A few financial questions (don't fall asleep!!)

[flowershoes 2]

My fiancee and I receieved our 3rd Packet today! This is fabulous news, of course, and we're bloody stoked. The only problem is that I had a timeline that stretched a five month wait to receive our FIRST packet, so everything is happening a LOT faster than I'd planned. THIS means I still owe the bank a bit of money thanks to a car lease I had to pay out. My question to you guys:

What are your thoughts about heading overseas with Aussie debt? Do you think it's manageable? Has anyone here done it?

[S-C 21]

I headed to London with a debt still in Australia. It's not a problem. Just send regular payments back to Australia to cover the repayments.

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT, do a transfer through your bank in the US (once you open an account). It will be expensive and you will not get a good exchange rate. Do some research on companies that do wire transfers. I use Transferwise, I am pretty sure they also transfer from the US to Australia.

One thing to note, there will be a $20 fee on top of any fee you pay for the transfer. This covers the intermediary bank fees.

Hope this helps.

[VanessaTony 3,567]

My fiancee and I receieved our 3rd Packet today! This is fabulous news, of course, and we're bloody stoked. The only problem is that I had a timeline that stretched a five month wait to receive our FIRST packet, so everything is happening a LOT faster than I'd planned. THIS means I still owe the bank a bit of money thanks to a car lease I had to pay out. My question to you guys:

What are your thoughts about heading overseas with Aussie debt? Do you think it's manageable? Has anyone here done it?

I tried it. I maintained an Aussie bank account with paypal and a US bank account with paypal. It's the cheapest method I've found, and it's realtively easy but takes up to 10 days for the transfer to complete.

The problem I had was the up and down of the dollar. Some months it cost me more (because of the exchange rate) than other months. Pay here depends on your job (and state) and employment can be harder to get than some people realise. So I paid it in full.

A better option might be for you to get a loan from here to pay it off in full. Then you need to only worry about the loan here.

Also remember that you can delay returning packet 3 to slow down your process. As well as asking for an interview past a certain date. You also have 6 months to use the visa. So there is still time.

[Darnell 8,479]

If it's a car lease, why not return it to the dealer, take the penalty, 2 days before your flight to the USA, instead ?

[flowershoes 2]

If it's a car lease, why not return it to the dealer, take the penalty, 2 days before your flight to the USA, instead ?

Sadly not an option in my case. My choices were either to refinance then sell privately (which is what I did), or have it repossessed by the dealer and cop their fees. Sadly I didn't manage to sell it for the same amount as the lease amount, so I'm left with a hefty difference that I've got to pay off

[flowershoes 2]

A better option might be for you to get a loan from here to pay it off in full. Then you need to only worry about the loan here.

Also remember that you can delay returning packet 3 to slow down your process. As well as asking for an interview past a certain date. You also have 6 months to use the visa. So there is still time.

Yeah, that's what we're looking at doing, once I get there. It just hurts the back pocket a little when you want to start a new life but still have the old one to pay off! Ah well. Life lessons, right?!

ALSO an option, yes. But we've been soooo unbelievably lucky with how fast everything is going it just seems like such a shame to put that gained time to waste

[S-C 21]

I found that depending on how much you wish to send back to Australia, it may be useful to go with an actual financial services company. For larger amounts you will get a better exchange rate (i.e. anything over $750 I use a company). For lower than that PayPal is the way to go.