International banking

Here's a boring post for you.

When traveling and working your way around the world, you're likely to open a bunch of different bank accounts. When you leave a country, you want all your money on one account so you have a good overview, and to avoid accumulating banking fees.

International bank transfers are an absolute mess. Both banks need to be contacted, both banks charge a (steep!) fee (easily 20$ on either side regardless of the amount that is transferred, + sometimes a percentage on the total), and the procedure takes 10 or so business days. Old school.

The solution I've come up with (it's a workaround, there's probably an app out there that does this better) is this:

Create two paypal accounts (one for my Belgian bank, and one for the Canadian bank). Getting money on paypal or from paypal to a bank account costs nothing, transferring money between paypal accounts is cheap (5$ or so I think), the procedure takes a few business days.

Tadaa.

(Another money saving tip, if you officially earn less than about 10800$ per tax year in Canada you do not pay any taxes (I worked December - March, which split my income into two tax years). If you're a dollar over the limit you pay taxes on the full amount, so it can make a big difference).