Never Retire: Big Banks Can Be The Absolute Worst

Moving money when you're moving abroad

At the end of today’s post, alongside some cool images and right before the heart button, what to expect in the next four (or so) newsletters.

Coffee experts, particularly those living in Spain or the EU. We need some help.

In the United States, we were using Cafe La Llave in Los Angeles. Supermarket coffee, nothing fancy, but we like it. And it produces a good, strong cup in an Italian coffee maker (cafetera Italiana, la Greca). Two heaping scoops and we’re good.

Is there a Cuban or other equivalent that’s widely available in Spain or the EU?

As I plan to discuss in a couple of days, when our kitchen setup and grocery/eating rituals, routines and tendencies become firmly set, we will likely be close to, if not, settled in. Of course, it’s difficult to achieve this stability as you await residence permit approval and live in temporary accommodations!

But the cool thing is I am not saying I can’t wait for X, Y or Z to happen. I often fall victim to this. More than once (a day) prior to moving I said, I can’t wait until we move to Spain. Now, we’re here. And—yeah—I want the residence permit to get approved.

But I am enjoying the time before I enjoy the more hectic time of completing task after task after task once we’re officially residents of Spain.

One of the most important—and potentially daunting—aspects of moving abroad is how you will move and manage your money abroad. One of the benefits of not having a ton of money—or owning property—is that it makes everything feel like less of a big deal.

We deal in relatively small numbers and not that many moving parts. I prefer to function like this in as many aspects of life as possible.

That said, we have been paying close attention to how to organize everything—from transfers to currency conversions to, eventually, Spanish bank accounts—for two years.

Now, a review of—

What we have done. What we think we will do. How it’s going. How we think it will go. And a little, easily resolvable, but still an annoying problem we ran into the other day as big banks butt heads with the FinTechs biting at their ankles and punching high.