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I will be moving to cr in aug.of 07 with a pension.
Does anyone know how I will be able to receive it in cr from California?
Check with whomever will be paying your pension. Social Security will direct deposit your monthly check in a Costa Rican bank. Some pension plans (the State of Michigan is one) will not deposit your pension outside the U.S. If that is the case, establish an account with a U.S. bank, have the pension deposited there, and periodically do a wire transfer to a bank in Costa Rica.
The alternative would be to have your pension deposited in a U.S. bank which offers attractive (low/no cost) ATM services and simply withdraw funds from your U.S. bank at any of the many Costa Rican ATMs. Washington Mutual is advertising free ATM withdrawals on TV right now.
As David noted you may want to maintain a US bank acount. To do this in the post 9/11 world has become more difficult. Banks and the government want a physical address, not just a PO box as your address. Once you have that account setup then if your address changes. . .
But you need to do this prior to your move. Many people use mail box and forwarding services in Miami, FL to handle mail then from most of the world you can manage your bank accounts on-line. However, in CR the systems are usually in Spanish.
Mail boxes, even US PO boxes must be kept paid up or you can lose that address. The USPO only alows payment for 1 year. Private systems may accept longer contracts.
One of my US business accounts (I could not find which one when I looked) offers a special credit card to give to overseas clients in order to make payments to them. You transfer the money to a special part of your account then it can be taken out overseas. This avoids wire transfer fees which run about $30 per transfer. This is not much on large transfers but is a lot from a social security check or other modest retirement plan. This is similar to using a check card at an ATM but the amount that can be withdrawn is limited to the part you set aside for transfer.
There are a variety of methods to handle this. A lot depends on if you are maintaining ties in the US. Are you going to maintain your US drivers license? Keep any accounts in the US? Have business with US based mailing? You need a long term plan that answers these questions.
Mailboxes, Etc., the Association of Residents of Costa Rica and others offer mail forwarding services which feature both Post Office boxes and physical addresses in or near Miami, Florida. So far, using these as our U.S. mailing addresses has worked out just fine. Of the two, ARCR is by far the least expensive and the service appears to be equal.
Hello Mr Murray, I will also probably be using a service as you mention. One puzzle in my mind is; what do you do about a phone number for banks,Mastercard,etc. Do you list
an address in Miami through ARCR and use your Costa Rica phone number? Also,did I see in one of your posts that you use Bank of Internet? If so,is it working OK? Thank you!
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