In 2014 I moved to New York from Italy. It was a huge leap of faith, I was betting on a relationship with a man that I knew for 10 years but that I really didn’t know much about him.
Emotionally moving was easy, I loved New York and I was able to find a job in the beverage sector so I didn’t have to change my career. My parents were supportive, so I didn’t suffer much.
Operationally, it was quite easy too: 2 pieces of luggage with all I could need. Yes, I left many clothes at my parent’s house! That’s probably where I started learning about having a minimalistic wardrobe…
The biggest concern about the moving was my bank account (and after I moved here, I had to learn also how to deal with American Banks and what a credit score is).
I was lucky that in that period a very cool platform just started and I saw the advertising on the NYC Subway. Eddie actually saw it too. I gave it a try and I have moved all my money in these past years.
I love Transferwise. At the begining, you could transfer just between your own personal accounts, so for me it was from Italy to USA.
In 2016 my parents lend us some money to buy the apartment. At the time Transferwise was still dealing with only personal owned account, so my parents did a transfer to my Italian account and then I was able to move the money. As the fees are not high and they are actually calculated with a fix part and a percentage of the transfered amount, the good thing was that I could keep an eye on the exchange rate and choose the best days so that I can get the most of my euros.
After few years they introduced the possibility of sending money also to other receipients and this is how now we can repay the loan that my family gave us.
One other good improvement that they made is that before you had to send money in an account in an East European country ( I don’t remember which one) while now you send it to a domestic bank (in my case in California).
They also introduced a new borderless account which also has a debit card attached to it. This is the next thing I will study in this website and if it makes sense (which I think it might as the bank fees are always very high), I will open it. I will keep you posted on the features.
I never paid attention to exchange rates before moving (also because being in the European Community, I was not used anymore to change money for my travels) but when I started to look at them, in the last few years some much changed. See the chart here: it is quite crazy!
I wished I started moving my money right after I arrived in New York City: my apartment would have costed 10-15% less than what I paid.
Of course, you can’t have the cristal ball but now I make my routine to have a look at how the dollar and the euro are doing 😉
I transfered more than euro $ 60,000 in 5 years. Transferwise was perfect.
If you are in need of exchanging money, there is no bank or bureau office that can make as easy and fast as this platform. The fees are really low and they are clearly stated every time you want to start a transaction.
I love using it and I suggest you try it too: if you accept my invitation, you will have the fee waived for the first transfer. Here is the link: bit.ly/FGMtransferwise
Just to recap:
– you can use Transferwise to move saving, to study tuitions in a foreign country, even to receive an inheritance
– More than 7 million users send $ 5 billion every month
– The investors of the platform are very cool people, like Virgin and Seedcamp
Let me know if it worked well for you too, and most of all let me know where you are travelling or expatriating 😉
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