Each month, around the 25th, the banking cycle comes to a frenzied and unpredictable end.
Through the days credit card charges accumulate, wages are earned, utilities are consumed. Unlike the US, all of this is invisible. Credit cards cannot be accessed online, wages are paid once a month sometime in the last week, utilities fluctuate according to the weather.
During the last week of the month, they all collide in a maelstrom of debits and credits in my banks’ cash account.
In the US, home of the hedge, I get a bill for each service, and decide how much to pay or carry on each charge. This allows for dynamic management of cash flow and interest month to month ("stress" for most Americans).
In the Netherlands, a cash economy, everything is suddenly extracted in full.
I’ve learned to transfer a few extra hundred euros into the account around the 22nd, and then to cross my fingers. The dust usually settles by the 29th and I can transfer any excess back into the linked savings account, where it earns equally unpredictable interest (something over 2%, paid quarterly, on the minimum monthly balance above a threshold).
It would be nice to at least get airline miles for charges as compensation for all the excitement…