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First: My question is to those that live in Costa Rica but still has mail/accounts/bills in the US, how do you deal with those? Do you still use credit cards opened here in the US or do you get new credit cards there in Costa Rica?
How do most take care of bills that are here in the US?
Second: What’s the best solution for having mail and packages delivered to Costa Rica?
Thanks.
We live in Costa Rica and maintain bank accounts both here and in the U.S. Our U.S. bank account receives our pension checks. It also provides us with VISA debit cards which work in any ATM which has the Plus or Cirrus network affiliations and anyplace where VISA is accepted.
Once we are eligible for Social Security, we will have those monthly payments deposited in our Costa Rican bank account. The State of Michigan won’t deposit our pensions outside the U.S.
For recurring bills in the U.S., we have either set up pre-authorized checks to be drawn monthly from our U.S. account or we have scheduled payments to be made via on-line banking. In one instance, a biller simply bills our account monthly using our VISA debit card account number.
Since our income is initially deposited in our U.S. bank, and since our debit and credit cards work so well here, we see no advantage to having a Costa Rican credit card account. We also have U.S.-origin credit card accounts.
Periodically, we have our U.S. bank initiate an international wire transfer to send money directly to our account in Costa Rica. It works well, but it ain’t cheap.
We have found that the mail forwarding service which is included in membership in the Association of Residents of Costa Rica is the best way for us to get mail and packages forwarded from the U.S. Like other mail forwarders, they give you an identification number (“SJO-XXXX) and both a P.O. Box and a physical address in Miami, Florida to which you can have mail and merchandise delivered. ARCR’s rates are better than other services’. U.S. mailers and shippers, some of whom will not send outside the U.S., have a U.S. address to which to forward your stuff.
The downside of ARCR’s service is that you must go to San Jose to get your mail and packages. For us that’s not a problem, but if you live far away you may want to investigate other services. You can call the mailroom to see if you have anything to pick up.
Whether you use ARCR’s service or another one, you’ll find that mail forwarding isn’t cheap. Whatever you can do to minimize what’s sent to you will save you money and trips to retrieve it. We’ve had all our bank and credit card statements converted to on-line delivery, but our life insurance and annuity statements must, by law, be delivered via U.S. mail and on paper, so we’re stuck paying for those.
Dave,
I heard that it wasn’t cheap to have your Social Security checks sent to Costa Rica, around $50. a month. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to have it deposited in an U.S. account. and transfer money periodically to a CR account to satisfy your Pensionado status to turn dollars into Colones?Thanks David.
If someone has any other answer to my other question, it would be greatly appreciated. Where do you have your US mail delivered (such as account statements, mortgage, etc.) ? Surely you don’t have all of them forwarded to Costa Rica?
THanks.
Peg, it is my (perhaps imperfect) understanding that there is no cost to have your Social Security check deposited in a Costa Rican bank. No one has ever mentioned such a cost to me anyway. If, indeed, direct deposit to a Costa Rican bank is free, then that’s much cheaper than doing international wire transfers.
Kim, first get everything you can converted to e-statements. Then do whatever you can to turn off the rest — bank and mortgage statements, etc. Take yourself off every mailing list you can. We prefer not to depend upon anyone in the U.S. to receive our mail, etc, so it goes to our mail forwarding address as I described in my first reply.
As I said above, ARCR includes mail forwarding in your membership privileges. A single letter-size envelope forwarded from Miami to San Jose costs $.70US. Sometimes, they put two or three such envelopes together for the same $.70. It costs about $1.00 to have Consumer Reports forwarded.
ARCR also provides for the forwarding of packages you might buy from on-line retailers and the shipment of larger items.
I have banked @ Washington Mutual for 10 years now and have their WAMU Free Checking which does not charge me anything for wire transfers. Many Credit Unions do not charge either. The usual charge from WAMU is $40 per transfer. If you do a lot of wire transfers, I would check with your bank on upgrading your account to eliminate wire transfer charges. Also, I receive and pay mortgage statements, credit card, telephone, power, satellite TV, drinking water bills, etc. all electronically.
Wait a minute . . . Does or does not WAMU charge for international wire transfers? If yes, how much?
Since we have a Washington Mutual bank close by, I wanted to check this out. There website at wamu.com does list free foreign and domestic wire transfers. It also states ***Wire Transfer: Non-refundable foreign currency exchange charges and intermediary and beneficiary bank fees may apply. I am currently with AmSouth in Florida, and they have been charging me $35.00 for my wire transfers. It may be time to change banks!
Interesting, I thought I read on the SSA website that they wouldn’t pay into a foreign bank account. Of course, so much of the information I am finding on their website turns out to be outdated or whatever!
I guess I need to go to a SSA office and see a real person!
Tom
PortlandTom,
I have a booklet I picked up at the SSA office titled “Your Payments while You Are Outside The United States”. CR is listed as a country that you may receive payments in, however it does not list them in the countries that you can receive direct deposit in. They say to determine if direct deposit or other forms of electronic payment is available in the country where you live, contact th U.S.Embassy or consulate or U.S. SSA office. Either way I’m thinking there has got to be a fee associated with this, especially if they do an electronic transfer. There must be some Ex-pat out there reading this receiving their S.S check in Costa Rica.I just responded in one of the other discussion threads that receiving your Social Security payment via direct deposit to a Costa Rican bank is possible. And I think I know that Banco Nacional will charge you about $10 for this.
It’s been my experience that whenever a Costa Rican bank receives money via electronic transfer from the U.S. it charges a fee. That’s been my experience with both Banco National and Banco Banex, anyway.
I just got off the phone with Social Security, they said there is no direct deposit to banks in Costa Rica. CR is not on their list of participating countries. So I guess the only option is to keep your U.S. bank account and transfer money as needed or use your ATM card.
I just got off the phone with two friends who both receive Social Security payments here in Costa Rica. Peg, what you learned is and is not true.
What is true is that The Social Security Administration will not do *direct* deposit to a Costa Rican bank. What they will do, however, is a direct deposit to a U.S. bank which can then automatically transfer the money to your bank in Costa Rica.
Both my friends bank at Banco Nacional. They went to Banco Nacional, completed a short form, and arranged to have their Social Security pensions deposited in Banco Nacional by a bank in New York. Banco Nacional takes care of the whole works. My friends did not have to deal with Social Security or the New York bank.
For the service of receiving the transfer from the New York bank, Banco Nacional charges my friends $6.00US per month.
So, while Social Security won’t do a direct deposit to a Costa Rican bank, direct deposit is nevertheless available.
By the way, when we transfer money from our U.S. bank to Banco Banex, here in Costa Rica, that transfer, too, is routed through a bank (The Bank of New York) in (you guessed it . . .) New York.
David,
Thanks so much for that information, that will really make things easier. Are there Banco Nacional branches spread through out CR, (especially Central Pacific, Southern Nicoya)?
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