Elaine M

Hi all,

Can anyone give me some advice please?

I'm going over to Adelaide with my family in February to validate visas.

While I'm there I need to buy a car to get around; I can't drive a standard hire car due to a disability that means I need an automatic car specially adapted for me. I'm emigrating in august/September any way so my sister will look after it for me when I come back in March to sell the house etc in the UK.

My plan is to open an Aus bank account in the next few days and transfer some money into it, to use as spemnding money while we're in Adelaide.

What I'm unsure about is the best way to buy the car; I don't have enough cash to cover spending money and the car but I know I can pull some out of my flexible mortgage as I've been overpaying for quite a while, and I've got a credit card with a high limit that's currently got a nil balance.

I'm expecting to need about £10k to cover the car (planning to spend around $15-18k) and spending money for our trip.

My question is, should I get the money together and transfer the £10k either through the bank or a company like Halewood, or should I just use my credit card and sort out the balance when I get back?

My gut instinct is that it could cost me more to go through the credit card company but I don't want to tie up a lot of time going back and forth to, say, the Commonwealth Bank to arrange the payment for the car. Nor do I want to carry that kind of cash about!!

I know there have been threads on money transfers/Exchange rates and bank accounts before but I've not found any specific examples like mine (trust me to be awkward )

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Elaine

podgypossum

Hi Elaine...only my personal opinion, but i would just get the car on credit card. You can then sort it out when you get back. It can take a coupl eof weeks for the money to be transferred and usable in your new Oz account so the earlier its done the better.

BTW...i hope you not gonna land here and not let me buy you a drink!!!

phillip knapp

You best check if they will take full payment for the car on credit card. In uk they only take the deposit on card.

Philanthropist5

Do you have any rellies or freinds (you can trust) that you can wire the money to. You can wire direct from most high st. banks.

sean

RichS

I am of course marvellously biased,
but I suggest you open a credit union account, get it linked to a visa/mastercard debit card, then transfer your cash into it.
tell the CU what you want to do - they are way more personal and helpful than banks.
The advantages would be:
1. you would have an AUD account
2. with the debit card you would have global access to your cash should you need it
3. the TT should only take 2-3 days to process
4. with a debit card you'll avoid all those ghastly eftpos etc charges that Australian banks like to force on you.

Of course to be even more tax efficient you could open an offshore account in AUD, but that'll take a bit more subtlelty