I'm a dual citizen who moved back to Canada seven years ago after living in the States most of my life. I still have a US bank account in Vermont that I use for cash and other expenses while traveling in the US (all my siblings live in the US, and my employer is based there). But I'm paid in Canadian dollars and most of my money and assets are here now.
My current strategy is to use a TD Borderless account to get a good rate for conversions from Canadian to US dollars. But this is problematic because the nearest TD branch is a good 45 minutes from my place and there aren't that many TD ATMs in my city, so I don't have my main account there. I pay $60/year for my Borderless account, and given that I typically transfer only two or three thousand bucks a year I'm not sure it's actually gaining me much. I know you can get a free Borderless account with TD's premium banking package, but as I said, TD is not a very practical choice where I live. Plus, I'd rather not tie up $5,000 just to get a free account.
From the Borderless account, I write cheques in US dollars and deposit them in my TD bank account in the US. If your US branch is based in Maine you can have the transfers done wirelessly without cheques, but my branch is in Vermont so I can't do that. I used to just write cheques in Canadian dollars and have them do the conversion, but they charge a hefty fee and the conversion rate is lousy so I was losing quite a bit with every deposit.
I assume there's got to be a better way to do this. I do have an ING account and notice that they have a US dollar account option, but I still have to be able to transfer that money to my TD bank in the US. Anyone have ideas?
The key points are:
1. I don't keep a lot of money in my US-based account, always less than $5K and usually less than $1K. It's really just for cash and miscellaneous expenses while traveling.
2. I'd like to keep things simple and minimize fees.
My current strategy is to use a TD Borderless account to get a good rate for conversions from Canadian to US dollars. But this is problematic because the nearest TD branch is a good 45 minutes from my place and there aren't that many TD ATMs in my city, so I don't have my main account there. I pay $60/year for my Borderless account, and given that I typically transfer only two or three thousand bucks a year I'm not sure it's actually gaining me much. I know you can get a free Borderless account with TD's premium banking package, but as I said, TD is not a very practical choice where I live. Plus, I'd rather not tie up $5,000 just to get a free account.
From the Borderless account, I write cheques in US dollars and deposit them in my TD bank account in the US. If your US branch is based in Maine you can have the transfers done wirelessly without cheques, but my branch is in Vermont so I can't do that. I used to just write cheques in Canadian dollars and have them do the conversion, but they charge a hefty fee and the conversion rate is lousy so I was losing quite a bit with every deposit.
I assume there's got to be a better way to do this. I do have an ING account and notice that they have a US dollar account option, but I still have to be able to transfer that money to my TD bank in the US. Anyone have ideas?
The key points are:
1. I don't keep a lot of money in my US-based account, always less than $5K and usually less than $1K. It's really just for cash and miscellaneous expenses while traveling.
2. I'd like to keep things simple and minimize fees.