Your selected payment mode is a setting that determines how your Douugh Card works. You can choose between ‘Pay Later with Spot’ and ‘Pay Now with Spend Jar’. There are some slight differences between the two options, so let's break them down.
Pay Now
If you choose ‘Pay Now with Spend Jar’:
Adding funds
You can add funds to your card by transferring funds into your Spend Jar.
You can request a Spot Me to borrow amounts up to $500 that are paid into your Spend Jar for use on your Douugh Card.
Each Spot me results in a Spot fee. See: How much does a Douugh Card cost?
Spending
Purchases will attempt to draw funds from your Spend Jar’s cash balance first.
If there are not enough funds available in your Spend Jarto pay for an attempted transaction, then it will fail.
Let's use a couple of examples to explain this in action.
Example - Pay Now with Spend Jar
You have added $500 to your Douugh Card.
You have an available Spot limit of $500.
If you attempt a $500 transaction, it will be successful and the money will be debited from your Spend Jar balance. Simple.
If you attempt a $700 transaction, it will fail, as there is only $500 available in your Spend Jar.
At this point, you may choose to take out a $200 Spot Me to cover the difference.
If you did take out a $200 Spot Me this would change the situation to:
You have added $500 to your Spend Jar.
You have taken out a $200 Spot Me.
These funds get paid into your Spend Jar, so now your balance is $700.
You have an available Spot limit of $300 ($500 minus the $200 you have now been spotted).
If you now attempt the $700 transaction, it will be successful as there is $700 available in your Spend Jar. You would have also incurred related Spot fees.
Pay Later
If you choose ‘Pay Later with Spot’ we call this using Auto-Spot.
Adding funds
Your Spot limit remains available in your Douugh Card for spending.
You can add additional funds to spend on your card by transferring it into your Spend Jar.
Spending
Purchases will draw funds from your Spot limit first.
Each successful transaction will result in a ‘Pay Later Spot’ and related Spot fees.
Each Spot will be for the total value of a successful transaction + have the Spot fees added to the 4 equal weekly repayments once the associated transaction settles.
For more insight check out: How much does a Douugh Card cost? And What is the Spot Jar?
If there are not enough funds in your Spot limit, the card will then attempt to use funds in your Spend Jar’s cash balance.
If the combination of your Spot limit and Spend Jar’s cash balance is not enough to pay for an attempted transaction, then it will fail.
Let's use a couple of examples to explain Auto-Spot in action.
Example - Pay Later with Spot
You have added $500 to your Spend Jar.
You have an available Spot limit of $500.
If you attempt a $500 transaction, it will be successful and the money will be debited from your Spot limit balance. You would have also incurred related Spot fees. Simple.
If you initially attempted a $700 transaction, it would have also been successful, as $500 from your Spot limit and $200 from your Spend Jar balance would have been used to cover the cost of the transaction. You would have also incurred related Spot fees.
Example 2 - Pay Later with Spot
You have added $500 to your Spend Jar.
You have an available Spot limit of $500.
You buy a $5 coffee at your favourite joint and then swing by another shop to pick up a $10 bacon and egg roll (they do them better than your favourite coffee joint!). Both of these transactions will be successful, and the money will be debited from your Spot limit balance. As separate transactions, each of these transactions would incur separate Spot fees. This means you would incur Spot fees of $1.99 per individual repayment.
It’s worth noting that you can change payment modes at any time. This means that if you are considering using Spot to help smooth out your cash flow, you can change to ‘Pay Now with Spend Jar’ and take out a larger Spot Me for a reduced amount of Spot fees instead of using ‘Pay Later with Spot’ where each individual transaction up to your Spot limit will be spotted to you and incur individual Spot fees.
Please take the time to understand how this works and take into consideration your own circumstances before making your decision on what payment mode you would like to use.
If you ever find yourself looking to change your Douugh Card payment mode, check out this guide for the steps to take: