected to another account (such as Emergency fund and/or vacation account) I saw what you recommended previously on instead of logging certain transactions under vacation account, one should keep them as restaurant/clothes/gas or whatever, but just move some of the budget of the vacation fund to that particular category for that particular month. But then we'll have the problem of when I end up on negative on the vacation budget? Since it's a sinking fund I could have much more money on the category than what is budgeted that particular month. How do you deal with that?
If Monarch isn't for you, try one of these apps: ruclips.net/video/-3iL8siIf-8/видео.htmlsi=po_9msjAgRZYcXn9
Try Monarch: bit.ly/4e8oFfv
Monarch Money 101: www.brittanyflammer.com/courses/monarchmoney101 (use code RUclips for a huge discount).
Brittany has done an excellent job breaking Monarch down. I decided to give it a shot after viewing one of her videos. Monarch fits my needs very well and I actually like it more than Mint. However, I'm unsure if it's $100 better than Mint. Luckily, I was able to get it for 50% off but I'm not certain if I'm in for the long haul, particularly if there's another price increase. I would love to see Brittany's evaluation of the more popular Rocket Money and Copilot. Her budget app summaries have been the most useful imo.
You did a great job on this video. I was about to give up on this app until I watched this video.
I'm so glad it was helpful!
This was incredibly helpful Brittany...thank you. I feel much more confident in using Monarch now. Spent the afternoon getting familiar with it thanks to your video!
I’m so glad! I hope you get the hand of it and learn to like it!
GREAT video Brittany. I was wondering if there is a way to use Monarch but withouth syncing my bank or credit cards accounts - I am not comfortable with that...
Yes. You can create a manual account or you can upload a bank csv file of transactions.
Although, if you don't want to link any bank accounts then you could use EveryDollar for free. It doesn't have as many features, but the budgeting aspect still works great.
Thank you so much for this excellent tutorial!! Can you please do a video on recurring transactions and the relationship between them and your budget setup. It seems to me that it's redundant to set up my recurring transactions and then have to do the same thing in the budget. I'm new to Monarch, though and may be missing something. Thanks!
I hope it was helpful!
As for recurring transactions/budget setup.....I'm not entirely sure I understand the question. I like to setup the budget under settings when you create your budget for the 1st time...just because it's easier to edit/rename/rearrange the budget categories.
Monarch will automatically note recurring transactions and you can create rules so they get categorized correctly.
If that doesn't help, feel free to explain your question and I"ll try to respond.
Apologies if I missed it, but how do you see a specific point in time vs budget? For example, I want to know year to date where my largest spend vs budget variance is so I can adjust accordingly. I know there's the 3-month avg on the budget tab, but I want to be able to customize my periods/see spending trends over longer than a 90-day period.
You can look at your budget for the year. If you go to the Budget tab, on the top there is a page called 'Forecast'. This shows you your spending over each month for the year.
@@BrittanyFlammer Yes, but this just shows my spending, NOT my spend vs budget. Is there anywhere that allows you to compare your spend vs budget on anywhere other than a 1-month look? Everywhere I look shows spending, but nowhere shows spend vs budget (other than monthly, which is too short for my spend cadence)
Hi there Brittany!
My question on GOALS is how do I deal with the fact when I USE the money set aside in GOALS? So for instance if I have a goal of saving 10 000 USD for a car, how do I deal with the fact when I BUY the car on a credit car for instance? The transfer FROM my GOALS account to pay off my credit card will just be logged as credit card payment, or transfer. But what should I log the the charge on the credit card as? There is no space in the budget for a new car for instance. Should I just delete it? If not I will be heavily on the negative that one month.
Goals are tricky. I've been getting a lot of questions similar to this, so I'm going to share a video soon, but don't have one yet for you to watch. So, I'm going to do my best to explain it here via text.
When you make the purchase for the car, you categorize the purchase as a car expense (or whatever category you have for car stuff). You want to make sure it's categorized correctly so when you run reports or look back at the year, you know how much you've actually spent in those categories. Since you've got cash saved up for the car (good job, by the way!). It sounds like you've got a goal for a car. Your goal is probably linked to an account. For example, if you're saving up for a car then you would link the savings account where the money is for that car. Anytime you transfer money into/out of your savings account it will be marked as a transfer. You can attach the transfers for that savings account to your goal (if the account is linked).
When you actually purchase the car, you'll be WAY over budget for your car category. It will be in the red/heavily negative that month. But your goal should be accurate.
After using monarch with lots of different clients, most seem to find treating their goals as a sinking fund category that rolls over is easier than actually using the goal. BUT, that's a completely different approach.
I'm sorry if that was confusing. I hope it was helpful.
@@BrittanyFlammer yeah it seems like it would have been easier to work with the CAR GOAL as a sinking fund instead.
Do you have a workaround for the budget to seem like WAY in the red when I will make the car purchase, since I HAVE been using GOALS?
I have linked the account to my goal and it's been working well.
I recently did a video on goals. Here is a link to it in case it's helpful: ruclips.net/video/DgulifbLgYI/видео.htmlsi=d0J5sejUAo_dCHZ9
Thanks for a great video. So, I have all my accounts added into Monarch, including PayPal and Venmo. My PayPal account is linked to my Am Ex credit card, My Venmo is linked to one of my main checking accounts. Of course, my Am Ex and Main checking account are also linked to Monarch. What is happening is that a transaction for my Am Ex and PayPal show up in Monarch and are showing in my budget each as separate transactions so in my budget it shows having spent double... does this make any sense? I am not sure how to handle that unless I just don't include my PayPal and Venmo accounts. I really want to include them. Any ideas? Thank you in advance.
Makes complete sense. I don’t include mine for this reason, but I also don’t use them that often.
If you want them to be included, I’d recommend hiding the duplicate transactions. For example… You could create a rule to hide anything from your main checking account that shows up from Venmo. Then it wouldn’t count that transaction, but would still count your actual transaction from Venmo.
I hope that makes sense.
Looks like monarch money is really good.
It is not perfect, but there is no perfect budgeting app. I have had a lot of clients using it lately and liking it. It’s great for automation and visualizing all your spending.
Great tutorial!
Did I miss it or did you not mention how to activate categories? After I deactivate them I can't find them :D
Also... How do you CREATE categories? That create category button you have doesn't exist in my trial version of Monarch.
Just found how to create categories. I was in the wrong view in order to do it. But I still can't find where the deactivated categories go.
Deactivated categories will stay in the group they are in, just grayed out. To reactivate them, go to settings
@@BrittanyFlammer thanks
I found it! 👏👏
for us, spending at Costco blends shopping and groceries, sometimes bleeds into home improvement or auto.. depending on what we bought. maybe Costco becomes its own category..
That's a great way to handle Costco. I have several clients who have their own costco category in their budget. Personally, we mostly buy groceries and occasionally clothes there, so I just split the transactions when I need to. But if I was using it for all those categories that would make the most sense!
Is there a way to split up a purchase on two separate categories? So like if you bought medicine for both yourself and your dog at the pharmacy, can you split that into 2 different categories?
Yes. I don't know of a way you could automate it, but you can open up any transaction and split it into multiple categories. It's not hard - if you need an explanation on how to do it just let me know.
@BrittanyFlammer got it
I found out
Just that when the transactions were still pending I couldn't do it.
Thanks!
How do you manage split bills with roommates? I pay all the bills in full and we use Splitwise to settle up splits at end/beginning of each month, then they pay me via Venmo. I believe Monarch Money does organizes Venmo's (debit/credit) by what the description/note says, but what would be best way to make it automated so I don't need to adjust every month?
Great question. For your situation, when you pay the bill I would categorize accordingly, but then when your friends venmo you their portion, rather than counting that as income, I would categorize it in the category of the expense. Ie - if your total rent is $1000/month and your portion of it is $500/month, the full amount, it will show you paid $1000, but after categorizing your roommates venmo as rent it will show that you paid $500. I hope that makes sense.
How you handle Venmo depends on whether or not you have linked your Venmo account to Monarch Money. Here's a recent video where I talk about Venmo and reimbursements: ruclips.net/video/wP08rYcJym8/видео.html
Do you have a video on when a month is not matching up and categories are overspent how you attack that? Cause it sucks if you just wanna correct the budget that particular month (cause something came up), but not future months' budgets.
Yes - that's a great question. When you create your budget it's only a plan and nothing ever goes 100% according to plan. Inevitably you overspend in some categories.
In Monarch, if you overspend, you can pull money from another budget category. I don't have any videos showing you my overspending months, because I don't actually use Monarch. I have lots of clients that use it so I'm familiar with it, but can't share my personal budget b/c I don't use it - if that makes sense.
I do share my personal budget each month and I do an end of month budget report. Inevitably I go over in some category each month. You can see how I handle that here if you're interested: ruclips.net/p/PLOQUSZVhabsfm01pPb0fOc0htWLkBMuYf.
Basically, I like to look at the overall spending. Even if I'm over in groceries, maybe I'm under in 1 of my utilities. As long as it balances out I don't worry about it. If I'm over and it doesn't balance out, then I pull money from a savings account.
I hope that makes sense.
I have 2 checking accounts that our primary paycheck go into. One account has a set amount that covers our more fixed household expenses (mortgage, utilities, etc) that are paid by check or auto draft. The balance of the paycheck is deposited into the other account and is used for cash envelopes and other debit card expenses (gas, etc). This process works well for us on paper but I'd like to find an online budgeting system to help us keep better track of our expenses. Is there a way in Monarch to have specific expenses be assigned to those specific checking accounts?
You can create customized rules. In your example, any transaction from a specific account could be categorized a certain way automatically (or you could have it automatically tagged). If you go into the rules section you can see the different options for customized/automating and that might work for you.
Hi, Brittany. How would a school teacher with ten-month income best use Monarch to track the money they 😮😮save for July and August?
The annual forecast is helpful when planning for that.
You could also set aside some money each month and then you can use that as your ‘income’ during the summer.
Thanks. I have a question about your latter suggestion. How would you suggest reducing the amount remaining in the summer savings category to take the place of the income.
Why do you use the budgeting structure you suggest? Fixed/ variable/ sinking / savings? I started doing it this way but I fail to see the benefit.
For instance, if I want to follow up on by budget to track my progress, I can choose to track that by category or group. But knowing how the group spending went over the course of the month is not so helpful if it's categorised this way. It's better that they are grouped according to "theme" (if you will) in that case.
Good question. I use it because it's what makes sense in my head. I have a category for our savings, a category for the boring/have to pay bills, and a category for the stuff I have a lot more control over. There's no right or wrong - just what works for you. I have lots of clients who organize it similar to me and then I have several who prefer to keep it in the different 'themes' you mentioned. It doesn't matter how you organize it as long as it works for you.
Can I roll over negative amounts with the sinking funds? For example, if I budget $1200/year ($100/month) for auto expenses, then pay $300 for an auto expense in January, can I roll over -$200 to the next month? Which will then become -$100?
I'm a long-time user of YNAB but I don't like that it makes assign money to every dollar that was spend each month, as I like to think of my expenses in annual terms as there is too much variance month-to-month and I'm not living paycheck to paycheck. So I'm trying to figure out if Monarch lets me do this. Thanks!
Yes - you can roll over negative amounts. It will work just like you described.
I hope that helps. Good luck with it!
I do both grocery shopping and get my pharmacy meds and walmart pharmacy. On my credit card statement the transactions end up in two different categories, such as "Healthcare/Medical" and/or "Groceries"
Is there a way to see that in Monarch?
I know exactly what you mean....in my experience they will come in as the same category even if they show up differently on your cc. That's just what I've seen, but I'm not sure about every specific situation.
You could create rules to prevent this. For example, if you are getting a prescription every month for a specific amount you could create a rule that any transaction from that store for that amount is under health/medical.
You could also message Monarch Money to ask about your specific store. To do this
@BrittanyFlammer thank you
I'll try that. I have too many prescriptions unfortunately and sometimes they end up being refilled at the same time, so I'll most likely talk to customer support. Thank you once again 😊
I've come to realise something about what us good about using GOALS instead of using a sinking fund. When you go over the dashboard to see your overview you might have spent your entire months' budget, but if there's something in any of your sinking fund (let's say you have 10 000 USD for a car) it looks like you still have 10 000 USD left on the budget, which might be the plan of the feature, but to me it would be better to keep your goals and such away from your progress of the monthly budget.
Too bad...
Yes - I totally agree!
I am thoroughly confused by this tool I have used it for about six months. you show courses on your website but no prices , they just say sign me up. I can't do that not knowing the cost.
I'm sorry you're confused with Monarch. If that's the case, then I would say choose a different budgeting app. EveryDollar is probably the simplest/easiest to get started with.
As for my website...if you click the sign me up button it takes you to more info. For my financial fitness course it has you fill out your name/email to join the waitlist for when I sell it again next month. My 1:1 coaching takes you to my calendar to schedule a coaching call and it has the price listed for 1 coaching call. I hope that helps.
I created a category named "Savings Categories" but am unable to move "Travel & Vacation" into this new category. It won't let me even after several attempts. What am I doing wrong? Thank you. I appreciate all your advice.
It's so frustrating when things don't work how they're supposed to.
Are you wanting a savings group and to move the travel & vacation category under the savings group? Or are you wanting to create a savings category and transfer all transactions from travel & vacation to your savings category?
These are totally different, so I want to make sure I understand what you're trying to do.
IF you want to create a savings group: Make sure you go to settings
What’s a sinking account?
A sinking account (or sinking fund) is simply a way of saving up money for a future purchase.
I use these a lot for non monthly purchases.
For example, my husband's life insurance we only pay once per year. It's $800 for the year. Rather than waiting until it's due, we create a fund for it and set money aside every month so that when it's due, we've got the $800.
Common examples most people use are: vacations, holidays, car maintenance, house maintenance.
@@BrittanyFlammer thank you! Ok, I will need to do this for taxes too…..
That's a perfect one to plan for.
I like Monarch and just paid for a year. Only big problem I have is 15% of my salary goes to buy company stock, then those are sold every two weeks. So there are like at least 4 transactions that shows up for this.
That is kind of annoying. Their investments is in beta, so hopefully soon they'll be able to import investment transactions and you can link that to a goal.
@@BrittanyFlammer yeah, it gets even more confusing as I also divert some of that same back to checking account, but some to my Roth IRA. First month in Monarch my income was HUGE until I got most of it figured out ;)
@anderspedersen6750 I can definitely see how that would complicate things. I have had several clients come to me wondering why their savings was so high in the app at the beginning….once everything gets organized it’s much more accurate
How do you recommend that I use "GOALS"? Should they be entirely separate or can they connect to the other budget categories that are grouped? For instance.. you had a lot of categories as sinking funds grouped. Could you make it a "GOAL" that these sinking funds could reach a certain value? Or will that lead to "double budgeting" in the app"
Also.. what if I have a rollover account (category)... I want to save for a new dishwasher for instance (50 USD a month). If I have an actual bank account that I need to tranfer that to, how do I do that for it to reflect in the budget? If I log it for the category of dishwasher then I will have 100 USD to rollover instead of just 50 USD. That's not very logical??
How should I do this?
I'm so sorry - this comment got hidden and I didn't see it. It's probably too late to be helpful to you at this point, but I'm going to answer because a lot of people have questions about goals/sinking funds. Based on your question, you wouldn't want a sinking fund and a goal because that would count it double, like you mention. Just choose one. Here's a brief overview of how to handle:
1. Sinking Funds.
Let's say I have a vacation sinking fund. I have $100 each month transferred from my checking account to a savings account for vacation. I could include this as a regular monthly budget item and turn the rollover feature on. That transaction would show up as a transfer (because I'm transferring from one account to another). This means it would show $100 in the budget amount, but $0 in the actual column. Until I spend money on the vacation, then it would show up in the actual column. Transfers will not show up in the cash flow. Nothing will show up in the cash flow until you actually spend money.
2. Goals
You could create a vacation goal. If you set a goal for your vacation, it has to be linked to an account. Using the same example as above, I'm going to budget $100 towards my goal each month. My transfer from checking to savings will still be labeled as a transfer. Because it's a goal, you can link the transfer to your goal for the account you're linked. So, for the transfer into your savings account (if you have your savings account linked to your goal) it can be linked. This means in your monthly budget, your budgeted amount will be $100 and your actual amount will show up as $100.
You can use either, just not both. Goals tend to be a little tricker, so most clients prefer to use sinking funds, but using the goal feature is a little more accurate.
My video on goals only shows an example of paying of a credit card. Here's a video from another channel that does a great job explaining the goals in more depth: ruclips.net/video/ex7pDDbWcLM/видео.htmlsi=hU7B4P5o4LaG7A3n
@@BrittanyFlammer Thanks! Better late than never :)
@@joseffoureauxdaelander774 :D. Just curious, have you been using the goals feature?
@@BrittanyFlammer Hi!
Yeah.. I have been... I'm using both Goals as well as sinking funds. The Goals feature I'm connecting to an external savings account where I'm transferring money to (saving up for a car), but Monarch has had issues syncing with that account unfortunately. But it is working with some lag sometimes.
The sinking funds are some of them not connected to another physical account and some of them ARE connected to another account (such as Emergency fund and/or vacation account)
I saw what you recommended previously on instead of logging certain transactions under vacation account, one should keep them as restaurant/clothes/gas or whatever, but just move some of the budget of the vacation fund to that particular category for that particular month. But then we'll have the problem of when I end up on negative on the vacation budget? Since it's a sinking fund I could have much more money on the category than what is budgeted that particular month. How do you deal with that?