Standing orders for account funding criteria.

B0bbyEwing

molerat said:

Why would someone want to spend the time checking every single weekend and bank holiday date for the next several years

Please elaborate to explain how you came to ask that question.

It seems when someone challenges anything instead of bowing down & saying yes sir no sir, the person being challenged implies that there are then only 2 possibilities - both extremes at either end of the scale.

This tends to be because they're just having a tantrum that someone hasn't just gone with what they've said without asking a question. 

Is it not possible that I might have been talking about someone setting it up and seeing what happened over 1 weekend? And not "every single weekend" for the next however many years you want to be extreme about?

Sure that 1 weekend probably wont have been say Easter weekend, so they'd maybe wish to repeat the experiment for that but this is max 2 weekends and not your extreme case of "every single weekend" for years and years on end. 

For example, as it seems nobody knows the answer, which I should stress by the way is fair enough, then next weekend I will set up standing orders:
Fri 9th - A to pay B
Sat 10th - B to pay C
Sun 11th - C to pay D
Mon 12th - D to pay E.

And just see what happens. If it works then great if it doesn't then I tried it.

The 5 day thing will only partially work for me.

I have 9 accounts myself that I want to cycle through. For ease I'll list them as the 9 letters of the alphabet:

1st: A (donor) pays B (first account needing criteria met)
6th: B pays C
11th: C pays D
16th: D pays E
21st: E pays F
26th: F pays G

There you go, only 6 of the 9 accounts are having their boxes ticked. I'm sure it should be obvious why I've not listed 31st in there for a 7th account. Even if I had, it still leaves 2 accounts short.

So as I said in the last post, to do it the 5 day way, 2 lots of £1,500 would need to be released from the donor account.

B0bbyEwing

Daliah said:

If you have to have your monthly money shuffle fully automated and bulletproof with accounts that don't have enough balance for the SO(s), leave a couple of days in between and incoming and outgoing SO. You can also try to get an overdraft facility for the required amount - though this might end up costing more than it's worth.

Yeah at the moment I'm just at the asking the question stage. I would say it doesn't hurt to just ask a question but it seems like it may hurt some. Nothing I can do there I'm afraid though. A question should be harmless enough.

To give the fuller picture I actually deal with just over 20 accounts that need this (all across the mentioned banks). Some of them have to be done manually, there isn't the option of automated. 
I then have to fill in various spreadsheets for these account balances of these accounts plus many more. In other words - it takes a lot of time. I'm trying to reduce that time as much as I can.

I know that probably raises more questions but I'm only explaining why I'm trying to reduce the time, I'm not getting in to what all these accounts are for.

Daliah

I have way more than 20 accounts, so I appreciate the need for as much automation as possible. One lot of automation I use is the tracking in AceMoney, where the various monthly shuffles are auto-populated in the respective accounts. So all I have to do each month are the 9 transfers I have chosen to keep on a manual transfer 'regime', and confirming that all the expected monthly transfers have been carried out as required.

NB. I don't bother with feeding any Nationwide current account on the off-chance they'd offer me something special for doing so. I think those times have long gone. Happy to be proven wrong 

B0bbyEwing

Daliah said:

NB. I don't bother with feeding any Nationwide current account on the off-chance they'd offer me something special for doing so. I think those times have long gone. Happy to be proven wrong 

Yeah I could pull the FlexAccount one but I just choose not to. Don't get me wrong, I don't credit all my accounts. I have TSB ones which are just abandoned. Barclay's ones the same. 
I know a lot wouldn't bother crediting the FlexDirect one because the interest is pence, though really with the rates as they are for any account you could argue is it worth it for anything because you're going to have to have a lot of money to get a lot of interest & if you have that much money in the first place then a few more quid for faffing about probably isn't going to be a big deal to you (not YOU, just someone, anyone).
But I credit the FlexDirect one all the same because it pays something out and I'm not about to close it any time soon. It's where I hold all my gift money. For birthdays and Xmases etc some family members still like to give something. I said for easiness, if you feel like you MUST give something then rather than a present which I probably wont even want or need, I'd rather just money that I can put towards something I actually do want. Even if it's just £5, £1, whatever. Drifting off topic, I'd be happy with £0, I don't need gifts, but some people insist. 
Anyway, THAT is why I have money in my Flexdirect. I just keep it separate from everything else. I don't even count it when doing my monthly spreadsheets. I give a token balance of £1 even though there's a couple k in there.


Anyway, I've left private messages asking this question with the banks I'm with who offer a private message feature.

On top of that I'm just going to try it out this coming week to see what happens. 

If it all goes wrong then I gave it a go.

Vortigern

Consider using weekly or 4-weekly standing orders, and having them fire on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. You'll never hit a weekend date and will miss most bank holidays except Christmas and New Year.

where_are_we

You could change from the "round robin" method to the "hub and spoke" method. To avoid not having sufficient funds in the "hub" current account I have 3x£500 SO`s instead of 1x£1500, and have one £500 SO on a different day of the month and each time I have the reciprocal SO set up to bounce the £500 back to the "hub" on the same day. With this method you need at least £500 spare in the "hub". I suppose it takes a little time to set up initially but after that it runs itself for years.

B0bbyEwing

where_are_we said:

You could change from the "round robin" method to the "hub and spoke" method. To avoid not having sufficient funds in the "hub" current account I have 3x£500 SO`s instead of 1x£1500, and have one £500 SO on a different day of the month and each time I have the reciprocal SO set up to bounce the £500 back to the "hub" on the same day. With this method you need at least £500 spare in the "hub". I suppose it takes a little time to set up initially but after that it runs itself for years.

Not sure whether it's because it's late or because I'm just being thick but I've read your post a few times and trying to picture how that is set up and still not getting it.

See my post at the top of page 2 - A paying B, B paying C etc. I get that kind of picturing. 

Care to elaborate on your post?

I don't mind spending time setting up if it then sorts itself.

Closest I came to understanding what you were saying was - are you saying from your donor account (my Chase savings in this instance) you'd set up for example, 3x £500 SO's to go to 3 different accounts - then basically bounce that money around paying each other and I assume it should then work.

Though not sure if that's what you were saying.

PRAISETHESUN

I do something similar to automate my SOs, although mine is more akin to the "hub and spoke" method @where_are_we describes above. Essentially I have matching SOs to go back and forth on the same day. My hub account has an arranged overdraft which helps if the SOs fire out of order - as long as everything returns to a positive balance by the end of the day then there are no charges to pay (you could also leave enough balance to cover the outgoing SOs instead). I spread them out by 3-4 days and they are scheduled such that if there was to be any overlap due to a bank holiday delay, the combined SOs don't take me over my total overdraft limit. Most banks will retry SOs a few times throughout the day if you have insufficient balance, so everything sorts itself out by the end of the day anyway. Alternatively you could delay the return by a day. Rinse and repeat as required.

Example setup 1:

Day 1: 
Account A --> Account B
Account B --> Account A

Day 4:
Account A --> Account C
Account C --> Account A

Example setup 2:

Day 1:
Account A --> Account B

Day 2:
Account B --> Account A

Day 4:
Account A --> Account C

Day 5:
Account C --> Account A

etc, etc

penners324

Set all the standing orders up for the same day...
 

wiseonesomeofthetime

Vortigern said:

Consider using weekly or 4-weekly standing orders, and having them fire on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. You'll never hit a weekend date and will miss most bank holidays except Christmas and New Year.

This is exactly what I do. Weekly. £375 a time.

Tue - Out
Wed - Returned

No issues so far.