Budgeting inside of the bunq app

Roel-Turquoise-Panda

Matthew Just adding my 2cents: I budgeted for years in standalone software (YNAB classic and the online version to be specific). I recently moved to budgeting with the 25 accounts offered by bunq premium and never want to look back.

Having separate accounts all carrying a monthly spending balance (and being able to transfer balance between accounts instantaneous) works very good for me (I’m less interested in labeling all transactions themselves more in spending a set budget and reaching a saving goal).

Being able to switch which account a card is linked to from within the app makes paying from specific accounts super convenient. There is one minor gripe with recurring payment and the MasterCard as you can only have it linked to one account and not route different recurring payments to different accounts (although I believe bunq is working to bring this function back).

So all in all, I understand your feature request for budgeting functionality. But I personally have the feeling that 95% of the budgeting needs can be done with the current functionality.

Roeshimi

Roel I was thinking about replacing YNAB with bunq too, but I do have some pain points I need to solve. Maybe you have a hint for me:
1. How do you track/handle cash spending? Here in Germany, there are still way too many places where you need cash. Of course I could take just the amount I need from the ATM, but that is very inflexible.
2. How do you handle upcoming/uncleared transactions? I find it very convenient to see transactions coming up in YNAB and budget accordingly. I have not found a way to replicate that in bunq. Of course I could schedule recurring transactions, but I also buy stuff and have to pay via invoice. In YNAB I can enter a transaction and pay when the package arrives, but that's not possible in bunq.
3. As long as the MasterCard re-routing or an equivalent technology is back, I can't really switch to bunq because I would have to either switch cards before every purchase or move money around after I have made a purchase.

Of course, I may be overthinking stuff, so I'm really interested in your input.

Heda

Roeshimi I’ve been a ynab user for a very long time too. Then i switched to bunq and there really is no need for ynab anymore. You can budget with bunq just perfectly. I created a spreadsheet for numbers on my MacBook that does exactly the same as ynab. Of course it doesn’t look as fancy but still it’s a nice addition to bunq. The only draw back with my sheet is that you need to take your balance at the end of the month manually into the new month.

This is just an example I did for a friend of mine. The sheet can be modified very easy.

Roel-Turquoise-Panda

Roeshimi Hi Michael, great questions regarding the pain points. I personally have found (or adapted) a workaround for most of the points.
I will give a brief summary of your points but feel free to reach out if you have more specific questions!

1. How do you track/handle cash spending? Here in Germany, there are still way too many places where you need cash. Of course, I could take just the amount I need from the ATM, but that is very inflexible.

I do 99% of spending digital (benefit of living in The Netherlands as you can pay almost everywhere by card). I have, however, a separate account for spending money without a specific purpose. I use this account to withdraw cash if necessary. If I need to pay a larger sum of money I withdraw this amount also from this "cash/fun money account" but send a request to the budget account where the money should have been originated to keep track and make sure to keep budgets and spending in check.

2. How do you handle upcoming/uncleared transactions? I find it very convenient to see transactions coming up in YNAB and budget accordingly. I have not found a way to replicate that in bunq. Of course, I could schedule recurring transactions, but I also buy stuff and have to pay via invoice. In YNAB I can enter a transaction and pay when the package arrives, but that's not possible in bunq.

This cannot be replicated with bunq and at first, I missed having this kind an overview. I have however moved to a different system where I just fill each "budget category" (separate account) with what I expect is necessary to cover a regular month. Any unexpected stuff is covered by balancing the total monthly account balance (and I have a "Stuff I forgot to budget for"-account as a backup).

This, of course, does not cover one-off infrequent invoices but for this l use two separate accounts. First one for (regular Visa) credit card and I also have a second account where I reserve invoices. For credit card purchases and invoices due in the future* I "reserve" the money by transferring it from the proper budget account.

3. As long as the MasterCard re-routing or equivalent technology is back, I can't really switch to bunq because I would have to either switch cards before every purchase or move money around after I have made a purchase.

This is where using bunq for budgeting is a bit inconvenient. As a workaround, I have one account for recurring expenses (automatic transfers and invoices) and leave one MasterCard permanently linked to this account (basically rendering it quite useless for anything else). Sometimes this MasterCard is charged for something else and I just make sure the balance is restored by sending a request to the proper account.

I would like to order a second MasterCard to improve this workaround (as I have noticed that I only use one Maestro and just switch accounts via the bunq app if necessary). With two MasterCards I would use one for spending and one for recurring expenses, which would be good enough for me.

Although being able to re-route MasterCard payments to specific accounts is very, very welcome!

* If payment is way in the future I just reserve the money on a savings account separate from bunq.

Hope this gives an overview of my system and will be of any help!

Roel-Turquoise-Panda

Roeshimi One additional personal remark: using bunq for budgeting vs YNAB has made a huge difference in how I manage my money and spending. I feel that I have even better control on my budget vs YNAB (as any payment is directly reflected in bunq). So for me, it was and still is, worth moving over from YNAB and any minor remaining inconveniences.

P.S. not having to pay YNAB's fee almost covers the the cost of a bunq Premium account ;-)

Roeshimi

Heda Thank you for that. How does that reflect in bunq? Did you create accounts for the blue, "major" categories?

Roeshimi

Roel Thank you very much Roel, this really does help a lot. Especially the cash tracking workaround is pretty neat and is something I can imagine to adapt. Sadly I can only give you one high-five for your post :)

Heda

Roeshimi Yes in this case my friend created for the blue categories a seperate bunq account. I personally use for almost every catgory a bunq account. Like one for each of those things: food, Heath & cosmetics, my personal budget, gasoline, eating out, vacation, etc. you get the idea.

I handle it like I did in ynab. In ynab you create a „goal“ for each individual payment you have to make or budget you need. I handle it the same way in bunq. When my salary comes I fill up my accounts with a certain budget and then later on I can move money around. I always only pay with one card. Two accounts connected to this one card. One for food and another one for personal stuff. If I pay for gas for example i pay with my personal account and then later move the money from gas to personal. This way you do not need to play around with lots of cards. Of course it is a little bit of work to keep everything right and in order but that’s where the spreadsheet comes in handy.

Roeshimi

Heda Thank you explaining in such detail. :) I have to say I never used saving goals in YNAB that much, I just budgeted my income and that's it. I would think this is even easier in bunq with saving accounts and the auto-save feature.

I will take those hints into account and see if I can come up with a budget strategy that fits my needs :)

Heda

Roeshimi Good luck. 😊

Roeshimi

Heda Thank you

Roeshimi

Roel

Roel P.S. not having to pay YNAB's fee almost covers the the cost of a bunq Premium account ;-)

Yes but only for late-adopters ;-) I still pay around 43€ for my YNAB subscription as a YNAB4 classic user.
However I do get your point :D

PIVO-Design

Yesterday I spoke to someone who uses ‘Starling’. Quite Nice this feature. We can feed the algoritm by crowdsourcing 😄.

Would love to see this feature coming to Bunq

Thvieira86

Sander Oh no, such a bad workaround carrying a lot of cards (besides the other ones that life wants us).

Sander

Thiago then it is a good thing that technologies like Apple/Google Pay* allow you to add your cards to your phone and pay using NFC. 😁👍 Furthermore I've stored all my loyalty cards for all different stores in my phone as well (there are apps for this, in case you'd like this). 🙂

* Unfortunately not available in all countries..

Rebo-Beheer-Krimpen-B-V-Pink-Hummingbird

Ik zou graag zien dat je met zelf ingestelde percentages alle inkomsten automatisch verdeeld over diverse rekeningen zoals voor belastingen, salaris, kosten, winst etc....zo heb je rust en inzicht. Bij geen enkele bank kan dat nu.

Gerhard-Yellow-Frog

I've now gotten around to testing the budgeting feature in Revolut and I really like a certain part of it... not the visualization and categories... I really don't need them and I think bunq covers this much better by supporting many different accounts that can be used.

What is really nice on a spending account is to see a running count of "remaining EUR to spend / day this month" and you configure this once for the whole account and it just keeps track and allows you to hit a specific target. I think something like this would fit very well into bunqs proposition of using multiple accounts and your cards, but allows you to see at a glance how much you can still spend to hit your budgeting target.

I think this would be beautifully simple and powerful at the same time.