Mr Good Provider. Grunt.
Feb. 1st, 2003 10:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reddragdivaFinally convinced ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
redcountess that thrashing herself to exhaustion working thirty hours a week at T*l*t*ch is actually a BAD idea with all the shit she has to get organised, and that her enormous Australian wage is actually about 2p. (Well, £450 a month after tax. That is, a quarter of my wage after tax.)
So, I'm yet again after good ways to get money to Australia that aren't MoneyGrams. Specifics if possible - things you've actually done, what it cost and whether the exchange rate was ruinous.
Update: Yeah, banks, including mine, apparently do just the thing I need. Will enquire forthwith.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-01 03:57 am (UTC)*sound of Daniels brain breaking rings out from Camp Daniel*
(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-01 04:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-01 04:13 am (UTC)It's like seeing beer cans dance...
No offence intended towards the good Rev of course...
(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-01 04:20 am (UTC)And you seem to have a short memory about all the food and drink he bought people when he was in Australia.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-01 06:21 am (UTC)This is just being nice...
It's very different.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-02 01:18 am (UTC)I am having some difficulty correlating these perceptions of my life with my life. Explaining further probably won't help.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-02 01:37 am (UTC)I think you'd had a few at the time :P
(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-02 02:17 am (UTC)I really don't see how recognising that there are ways to play the social game implies that I wouldn't do things for people I like - or, in particular, am marrying - with the only benefit for me being happiness that their life is improved.
I do consider myself an ethical person and put quite a lot of thought and effort into being one, so your comments did come across as unduly obnoxious.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-02 02:43 am (UTC)Wait.. I think this is one of those lack of body language on the net makes semi-serious comment go sour.
Imagine me with my trademark smirk saying all of this thread..
Oh, that's even worse innit? :P
Well, apologies and all that since you were offended.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-02 09:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-03 09:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-01 04:11 am (UTC)The transfer is directly into the account and for 25 pounds it's there in 2 days, for something like 10 pounds it takes 4 days.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-01 07:10 am (UTC)Paypal's probably a really bad idea? I was going to look into that in the autumn, but my brother found a way to live without me sending him money, so I never got round to it.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-01 08:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-01 08:51 am (UTC)But in reality however you do it it's cheaper to send lump sums of lots of money rather than a little regularly.
The Absolute cheapest way would have been to give her an atm card on your account and just let her draw it out, depending on how much your bank charges for international withdrawls. But that's how my friends in the US deal with their money being in UK banks...
(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-01 12:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-01 02:44 pm (UTC)When I was in the UK and wanted to smuggle money back to Australia I just went to the bank and got them to draw a cheque in $A.. I can't remember what it cost, though, and once you've done that, and posted it, and had it cleared into the Australian bank, well over a week has gone by..
Maybe you could each set up a Paypal account and move money through that? ("No! Paypal sucks (http://www.paypalsucks.com/)", screams the chorus)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-01 04:22 am (UTC)But then I went to talk to their special service person about saving for a house and eventually getting a mortgage and stuff, and suddenly she was all over me like a rash, and she said "is there anything else I can help you with" and I told her I wanted to set that international wire transfer up as a regular recurring payment so I didn't have to come into the bank branch, and was there any way to reduce the fees? Well, she managed to set it up to recur (something I had been told by the lesser flunkies was impossible), and then she told me I could get some kind of "gold service" account where if I paid $25/year then there'd be no extra fees, which ended up saving me $25 per MONTH.
The exchange rate is standard bank exchange rate, and I still pay some kind of fee on it that isn't my bank's fee but some other kind of fee, but it's about $10 (5 quid) a hit instead of 30-something, which on a $600 transfer (which is what I send each month) isn't that big a deal.
K.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-01 08:58 am (UTC)My favourite solution is to actually go to Canada and use my two atm cards to do a manual transfer, because then I get the nervousness of holding that much cash in my hands for 20 seconds. :) This, of course, has the limitation of a maximum daily withdrawal from my US account.
So, in other words, yes, they make it as hard as possible to move money internationally.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-01 09:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-02 11:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-06 01:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-02-06 01:43 pm (UTC)