togooff&things

OK, I was horrified to find out last week that even though the Clydesdale bank have their headquaters in Australia, they have no pay into able banks there. So my car loan would have to be paid off in a oner before I go (still got a few grand to pay but am needing all I can take with me as I've no house to sell!) SO, I wondereed if credit card (non bank based) was the answer. If I get a credit card to pay the balance off to the bank, can I pay back credit cards in OZ? Anyone any ideas, how I can save my self from having to pay off the loan 1st? When I sell the car, I was hopeing the money I got I could bring to OZ! They did suggest that i ship over the cash to UK and get someone to pay it in here - not an option as I do not have anyone here able to do that - and what a hasstle! Help! Any Ideas?

Quinkana

You could try Living Below Your Means or Dealing with Debt or catching a few extra squid.

Trevglas

I still have a bank loan in the UK, and to make the payments, I kept my UK bank account going. I initially told my bank I was going overseas, but gave them my parents address as a contact point until I got a permanent address. The bank whom I have the loan with also knows I am overseas, and have my contact details

This means regular transfers of cash over to the UK, and paying out the loan by standing order from the uK account.

The downsides to this are:

1. getting hit a fee for telegraphic transfer each time I transfer cash to the UK

2. Varying exchange rates.

An alternative would be to try to get a loan here to pay off the UK in full (tricky until you have built up a decent credit rating).

The only problem I have had was when my sons came over to visit. I lent them some cash, and asked them to repay it into my UK account, to save me the transfer fee. One son was unable to pay the cash in on time, so I had to make one short payment.

The bank in question immediately defaulted the loan, and passed it to a debt collector. However, every cloud has a silver lining: I spoke immediately with the debt collectors, and they couldnt understand the banks attitude; they also suggested a lower monthly payment than I was making to the bank "to allow for currency fluctuations". This, plus the fact that any bad UK credit rating does NOT have any standing in Australia, may prove to be a positive windfall!

Hope this is of help

togooff&things

Yeh, thanks for that. What a huge hasstle though every month though. Do you have to manually transfer varying amounts to your UK bank or does your Oz bank do it for you automatically? There must be an easier way, surely!

togooff&things

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AH! Didn't see these were links....just thought you were belittleing my dilema...haha...ok thanks for that. ( you almost got a very different reply! Glad I waited and found the links 1st! )

Trevglas

Done manually: even if automatic telegraphic payments were possible, the vagaries of exchange rates would soon screw that up! The nice thing is on my aussie banks internet banking page, you just enter the amount in pounds you want to transfer, and the conversion is done automatically, at the current exchange rate. It does pay to transfer 5-10 pounds extra just in case.

What I try to do is pay over as much as I can spare to save transferring cash later: for instance, if I pick up a bonus or tax rebate, then that all goes over to the UK to save having to transfer anything for several months.

If you have a UK based credit card, you will find you have to pay it through the UK anyway, and then not only do you have the transfer fees to find, but also the higher interest on the credit card

togooff&things

Lordy! This is a can of worms that I was hopeing was a tin of beans!

Pollyana

Hiya,
I have a UK loan and UK credit cards, and being broke when I came out to get married I couldn't pay them off first.
I pay them all monthly as follows:
Keep a UK account open with internet banking access, and set up payments to the relevant companies. Then set up an Aussie account with internet access.
Register with someone like www.tranzfers.com
Then you can move as little as £50 at a time from Oz to the UK via the net, it goes into a Tranzfers account, turns into pounds, then goes to your UK account. Then use it to pay the bills. Its cheaper than telegraphic transfers - this costs £7/$15 per transfer and takes about 3/4 days.

Haven't told any of them I am here to stay, just that its temporary, and as long as the money keeps rolling in they are happy.

Hope that makes sense, if not let me know and I'll try and explain it without the influence of Baileys! I've been using the system since November, and had no problems yet.

togooff&things

Yes, I'll have to check it all out deeper! I thoguh there may have been an easy solution, but look like there's probably not a legal one- lol! HMM.....research time I guess. Baileys- hmmmmmmm! My favie......have one for me!
x

Pollyana

No easy solution I'm afraid - I went into this long and hard before I left the UK, knowing I would have bills to pay,and this was the cheapest way I came up with. Just means moving cash each month via the internet, and actually takes very litle time, though it hurts to wave goodbye to those dollars! Having said that, I still use 2 of the credit cards as there is no way of paying them off totally.
Its OK for peple with houses or whatever to sell, but I had no assets, and didn't really want to follow the "abandon all your debts" route.

togooff&things

I'm the same. No house. Hey in at the deep end and why not! I would hate the "abandon" route - as that would ensure no return. Tricky though! That'll be hard to juggle, I'll have to consolidate! Visa card and car loan. Hey, perhaps I'll win the lottery!

togooff&things

You say you still use credit cards: were they UK cards and are you having to pay them the same transfer way?

Pollyana

Yep, they are UK cards, I can view the bills on the net, and pay them by internet banking out of a Lloyds current account. The problem is that the UK wil not accept payment in $ so somewhere the money has to be turned into £ - hence the use of Tranzfers as a middle man that does the conversion. Haven't found anyone cheaper, and they will deal with small amounts - many telegarphic transfers etc want a large amount to be moved at a time. I generally move about £300 a month, £7 a go.

bondipom

If you can pay off the loan first do so. It will take a lot longer and a lot more money to pay off from here. Having a financial clean start helps enourmously and those pound amounts seem a lot larger when converted to dollars and you add in transfer fees and your new aussie wage.

That hassle of paying in the UK will seem the easier option over here.

For the student loan I have put a year of repayments in a bank account in the UK which will pay off the student loan when I can no longer defer. I will then have to save up at least 1 years repayments and send that over in 1 lump sum to minimise transaction fees. Check out www.slc.co.uk for info on your loan. I am on the older style loan.

If have not got the cash I feel sorry for you as it is a pain in the butt paying off UK debts from here.