Corollary to the discussion in this thread...

Situation:

- Communal household.

- Rent must be paid to the landlord via a single check (it's in the rental agreement), and rent check must arrive in the hands of the landlord by the first of the month (no grace period, late fees assessed immediately). I feel that this is unreasonable, but there's nothing I can do about that part of it.

- Household has established a communal bank account at Wells Fargo for paying rent, bills, and groceries. I manage this account.

- My preference is to pay the landlord and the household bills via the online Bill Pay account at Wells Fargo.

- Members of household all get paid on the first and the 15th of each month.

- Members of household transfer certain predefined amounts of money into the communal account after getting paid. Minor fluctuations in the bills and groceries are covered by me and/or small amounts of budget padding.

- All bills (except for the unreasonable rent restrictions) are due on, or very close to, the appropriate time period following the first and the 15th of each month. For example, due around the 10th or the 25th or so, giving me time to pay them after receiving the transfers following everyone's first/15th paychecks. Rent for the following month is paid out of the prior month's 15th-of-month transfers, to compensate for the unreasonable rent payment restrictions.

So far so good. There's only one hitch in all of this...

All members of the household bank with Wells Fargo except for one member, who banks with BofA. Everyone else can do instant transfers into the household account except for this person.

We need to find a method for the BofA person to get their money into the household account twice a month, that's going to give us the best balance of timeliness versus ease-of-transaction. Anyone have any ideas?

Here's what we've tried so far:

- BofA member writes a physical check and deposits it into a Wells Fargo ATM using the household account's ATM card. This works, however it can only happen on the 16th or later because the BofA member's direct-deposit paycheck doesn't hit their account until EOD on the 15th. Then the deposit takes a few days to clear (especially if payday falls on a Friday). And besides, physically traveling to an ATM to do the deposit is a hassle twice a month, and therefore severely increases the possibility of procrastination (we've already experienced that one). This is, so far, the fastest way we've found, yet the least convenient.

- BofA member uses their online Bill Pay feature, with the Wells Fargo household account as the payee. I'm skeptical, but I'm told it *will* work, as the BofA member has done the same kind of thing before. We just tried it for the first time, but it's been several days and I haven't seen it hit the household account yet. If it does, in fact, end up working, it would be the most convenient method for everyone, but it's not timely enough to cover the billpays and rent as quickly as I'd like it to.

- Asking the banker who set up the household account. He didn't seem to have any ideas other than the physical check deposit.


Things we haven't tried yet:

- Paypal. That's got a clearance-time, too, although perhaps the number of days of clearance-time would not be so bad compared to other methods. And does it have a fee or a limit? What's the fee/limit if so? We'd have to either set up a paypal account for the household, or have the money sent to my personal account, I'd wait for it to clear, then I do an instant transfer into the household account. Overall, not the most convenient thing, but certainly more convenient than a physical trip to the ATM.

Things we're *not* going to try:

- BofA member changing banks. There is too much going on there to make the shift, it would be a disaster for their accounts.

- Pre-loading the funds any further than we already are. We're all pretty strapped at the moment.

- Wire transfers, or any other method that involves fees/charges.

- Splitting up the BofA member's direct-deposits so that they go to different places. That would be the ultimate solution, as it would be the most convenient as well as the timeliest. Unfortunately, there was a technical reason this wasn't possible, and I don't remember what that reason was at the moment. I'm thinking of re-investigating it, though, now that I've brought it up and I've realized exactly how convenient it would be.


In the meantime, anyone else got any ideas?