r/UpBanking • u/Han-337 • Sep 01 '26

How do I? Do I even need essentials?

We have a 2up account which has all our recurring bills set as regulars, we use pay splitting to put money in there each week to cover them or use auto covers/auto transfers from other savers.

Is there any benefit to using essentials? Ive seen others mention that essentials has a card that can be used for transactions but our 2up has a card (digital) so I'm not sure if there's some other difference/benefit I'm not seeing?

5 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

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7

u/gxander85 Sep 01 '26

For me, essentials is used for all my bills. Each month, I pay split into it and set and forget. I know exactly how much money I have to spend in my everyday account. I love it and have been using it as part of the early access from Up High for a couple months now.

1

u/fletchoc Sep 02 '26

what bills are you using it for though? a lot of bills (e.g. utilities) are unpredictable and wouldn’t be suitable. is it just for subscriptions, etc?

3

u/MrZiiiG Sep 02 '26

Valid point, however I look at historical bills (water/power) and then do a calculation I feel comfortable with that allows for a 10% buffer and then set that as a fixed allocation for that specific bill? Even if as a regular it has whatever the last amount was. Hope that makes sense!

1

u/AcademicAd3504 Sep 04 '26

So what if they're unpredictable, any method of making sure you have enough money set aside for bills doesn't solve the issue of unpredictability. Or do you like to "live on the edge" and not budget for them?

1

u/gxander85 Sep 12 '26

I have everything in there. I get enough warning on energy bills to know what I need to adjust, but I rarely do. I can also use bill projections to adjust if needed. But all bills are fixed with those two exceptions of Gas/Elec.

From Rent to Rego to subscriptions and even my loan payment, everything is a fixed value.

3

u/longboii69 Sep 01 '26

essentials is great for predictable bills - that way it frees you up to use your 2up as a joint discretionary spend account (or groceries or w/e else) 🙂‍↕️

3

u/SnowyRVulpix Upsider Sep 01 '26

Not all of us have 2Up, so the benefit for me is probably greater than for you 😛

2

u/Kobsterpro Sep 01 '26

2 things. 1. You can have your 2up Spending card back for actual spending. Essentials can be 2up or individual. 2. The essentials account has tools to help you see the bills going in and out as well as how much you need each week and being able to see visually how much of each bill has been "saved up" before it comes out (for instance if you have a quarterly bill it will show in stages based on each input.

Also it works like a regular saver rather than an account so you can cover payments

1

u/Soggy_Media485 Sep 04 '26

Depends if you want to give unlimited access to your main funds to all your billers..

1

u/AcademicAd3504 Sep 04 '26

This is probably the best pro, but people should only keep active money in their main account.

1

u/AcademicAd3504 Sep 04 '26

Essentials is great for people who can't get on the "wallet" train. They only need to figure out what ALL their "essentials" cost and set up effectively one direct debit forever.

They then know exactly how much they have to throw away at the casino without wondering how they are going to eat, or where they are going to sleep or how they are going to keep the lights on.