[willsken]

I went and changed our start up money into traveler’s cheques today and as we were standing at the counter Ian helpfully asked if this was the most cost effective method of taking our little fund over with us. I looked at him very knowledgeably and said “of course it is dear…. Would I be buying them if not?”

Hmmm…. have I done the right thing? :exit :roll :roll

[Smiler]

Not sure there's a wrong or right Nicola, we didn't come with much money anyway. We withdrew cash from ATM's (Nationwide Flexaccount) and paid stuff on our UK credit cards, both accounts Nationwide and AN.

Nationwide don't charge for foreign withdrawals and the rate was good, AN wasn't such a good rate though. We came out pretty quick though (10 days), so different for us.

Can't you transfer funds into your NZ account from your UK account and then withdraw from ATM's, or use one of the money transfer systems.

We also took all our foreign currency to the airport currency exchange (we'd had a mixture of stuff from OH working in Europe) and changed that into NZ$, not much but it meant we had some $$ incase of emergency.

HTH D x

[wanderingoregonian]

I took over a bit of cash in traveler's checks - mostly just to cover rent when I got here... I'm finding that it may have been easier to just get here, open an account, and then wire money over. ATM's are easy for getting starter funds (enough to open account). On the other hand, its quite easy to pop into any major bank and have them cash them. The rate doesn't seem all that great, but I haven't done the math to sort out how it compares to just taking money out of an ATM...

Part of my difficulty was that we opted to go with a 'non-bank,' a sort of saving institution similar to a co-op or credit union back in the states. They aren't able to cash traveller's checks, so I've been doing a lot of running to one bank to cash some checks (seeing the American dollar tanking and only cashing as much as I need just in case the American dollar does a bit better next week - not likely I know...) then back to mine to deposit. I also didn't realize that my first pay check would take FOREVER to clear with all the bank holidays and such.