How low do you let your bank account run?

[bitchstewie]

A bit of a random thread and I appreciate some answers will be out of necessity and some answers may be psychology i.e. because it lets you sleep at night.

Pretty much as it says though.

By "bank account" I guess I mean your "goto" personal current account so the one your salary gos into and that stuff tends to come out of by default rather than a savings account or account somewhere for a specific purpose where you have to make a conscious choice to move money in or out of it.

The bands are a bit arbitrary but got to start somewhere.

Be good if the thread wasn't moved to Finance as I imagine the finance folks may take a keener view than most people.

Hopefully that makes sense

[TownIdiot]

I have two current accounts

One with an old school bank that has a sweep process from an instant access deposit account

Over the last few years I've moved all my daily stuff to Monzo. The app is fantastic and online customer service is excellent. I now take any drawings directly into this account, meaning I now very rarely transfer money over unless there's a big bill that's out of the ordinary.

So in general I run low current accounts balances and transfer in when it's necessary, be that from savings or from work related stuff.

[Crudeoink]

At any given time, about 3-5k I'd say. Anything above this is usually is quickly put into savings or it gets spent by the wife

[lizardbrain]

300 quid roughly. I also have a 1k overdraft but havn't touched it in a while as it's so quick and easy to transfer money from savings these days on your phone.

[rawenghey]

There's never less than a few grand in it.
Anything more is moved into savings, investments, mortgage overpayments, etc.

[alscar]

"Main " account is linked to a Savings account and is swept in/out every day to then have £5k remaining.

[Monkeylegend]

Makes you wonder how financially savvy those are who have over £50k in a current account.

Of course this being PH they are probably the same ones who have millions invested elsewhere earning loads of interest.

[K87]

Monkeylegend said:

Makes you wonder how financially savvy those are who have over £50k in a current account.

Of course this being PH they are probably the same ones who have millions invested elsewhere earning loads of interest.

Correct.

[Gary29]

I try to keep around £1K in my current account at all times, anything above gets put into savings or other accounts to service bills etc.

[bmwmike]

Mine is usually negative since interest rates started going up and my o/d is interest free. Anything numerically significant is offloaded to the wifes name for the extra interest allowance or longer term savings.

[TownIdiot]

K87 said:

Monkeylegend said:

Makes you wonder how financially savvy those are who have over £50k in a current account.

Of course this being PH they are probably the same ones who have millions invested elsewhere earning loads of interest.

Correct.

Surely you are best using an account that sweeps from a deposit account?
That way you always have funds available but you are at least earning something.
And interest on 50k is a few gold leafed steaks with elbow salt

[Mont Blanc]

Crudeoink said:

At any given time, about 3-5k I'd say. Anything above this is usually is quickly put into savings or it gets spent by the wife

This.

Usually hovering around £3-5k in the everyday/current account. My wife use to keep it a lot ower for reasons such as 'what if the account got scammed or you lost your card' but we ended up in a couple of slightly embarrassing situations such as being out shopping for the day, randomly seeing something we really liked for our house, or my wife seeing the handbag of her dreams, and then the card would decline because we only had £1200 in the account or whatever.

Obviously that sort of thing isn't very often, but it made me quite nervous about it happening again, so for the last 5+ years we run it at around £3-5k.

Also same as the above, my wife does a monthly transfer of the surplus from the everyday account into the savings account, or into investments.

[K87]

TownIdiot said:

K87 said:

Monkeylegend said:

Makes you wonder how financially savvy those are who have over £50k in a current account.

Of course this being PH they are probably the same ones who have millions invested elsewhere earning loads of interest.

Correct.

Surely you are best using an account that sweeps from a deposit account?
That way you always have funds available but you are at least earning something.
And interest on 50k is a few gold leafed steaks with elbow salt

My bank doesn't offer that automatic facility and they are in merger talks, I will wait and see what the new owner can offer and hopefully keep the same sort code and account number.

My wife and I have all accounts in joint names and she has no wish to move accounts.

We already pay plenty of tax on savings interest and this has to be done in a single lump sum payment.

[andburg]

i treat £1000 as zero so it never drops below £1200-1300
excess just before payday is shunted off to savings

[AndyAudi]

Currently at £130

If it goes below £100 I top it up
I get a message saying “you’re close to being overdrawn or sometimes you are overdrawn

I have a £3k overdraft limit so my card always works if I need it though & I can just top up later in day. (Albeit most spending is on credit card)

[Alfa numeric]

I've got a £500 interest free overdraft so the balance is normally -£499. Any excess is in an instant access savings account or more long term savings.

[Countdown]

In a good month I'll have £2k left in the current account just before next pay day, in a very bad month it would be £1k (both of those would be immediately after the previous months's credit card bills have been paid.)

When my salary goes in I do the following

- move £X amount into a savings account to cover annual bills (various insurances, servicing, AA membership, TV licence, RFL, holiday fund, tax
- move £Y amount into ISA
- Move £Z amount into SIPP

£Y = Salary - (monthly bills) - £X - £Z

[ymwoods]

After having my account drained (I did get the money back) I now use a mainstream bank for direct debits and income which I usually don't like getting below £500. Anything above around £1k by the time I get almost to payday again goes into savings.

I then use a Starling account that literally just has enough to cover the transaction I'm currently doing on the debit card in it which (I transfer over on mobile banking) I feel this limits me from the risk of my account being emptied again. It does create a few issues though if I can't get a signal!

[nicanary]

I leave enough in to cover a potential month with no income - i.e. enough to pay for housing and utilities if my income fails.

Nobody has yet mentioned this.

[Jonmx]

Asset rich and cash flow poor at the moment here. Usually a few hundred sitting there, but it rapidly disappears.
A few years ago I asked a guarantor for proof of earnings or income and she presented a current account with £800k in it. Apparently she'd sold an asset and had gotten around to doing anything with the funds.