Reader Roman pointed out an issue a few people are facing (1, 2, 3) where if you open a bank account on the weekend they consider the Monday when your account was officially opened. The reason this matters is lots of accounts have minimum lengths that the deposit needs to be kept for (e.g 90 days) and this doesn’t start counting until the Monday. I always advise to give yourself a few extra days so this isn’t an issue, but you can also check your first statement and that should show the proper account opening date.
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Yeah this is a self-inflicted problem. If you’re required to do something or leave something for 90 days, in the grand scheme what’s 95 days or 97 days?
In the example that
RM gave, 4% interest on $500K in 1 week is almost $400!
That’s the example you use to counter? The 0.00013% of income earners?
#1. Yes, that’s the example that I used as I was trying to make a point. There is no reason to leave the money in there for an extra week. If you had said an extra 2 or 3 days, I wouldn’t have said anything as that is what I do.
#2. Having $500K has nothing to do with your current income. That is related to someone’s net worth, not their current income.
#3. Where did you get the ridiculously low figure of 0.00013%? I just Binged how many households are in the US and it showed that it’s about 132 million. According to your figure, only about 172 households have at least $500K in net worth. That’s an absolutely joke of a # as I bet that over 172 households of DoC readers have at least that much.
#4. Try harder next time!
500k Net worth isn’t the same as having 500k to move around though.
I get the point you and RM are saying, and if I had 500k sitting around I could move at will, I’d probably feel differently. I try not to leave large amounts more time in accounts than necessary but I do leave a buffer, sometimes a week. I don’t want to lose the bonus on a few day mistake.
For some of us, it’s the thrill of doing the absolute bare minimum and getting paid for it. Yes you can sometimes get burned if not careful, but nothing tops the feeling of sticking it to the bank on their own terms.
Wait for the bonus
Then wait for the EATF period to end
Then, once the statement posts, I call or chat to close.
Yeah, no. If you meet the terms, you meet the terms. Not parking substantial cash in a low/no interest account until a bonus that’s paid in 45+ days posts, you’re throwing lots of $ away (and wasting other bonus opportunities).
Are you really going to get rich by moving the minimum to earn a bank reward at the absolute soonest possible moment?
It depends. Some folks on this blog are doing $250k bonuses in two-player mode. Leaving $500k in a non-interest bearing or low-interest account for an extra 30-60 days is going to cost real money.
Yeah some of us have like $250K passing through various accounts at any given time.
I usually give it the holding period + 10 days at most extra.
For some people their cash balance is a down payment on their house they are trying to earn risk-free interest on.
Where is that guy who forgot about a measly 15k in some account?
It was
mark. Dude’s a riot!
The only institutions doing bonuses on $250k are brokerages, and they count the value of all securities transferred in, not just cash. It’s one thing to transfer in $250k of stocks and mutual funds, but there is no cash to earn low or no interest on.
If you are transferring $250k of cash from brokerage to brokerage to bank to brokerage, then I suppose you need to collect all the crumbs you can find. Don’t get me started on the opportunity cost of “[l]eaving $500k in a non-interest bearing or low-interest account for an extra 30-60 days” when you could have had anything else and the market is at an all time high.
Now, do you know what costs real money? Putting $500k in one of these shit institutions only to discover halfway through that some third party processor went bankrupt and now you cannot access any of your money. Then you suck your thumb while hoping that the FDIC or SIPC to bails you out. Not thanks. The risks are too high for that extra 1-2% bonus.
Technically, you can link to a brokerage account, but this was a checking bonus that needed $250k.
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/wells-fargo-premier-2500-bank-or-investing-bonus-requires-250000-in-cash-assets/
There’s a Citi one that needs $200k.
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/citi-300-checking-bonus/
The point of this post is not about extra/dead 30-60 days. It’s about ONE day actually. I love the notion of someone sitting on HALF MILLION dollars trying to time depletion/closure for Day 91 instead of Day 93 or Day 94. It’s a really silly problem.
That seems like a strange question to ask someone who’s churning bonuses.
Brother, I’m not that rich.
Sometimes we just need the cash to pay bills.
This is why I always round up to the second month, in case banks define “month” as 30 days, calendar month, or statement period.
Ex: An account opened today, with a 6 month term limit, wouldn’t close until 2026-03-01. Overly cautious, perhaps.
It’s not just weekends that don’t count as opening days. Federal holidays also don’t count as opening days. So if you open an account on a bank holiday, the opening date will be the next bank business day. This could add up to an account opening date of up to 3 days later than you thought the opening date was if you opened an account during a period of time where a federal holiday falls on a Monday or Friday.
I work at a bank and that is pretty spot on. Most of the front end bank stuff looks real time but actually happens over night
So you’re the cop who’s also in Fight Club. (yeah, I know I’m not supposed to talk about it)
Coincidence your name is Tyler…?
Can confirm – most banks run on software from early 2000s with cron jobs that export/import batches, almost nothing in the backend SoR is realtime.
Early 2000s is very generous. More like 1970s.
Would love to hear more from you, like what do banks think of churners and stuff
Broad strokes cause there’s a lot of banks of materially different sizes:
Big FI: aware of; decidedly indifferent if it’s not worth the ROI to bother to combat.
Smaller: care more due to flightier deposits in general, so retention probably matters more. Usually try to combat with harder to meet terms and restrictive legal terms. Smaller FIs have less technical capacity to effectively filter.
*there’s also a philosophical consideration of what is “income” in the modern economy if an FI is tailoring what counts for DD. Otherwise it can be as crude as specific ACH entry type or any ACH credit.
Thanks for this. It’s nice to gather enemy territory intel
I hope that you aren’t a spy for 1 of the banks that a lot of us churn here!
They don’t live under a rock. The points guy and blogs like this have long been data points and intel for BOTH us and the banks
I was only kidding…
Add a buffer of a few days before closing, as well as before churning again. No need to be more conservative than that. Also, keep about $25 to cover unexpected fees (and ask for them to be reversed).
Disregard my initial reply.
To be safe, you should keep the money in the account until the bonus actually posts.
I think this is too conservative. I just always give a buffer of two days before deadline and two days after cut off to account for any improper rounding errors.
This is a sound strategy and I pretty much do the same. This also allows you an extra day or 2 in case a transfer gets messed up. That happened for me with CIT recently and that 1 day buffer came in handy!
Depends. How long am I waiting for a pay out?
It depends on the terms
i give a few days to a week buffer (unless there’s a REALLY tight deadline i need to meet), and leave at least $100 in the account until the bonus actually posts so there’s no chance of it zeroing out and closing