Never Retire: Every Detail On How I Opened A Spanish Bank Account

It was easy and efficient

Pursuant to yesterday’s Never Retire newsletter installment, if you believe the things you read online, you’d think Spanish banks are the equivalent of loan shark meets keystone cop.

Another theme that gets cemented into the turf online is that—when you move to Spain, prepare for things to not be as convenient and efficient as they are in the United States. I’m working up an entire post on convenience and efficiency in Spain.

Preview—so far—things run way more smoothly and logically here than they do in my country of birth. I’m also working up a post about watching the sociopolitical situation in the place I called home for 49.5 years deteriorate into an embarrassing, incompetent and pathetically racist and xenophobic mess. But we’ll save the view of America from Spain for another day.

As I noted on Sunday, I was anxious and nervous as my wife and I waited for our turn to meet with a bank employee to open an account.

There’s something about assimilating the complaints, gripes, pisses, moans and horror stories you read online, then going to have the experience yourself that makes everything here feel like you’re 12 again and about to get vaccinated. Then—after you go through the process—you turn to the doctor with bewilderment.

I didn’t even know you stuck the needle in my arm. That wasn’t so bad. And I get a lollipop. Amazing.

You don’t receive candy, but you do receive candor alongside a real-time, real-life account of what it’s like to move abroad when you briefly open your bank account and subscribe to the Never Retire newsletter.

The best value comes with a founding membership. Pick an amount from $100 and I immediately convert you to a lifetime subscriber meaning you pay once and never pay again.

So, a Puerto Rican and an Italian-American walk into a bank…