Sending money home

emfitz

Hey everyone,

Just wondering whats the best way to send savings home. We've started saving to buy a house when we go home in 2years ish.

Is it better to send home once a month or 2 through internet banking or how would you go about it down the line in one big lump sum??

Any advice appreciated

Em

Peregrinus

Whichever incurs the lowest transaction costs, which is likely to be sending it all in one big lump.

A separate question is whether you should be saving in euros or in Australian dollars. This depends on whether you like to take a risk and, if so, whether you particularly like to take the risk that you can forecast exchange rate movements better than others.

If you're risk-averse then you should be saving in euros, since you are saving to defray a cost which will be denomoninated in euros. You don;t have to send money home to do this; you can open a euro bank account with an Australian bank, and from time to time convert your savings to euros and lodge them to that account.

If you do this steadily over the two years you will effectively get more or less the average euro/dollar exchange rate over that period.

irishmover

Transfer through currencyfair.com I've used it myself although for only $1000 but it got me the best and cheapest deal. I shopped around for 2 weeks and couldn't find anywhere else that got me more euro for the dollar than that website.

From what I've heard you get taxed on anything over $5000 (with any transfer agency). Only hearsay haven't seen facts on it yet.

So would be worth looking into if you are thinking of transferring over that amount.

Xavi6

emfitz wrote: »

Is it better to send home once a month or 2 through internet banking or how would you go about it down the line in one big lump sum??

Which bank are you with? Not all of them allow overseas transfers through online banking and you would be required to do a Telegraphic Transfer which attracts a fee each time (one bank is $35 a go for example).

Peregrinus wrote: »

If you're risk-averse then you should be saving in euros, since you are saving to defray a cost which will be denomoninated in euros. You don;t have to send money home to do this; you can open a euro bank account with an Australian bank, and from time to time convert your savings to euros and lodge them to that account.

If you do this steadily over the two years you will effectively get more or less the average euro/dollar exchange rate over that period.

Banks tend to only open foreign currency accounts for business customers with a certain amount of money to deposit so the OP might not meet their criteria. Worth a look though.

At this stage you'll get more bang for your buck by saving in an Oz account with a higher interest rate than those back home, then transferring large amounts to Ireland to take advantage of the strong exchange rate in favour of the dollar.

hussey

OP have a read through this thread: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=77267546

Do NOT use a bank - you will save a fortune using currency fair

Also in regards to frequency, obviously one lump will have a lower fee (not much using CF) but also you probably want to think about the exchange rate

If you believe the $ will go higher then hold on till one lump, if lower then do it more frequently

emfitz

Thanks Everyone,

I'm with Westpac and have previously transferred sums of less than 5000, usually a 20$ fee..

I think I'll look into currency fair and also keep an eye on the rates. I would rather save here the way things are at home at the mo...

I was home recently and went in to the bank about savings account i had at home and the rates they were offering were ridiculous.

hussey

Yeah CF has around a $3 fee, you'll get a much higher savings rate here (6.5% with uBank) but you need to pay tax on that, have a look into opening an Irish rabo bank saving account, they'll have one of the highest savings rate,

Theimprover

Might be a stupid question but what about it:D.

Is there any law against sending cash home to Ireland on regular basis, say 5k a month?

Peregrinus

Theimprover wrote: »

Might be a stupid question but what about it:D.

Is there any law against sending cash home to Ireland on regular basis, say 5k a month?

No.