Stealing from Peter to Pay Paul, Intelligently

I have a confession to make, July is a rubbish month for me and money.  As a freelancer, I know that money comes in waves.  In the past, I have let July sneak up on me and then I have had to do a mad scramble to pay my bills.  Now to avoid that stress in May, I put in my On-line diary to save up for July so I remember.

Unfortunately there are always times when we will have to scrabble for money and if you a smart about it won’t cost you a fortune in fees.  I am not condoning being unprepared but sometimes needs must.

I do my money juggling in a couple of ways – I am an Expat, so I still maintain a bank account in the US.  I have done some research and found out that most banks have special relationships with other banks.  For instance, if you bank with Bank of America then you can get money out of the Barclay’s cash point for no charge.  Which is good to know whether you are moving funds or just on holiday.

I also use Paypal to move my money.  In general, when I sell items on Etsy in dollars I move that money into my US reserve account to save paying for the exchange rate to convert it into Pound Sterling.  Then if I am selling items for Sterling on Ebay, I move that money into my British account.  The other thing I do, is hedge my bets, if I am going to need some funds in the very near future I leave them in my Paypal account until I do.  I know Paypal does not pay interest but sometimes you need to account for the time it takes to do the transfer.  Paypal takes about 5 working days to get your money moved into your account.

I am sure that you, my lovely readers know some other tricks to moving your money around so drop me a line.  I must stress that I NEVER use a cash until payday loan!