Best days of month to set up standing orders, plus days for return transfer

OrangeBlueGreen

Not really relating to what you've said specifically but it might help someone one day, HSBC/First Direct allow for standing orders to be setup using "Last working day of the month" as a date option so no need to pick 28th all year round to make sure February and other months are covered.

Hope I am making sense!

penners324

Used to have the SOs all set up on the same day. Money would move round in a circle in about 5 minutes 

madbilly

Hi everyone,

Thank you for all the help and suggestions. I'll try and answer everyone.

@Confused_Dog I'm paying out of a mortgage offset savings account and it only does SOs ans DDs on working days. The mortgage rate is higher than any normal savings account, only some regular savers are higher, so the aim is to limit the time which money is out of the offset savings account as much as possible.

I don't know which of the returning accounts will do transfers on non-working days, that's something I can work out. However, as the sending account can only send on working days, I'll need to be careful I don't schedule to return a payment before it's arrived. I think that so far I've worked to a general rule that 5 days later is when I schedule a return - 2 days max for a faster payment to fully clear plus 3 potential non-working days.

@SF@SFCooper thanks for confirming what I'd worked out, good to have someone else have worked this out too.

@Eco@Eco_Miser interesting idea to do weekly SOs instead, although I can see that potentially getting out of sync with a mismatch between weeks and months, partial weeks, etc. 

@flan@flaneurs_lobster and @nebu@Nebulous2 I've got less transfers to do than you but I'm less organised, hence my desire for automation!

@gt94s@gt94sss2yes I'm definitely overcomplicating things, but once I'd thought about it I decided why not write it down and share the extent of overcomplication so everyone can join in the fun!

@surrey@surreysaver the idea of interest paid whilst money is sat in transit on non-working days hadn't occurred to me, wow that's more to deal with in version 2!

Cheers

Eco_Miser

madbilly said:

Hi everyone,

Thank you for all the help and suggestions. I'll try and answer everyone.

@Eco_Miser interesting idea to do weekly SOs instead, although I can see that potentially getting out of sync with a mismatch between weeks and months, partial weeks, etc. 

Cheers

Some months will have 4 payments, some will have 5, but that's not a problem unless you're paying directly into a Regular Saver. There are no partial weeks, though some weeks may cover two months, the payment is only in one month.

I don't use the system myself, just remembered it from a long-ago description on here by someone who does.

I use a mix of Standing Orders and manual faster payments, to minimise the time there is a high balance in a low/no interest account. 

madbilly

Hi @Eco_Mise, this actually does make sense. I've not set it up yet, but it'll be the next thing I try.

I worked out that the banks I am sending return SOs from (Lloyds, Natwest, RBS) don't send standing orders on non-working days, although they may reserve the money on non-working days. It's possible whether or not they send on non-working-days is sort code specific, so please nobody depend on this without checking their specific bank account first.

Cheers