Non USA webmasters - do you time your cheque deposits?
 

I get my cheques converted on the spot (no 5-6 week clearance wait) so recently I've been following the exchange rates to figure out the best time to deposit them. In the short term (a few days), rates can swing the converted amount by a couple of percent gain or loss. Of course in the long term there could be considerable more money made (or lost), but I'm more interested in maximising my income rather than directly investing in forex.

Yesterday the AUD was at record levels for the past 6 months so it was definitely not the day to be converting this bundle of USD cheques to Australian dollars!

Do you guys also time your cheque deposits?

Nope, I have usd account in my bank and don't convert dollars in local curency 'till I actualy need some cash :)

i send a bunch of checks every month to my bank where i own an USD currency account ...

How much interest does your US dollar account earn? I'm looking at a local one here and the interest rates are completely shitty, something like 0.6% p/a if you have over $USD5k sitting in there. I'd make more by converting at yesterday's record bad rate and letting it sit in my 6.5% p/a AUD account...

I got the rates wrong, they're even more shitty than I remembered - 0.25% p/a for average balances between $USD5,000 and $USD50,000. If you've got more then the rate increases to a "generous" 1% p/a :winkwink:

same here

it would suck to have the money converted right away

Don't really watch the rates. I usually just go to the bank about once a month to cash the checks.. I don't see the minor fluctuations making all that much difference now days anyhow, its already pretty bad converting it into Pounds sterling.

likewise

I figure 1-2% additional income is worth the 60 seconds it will take to review the exchange rates for that day and decide whether to bank or not... it's not a lot of extra money, but it's not a lot of extra time either. :)

today's recommendation for aussie webmasters: hold!

$ is still getting down and it will get down in next months/years.

My checks take 2-3 working days to get deposited to my bank account. I'm not sure about how they wprk with checks, but when I wire money overseas the bank keeps the money and converts them to $$$ when the rate is most favourable to them (at least this is what a friend of mine told me)....

So not much I can really do, they can keep my checks and in the 2-3 days time frame they can convert them to Soutgh African Rand (the local currency) when the dollar is cheaper.