How to optimize transfers between accounts

Dan83

You can move money on what ever date you like by standing order, including nationwide and Barclays, I know this because I do it.

colsten

Snakey wrote: »

4. Not have large amounts of money sitting around in accounts where it is earning no interest. -

The easiest to avoid such situations is not to use non-interest paying accounts in the first instance. With the exception of the Halifax Reward, which needs a little bit of special attention if you want to use it, I can't see any reason for keeping money for any length of time in such accounts. But even if you had to, it's not earth shattering amounts you'd lose: for example, not earning 3% interest on £5,000 for a day would set you back by a 'massive' 41p.

xylophone

I would get the gas and electricity back to the 123 by opening Tesco savers and using DD facility on the accounts requiring four DDs.

With regard to FD, I would not have the salary paid into it.

I would have the salary paid to 123 account, leave a small balance in the FD current account, open an E-saver with FD, and only transfer into the current account (by SO), as much as required to service the Regular saver. It would be best to set the standing order for a few days before the RS date, but for £300 this seems fair enough.

You could automate the pay in to M&S from 123 then manually transfer out.

You could automate the transfer out from 123 to Halifax then manually transfer out.

It might suit you to have your in and out on the above two accounts on the same day.

Similarly, once you have set up DDs (use Tesco?) (and seen them pay out once on the sacrificial account), you can arrange the HSBC switch.

Once the HSBC is up and running, you can transfer in the required amount by SO and manually transfer out the required amounts.

Once again, you might wish to align your manual transfer out day.

As for a pocket money and spending account, a Tesco current account pays 3% on up to £3000 and requires no DDs or minimum pay in.

Snakey

Thanks Xylophone - my life just got easier as apparently I'm not good enough for an HSBC Advance account.

VeryMan

anoncol wrote: »

Why? I dont see a problem coming to a forum when you are confused about something. This forum is just full of know it alls. If we all knew it all, there wouldn't be a point of the forum!

Thanks for posting the obvious. Most UK forums are infested by knowitalls bullying newcomers.

eskbanker

VeryMan wrote: »

I don't understand what you are saying. It is not always the case that there will be enough balance in the accounts and the last thing I want is to take overdraft.

Let's try another way of explaining it....

Start by opening a 5% account.

Only open another 5% account, or move onto one at 4%, when you've filled the first one up with the maximum amount that'll earn interest (£2K or £2.5K), so that at any given time you only have one account that isn't full.

Repeat until you have all the interest-paying current accounts, this will take a while!

Don't do anything with automated standing orders on any account until it's full, i.e. shift the monthly money into and out of the emptiest one manually.

If you set up a daisy chain of 'minimum monthly payment' standing orders (£500-1500) around the full accounts you'll only be making one monthly withdrawal from each one and it'll be guaranteed to be less than the balance.

Therefore it doesn't matter if the outbound SO on any given account is before the inbound one, does that help?

ceredigion

VeryMan wrote: »

I don't understand what you are saying. It is not always the case that there will be enough balance in the accounts and the last thing I want is to take overdraft.

If the balance in a account is insufficient to fund the next account in the chain it begs the question as to why you hold that account in the first place.
Another point to consider is that the funding requirement does not have to be in one hit. You could make 10 x £100 payments in the month.

Snakey

But suppose I have a Halifax account for the £5 bonus and an M&S account for the £10 gift card plus the ability to have a 6% monthly saver.

I don't want there to be any balance in either of those accounts, because they don't pay interest.

But I do need to make a minimum pay in and also have enough money in there on the day my two direct debits go out.

The money to do that would otherwise be in my 123 account earning 3%. So I would prefer that the money spent as little time as possible in M&S/Halifax. Hence, needing to know exactly how the system works in respect of standing orders - is it possible to do it all on the same day, if it's not then what is the minimum safe period?

If this thought process is nonsense please tell me because it's what I'm basing my planning/research on!

ceredigion

Snakey wrote: »

But suppose I have a Halifax account for the £5 bonus and an M&S account for the £10 gift card plus the ability to have a 6% monthly saver.

I don't want there to be any balance in either of those accounts, because they don't pay interest.

But I do need to make a minimum pay in and also have enough money in there on the day my two direct debits go out.

The money to do that would otherwise be in my 123 account earning 3%. So I would prefer that the money spent as little time as possible in M&S/Halifax. Hence, needing to know exactly how the system works in respect of standing orders - is it possible to do it all on the same day, if it's not then what is the minimum safe period?

If this thought process is nonsense please tell me because it's what I'm basing my planning/research on!

I do such accounts manually, If you want to automate it you will need 4 days to cover all eventuality's if set up monthly. But if you set it up for Wednesday's 4 weekly will not hit a holiday for ? long.

Snakey

Good point, I'd ignored the "four weekly" payment option on the grounds that it would eventually not be in synch with the month... but that's daft because it doesn't matter if a month gets two payments (since it goes in and out on the same day anyway so no loss of interest).

Or it wouldn't kill me to do it manually. I'm still in a sulk with HSBC for rejecting me (how dare they consider me unsuitable!) but it has made my planning 33.3% easier.