Month should start at Payday
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For now, Nova supports only monthly cycle budgeting. Could you describe your use case and why you would prefer to budget payday to payday?
Thanks!
For start, at this moment everything in app is suggesting that I will run out of money, while not taking in consideration my salary I will get in 3 days
I have expected bills coming later what are way over the amount of money I have left on current account before my next salary
All spendings are around my salary, I am receiving money and I am allocating some of it for Groceries, some of it for Subscriptions etc, I am not splitting it for current and half of the next month first
What really matters for me is to track how much I spent since my last salary, and how much I have left until next one
Also if some day you will add some limits to set, like popup alert informing that I am spending too much eating out, it will also only be meaningful in a context of salary. If I am allocating 300ÂŁ from my salary for eating out, that means it is how much I can afford to spent until next one. It doesnât mean for example that I am willing to spent 300ÂŁ before now and last day of the month, and another 300ÂŁ next month
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Ok, thank you for sharing your use case - I love your feedback 
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What really matters for me is to track how much I spent since my last salary, and how much I have left until next one
It sounds like you want to budget payday to payday to make sure you always maintain a positive balance on your accounts. Is that right?
Assuming this is the case, would you like Nova to forecast your cash balance and alert you if itâs projected to be negative before payday?
everything in app is suggesting that I will run out of money, while not taking in consideration my salary I will get in 3 days
Nova projects all your monthly income, bills, goals and calculate your budget for variable expenses. Is Nova telling that youâre overspending?
if some day you will add some limits to set, like popup alert informing that I am spending too much eating out, it will also only be meaningful in a context of salary
Thatâs a good example. Do you consider that you should spend during October based on salary of September or October?
Happy to give feedback 
Technically Nova thinks I have more money to spent than I have or am willing to spent at this moment (what is a little out of scope of this suggestion):
- I am having money for my middle term Goals on separate Starling account (I dont want to spent it on day to day living unless it will be total emergency )
- I have emergency fund on Lloids, dont want to touch that either
- I have various credit cards I am repaying in full every month (for cashback and rewards) what are attached via direct debit to different accounts. One card is attached to my mono âSubscriptionâ pot, one to my Starling account for my âGoalsâ, and two for my âGroceriesâ pot (one amex and one Barclayâs )
- I have some spendings what technically are not subscription, and can be sometimes a bit bigger sometimes a little smaller, but they are regular. I am ordering food for dog every month, contact lenses every 3 months. I have separate Monzo Pot for travel.
I am not sure what is the right answer, but I know I can spent 200 for eating out, and 400 for groceries between each salaries I have. That is why I asked for this to be able to see summary if I am getting close to it or not
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My HSBC current account app had recently stated giving me a âBalance after billsâ figure. That is the projected remaining balance in the account after the future standing orders and direct debits are all taken into account up until my next payday. Itâs really handy. Although itâs only one account so doesnât give me the compete picture. Nova tries to do this with the graph on the track page. But itâs just not quite as good as the monthly cycles donât align.
I always pay credit card balances off in full, so every month there is a transfer from one account or another to pay the card off. The amount that is paid off is always equal (or possibly greater than) the sum of all the categorised spending on the credit card in the previous month.
Something that would be handy for me to know is if my wages payment that I have received on the 15th if the month is sufficient to cover last months card spending, or if I will need to dip into a saying account to make up the difference.
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@michalzxc I think I understand the problem. Nova uses a reverse budgeting methodology to calculate your monthly budget on variable expenses.
Which means that Nova will allow you to spend anything that wonât compromise your goals. Do you know how much youâd like to save and invest per month? Increasing your goal will automatically decrease your budget.
Hi @John. Nova can easily forecast the âbalance after billsâ, although the question would be
- Would you like to see the current accountâs balance after bills or the sum of all aggregated accountsâ balance?
- at which day do you want it to be projected? last day of the month, just before payday?
- If at payday, how would you like to set your payday cycle?
Maybe my financial mind simply works more from salary to salary not in monthly matter
It seems for me it is much more interesting to know how much I spent on Groceries, Eating Out, etc since last salary over Monthly view
But I guess I can get use to it 
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A lot of people request to have payday to payday cycle, often because thatâs how theyâre used to analyse their finance. In the end, it doesnât make such a difference.
Would you like to also visualise the Analytics screen with a payday to payday cycle?
Yes, that is how I imagined it. Make an app to do what it is doing now as if months would start at salary day and end at the next salary day
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Ok, but thatâs not that simple because salaries might be paid on different day each month. Would you like to:
- have a constant payday cycle, like 27 to 27
- set a different payday cycle for each month based on when you receive your salary?
With fixed I can imagine that I got salary one day earlier, and Nova is like âwoho, lot of extra money before yours salary tomorrowâ
So probably better to do it at a salary, but it other hand what is salary. Will it not confuse salary with some other money transfer?
Fixed date would be more mistake proof
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Ok, and what happens if you get your salary 1 day late? 
You might spent all the remaining money day before
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It would be useful when setting my savings goal for the next month, if I could see how much combined spending I had done as variable spending on my credit cards over the previous period. This total plus the regular recurring bills would give me a good start at estimating my anticipated repayments/spending within the month.
I find myself just picking an arbitrary number each month as a goal and then I just ending up saving more/less than it by luck rather than better judgement. I find that a few days before I get paid again I am either withdrawing from savings to see me to the end of the month or stashing leftover cash in a savings account. It would have been nice to anticipate this either way earlier in the month.
Ideally I would want all my monthly expenditure to come out of my account the day after I get paid then I donât have to worry about money for a month. But the reality is that all sorts of different things come out of my account on different dates, which is ok if everything goes as normal. But it required special attention when an annual subscription, a ÂŁ600 car tax for example, comes in and needs to be withdrawn from your âvehicle taxâ savings goal account.
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I realise this is an old thread but itâs something that I have been wondering about the last couple of months.
Iâd love to be able to set the month start at payday. Currently Iâm paid at the end of the month and then all of my bills come out either just after payday or at the start of the following month. This means after about the 5th of each month Iâm being told Iâm overspending, despite the fact that Iâm actually ending each month with increased wealth. This little change would mean I wouldnât have the app telling me the hole in my pocket can be seen from space all the time
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Hi @Wh0am3ye - this option is available in the test beta version. Message Sam to see if you can join. You can stop the annoying [to me anyway] notifications which can be turned off. R-
Hi and welcome to our community! Sorry for my late reply, Iâve been away lately
As @RB51 said it, we released the custom payday cycle for private beta users and itâs now publicly available. I hope this will solve your problem, please me me know 
It works. Itâs much better for me now that the month aligns with my payday cycle. I know you can argue that it doesnât matter and as long as your income and expenditure match then everything is good for the month. It really was more difficult to understand how well you were doing when the month cycle was not aligned to payday.
I try and use a cashback credit card for all my spending (obviously being careful not to spend any more than I would have done had the transaction been done with cash), but this means that my in-month spending needs to be paid off by my next-months wages.
I know some say I am living today on the hopes of a payday in the future, but really I have enough of a reserve to cover my credit card bill even if my income was to suddenly stop tomorrow. There is usually only ever the normally monthly bills one the card at any one time.
By aligning the Nova reporting cycle with my wage payment cycle I can see how my growing credit card balance can be covered by the next income payment. It genuinely is much easier to maintain an understanding of my financial picture now.
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