Introducing Watchlists: Move Your Money Toward What Matters

Money is a powerful tool for creating the world we want to live in, but we can’t always spend it the way we want.

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Oftentimes, the things we want to exist in the world — sustainable companies, burgeoning local economies, equitable supply chains — are directly at odds with the places we spend our money.

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Maybe you want to spend less money at big corporations, but Amazon is the most convenient option. Perhaps you want to allocate more of your monthly budget to brands that are investing in safe, clean ingredients, but it's hard to keep track of which companies fit the bill. Or it could be that you want to stop doomspending on impulse purchases, but there's no easy way to track those purchases.

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That’s why we created Watchlists!

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What is a watchlist?

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Watchlists give you the power to track the purchases that matter to you and align your money with the life you want to live.

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A watchlist is a curated list of one or more merchants where you want to spend more or less money. You can create a custom list, or use any of the lists the Commons team has created.

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Tap into each Watchlist, to see your monthly spending across all the merchants on that list, along with your transactions. From the Watchlists tab, get a high-level view of all your lists to see how your spending is trending compared to the previous month and keep tabs your no-buy streaks.

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How We Use Watchlists to Save and Spend Better

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As we’ve built this feature over the past month, our team has done plenty of test runs. We love using watchlists to keep our overspending in check, compare our expenses across categories, and remind ourselves to steer more of our money to businesses we want to thrive.

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Here are some of our favorite ways to use watchlists so far:

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• “There are some services I've tried to unsubscribe from a few times, but they still charge me. I made a couple of 'Don't charge me' lists to make sure my spending at these merchants stays at $0.” — Sanchali Seth Pal, CEO & Founder
• “When I think of impulse purchases, my mind immediately goes to boba. My recycling bin has turned into a boba cup graveyard, which I’m not proud of, and neither is my bank account. I created a ‘Boba’ list to keep myself in check.” — Katelan, Content Director
• “I want to try to shift more of my grocery shopping to small shops and farmers' markets, so I made a More list for 'Small grocery' and a Less list for Whole Foods.” — Sanchali Seth Pal, CEO & Founder
• “Most of my clothes are thrifted, but I’m still trying to rein in my monthly clothing spend. I created a “Clothing” list and added my go-tos: Depop, Goodwill, and Savers thrift store. I immediately noticed a spike in spending right before my summer vacation. Being able to identify and reflect on spikes in my spending really helps me plan for and avoid those trends in the future.” — Katelan, Content Director

# Help us Make Watchlists Better!

This is just the first version of Watchlists. We have many exciting plans for how Watchlists can grow and evolve, but it doesn’t happen without you.

Your feedback in the early days of this feature will help us build the best tools for your sustainable financial life.

Join the Commons app and start using Watchlists to sign up for a 20-min video call to share your feedback with the team, and we'll send you a $20 gift card to Poshmark or Patagonia, or $20 in offset credits.