How do you make provision for the tx fees?

[K~Ehleyr]

This might seem like a silly question and a bit pedantic but it's been bugging me for a while, so I'll ask in case anybody can offer a suitable strategy for making provision for transaction fees.

A while ago I bought ¹/₄ of a bitcoin to give as a gift, well, two gifts to be precise.  I already gifted half of that, ie. ¹/₈th BTC, but after paying the transaction fee I no longer have a whole eighth to send as the second gift!  I now have to buy more bitcoin, at the much higher price it is now, just to replace the fee for the transaction I've already sent and cover the new transaction I'm going to make, so that I can send the complete gift as intended.  I know, I should have thought of this when I initially bought the quarter and I wish I had!  (I bought this at $590!!)  But I was a newbie and I didn't think of it.  I do have additional bitcoin that I've bought for myself, but that's all round numbers as well, and now I'm aware that if I ever want to use that I will have the same problem of having to buy extra to cover the fee before I can send any.

So, clearly, in the future, it's no good me just buying the amount of bitcoin that I want - I will have to buy more as well for future fee provision.  But how much more should I add on to my purchase each time?  How does anybody else handle this?

[steven0021]

So, clearly, in the future, it's no good me just buying the amount of bitcoin that I want - I will have to buy more as well for future fee provision.  But how much more should I add on to my purchase each time?  How does anybody else handle this?

An extra 0.001 should be more than enough for most cases. That's how I do it.

[K~Ehleyr]

An extra 0.001 should be more than enough for most cases. That's how I do it.

That sounds like a simple strategy!  Thanks for the fast reply 

[shorena]

This might seem like a silly question and a bit pedantic but it's been bugging me for a while, so I'll ask in case anybody can offer a suitable strategy for making provision for transaction fees.

A while ago I bought ¹/₄ of a bitcoin to give as a gift, well, two gifts to be precise.  I already gifted half of that, ie. ¹/₈th BTC, but after paying the transaction fee I no longer have a whole eighth to send as the second gift!  I now have to buy more bitcoin, at the much higher price it is now, just to replace the fee for the transaction I've already sent and cover the new transaction I'm going to make, so that I can send the complete gift as intended.  I know, I should have thought of this when I initially bought the quarter and I wish I had!  (I bought this at $590!!)  But I was a newbie and I didn't think of it.  I do have additional bitcoin that I've bought for myself, but that's all round numbers as well, and now I'm aware that if I ever want to use that I will have the same problem of having to buy extra to cover the fee before I can send any.

So, clearly, in the future, it's no good me just buying the amount of bitcoin that I want - I will have to buy more as well for future fee provision.  But how much more should I add on to my purchase each time?

Fees are difficult to predict as they increase with an increasing demand to get transactions confirmed fast. This[1] is the best historic information regarding paid fees I know off.

 How does anybody else handle this?

I just dont. I got used to bitcoin having 8 decimal places and when I e.g. send 1 BTC to a coin- or paperwallet I just accepted that I wont get a nice round 1 BTC off of it.

[1] https://anduck.net/bitcoin/fees/


Edit:

An extra 0.001 should be more than enough for most cases. That's how I do it.

That sounds like a simple strategy!  Thanks for the fast reply  

Yes, overpaying is certainly an option, if the wallet you use to redeem allows it.

i'm not sure any more. i've found fees have gone insane with my wallet, so much so that i ain't gonna be spending bitcoin on anything any time soon.

is there a standard fee calculator that includes the number of inputs and calculates the size? i can't find one so i can't tell whether it's my wallet that's crazy or me.

Use cointape -> https://bitcoinfees.21.co/
assume 148 byte per input and 34 bytes per output.

[European Central Bank]

i'm not sure any more. i've found fees have gone insane with my wallet, so much so that i ain't gonna be spending bitcoin on anything any time soon.

is there a standard fee calculator that includes the number of inputs and calculates the size? i can't find one so i can't tell whether it's my wallet that's crazy or me.

[Ayers]

So, clearly, in the future, it's no good me just buying the amount of bitcoin that I want - I will have to buy more as well for future fee provision.  But how much more should I add on to my purchase each time?  How does anybody else handle this?

An extra 0.001 should be more than enough for most cases. That's how I do it.

yeah but what about micro transaction, what if i need to send 0.001? paying that much for sending few cent it's stupid i think, i would just follow the automatic fee that my client tell me to set and nothing else, it will avoid all the trouble

[steven0021]

An extra 0.001 should be more than enough for most cases. That's how I do it.

That sounds like a simple strategy!  Thanks for the fast reply  

No problem. BTW that 0.001 is for 2 transactions no more than 1KB (your tx should get to this size). If you're planning to make more transactions then it would be best to increase it. Your transaction size shouldn't be even close to 1KB if you just bought the bitcoins.

And as said above the recommended fee can change drastically from time to time. So if you want to be safer or are using a wallet that set a fee automatically it might be good idea to double or triple that amount.

[amacar2]

Most of the time i use blockchain.info wallet which shows recommended fee accurately so almost all of the transaction get included within first block. Other than this https://bitcoinfees.21.co/ can be really useful but hard to know the size of transaction it may be different depending on number of inputs and outputs.

is there a standard fee calculator that includes the number of inputs and calculates the size? i can't find one so i can't tell whether it's my wallet that's crazy or me.

may be there is some calculator which can do this because few of the online wallets have started giving automatic free recommendation lately rather than just standard 10000 satoshi.

Which wallet you are talking/using about?

[Daffadile]

Lol oh gees... I do understand what you mean about when you want to send a certain amount and only have that amount but you need to have more, why do you only buy the exact amount ? That is not how you use bitcoin.

Anyway.... A transaction was 0.0001 before the halving it is now recommended 0.0005 but I have got away with 0.0001btc on smaller transactions. I think for large ones like you are making you may need a slightly bigger one so maybe double that size 0.001btc like the first poster said ?

[K~Ehleyr]

No problem.
Also, as said above the recommended fee can change drastically from time to time. So if you want to be safer or are using a wallet that set a fee automatically it might be good idea to double or triple that amount.

I use Bitcoin Core so I'm still building my confidence as far as choosing the right fee goes.  Adding an extra 0.001  to each purchase definitely seems a good rule of thumb to start with, maybe with experience I might want to adjust it but that can come later.

I'm grateful to Shorena for those charts!  I can't accept not having round numbered bitcoins and bitcoin pieces though - I think I'm a bit OCD  

yeah but what about micro transaction, what if i need to send 0.001? paying that much for sending few cent it's stupid i think, i would just follow the automatic fee that my client tell me to set and nothing else, it will avoid all the trouble

The 0.001 steven0021 suggested isn't referring to a fee, but to the extra that I should buy with each bitcoin purchase in order to cover future unknown transaction fees in order to avoid nibbling at my "capital"  

[European Central Bank]

Which wallet you are talking/using about?

mycelium for me. i can't find any setting on it that tells me the actual size of the tx so i've no idea how out of kilter the fees are. they are absolutely insane at the moment.

[amacar2]

Which wallet you are talking/using about?

mycelium for me. i can't find any setting on it that tells me the actual size of the tx so i've no idea how out of kilter the fees are. they are absolutely insane at the moment.

It is same for blockchain.info wallet which i am using right now they also calculate exact amount even with some satoshi defference to be more accurate. They also don't tell what will be the size, they just show recommended fee but i think both mycelium and blockchain wallet don't put any extra amount on top of recommended amount because they can't get any profit doing so fees goes to miner not to them.

[European Central Bank]

It is same for blockchain.info wallet which i am using right now they also calculate exact amount even with some satoshi defference to be more accurate. They also don't tell what will be the size, they just show recommended fee but i think both mycelium and blockchain wallet don't put any extra amount on top of recommended amount because they can't get any profit doing so fees goes to miner not to them.

i'm sure it's a miner trying to fleece me rather than any wallet provider, but i'd still like to know if it's in line with other wallets out there. the fees it wants make bitcoin borderline useless to me now.

[K~Ehleyr]

Lol oh gees... I do understand what you mean about when you want to send a certain amount and only have that amount but you need to have more, why do you only buy the exact amount ? That is not how you use bitcoin.

Anyway.... A transaction was 0.0001 before the halving it is now recommended 0.0005 but I have got away with 0.0001btc on smaller transactions. I think for large ones like you are making you may need a slightly bigger one so maybe double that size 0.001btc like the first poster said ?

Heehee, I'm definitely starting to feel OCD    Seriously, if somebody gave me a gift of 0.2499 bitcoins I would have to go and buy another 0.0001 just to round it up    I'm going to have to get my head round buying more and staying "over" though, for the sake of the fees, because I can't stand being "under"  

I think I now have the suggestions and guidance I wanted, so I'll now lock this thread before the farmers get here.  Thank you for all your replies