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#clojure-uk
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2017-03-22
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thomas08:03:21

very happy to announce that the house in the UK was sold yesterday. No I only have to convert it to Euro's 💷 --> 💶

dotemacs08:03:11

Morning all \o/

dotemacs08:03:52

Theres a new Emacs meetup: london.el - Emacs meetup London will take place on 13th April @ 18:30h Talks on clj-refractor.el & Remacs, Rust port of Emacs. Sign up here: https://skillsmatter.com/meetups/9379-emacs-april-meetup#overview

yogidevbear09:03:49

Morning all Congrats Thomas!

korny10:03:14

Is it as much hassle converting to Euros as it was from AUD to GBP for me? There seem to be a lot of fees and costs, for something the mega-rich presumably do all the time.

korny10:03:47

I ended up using TransferWise, who seemed the lowest cost/hassle, but even then I could only transfer a certain amount per day.

yogidevbear10:03:26

We used https://www.1stcontact.com/forex before to bring money over to the UK from South Africa when we sold our houses there (at the worst exchange rate in history between the two countries 😕 )

yogidevbear10:03:55

I think we paid a difference of about 0.2 from the medium exchange rate you see when searching on Google (e.g. 22.4 ZAR to 1 GBP ended up as 22.6 ZAR to 1 GBP)

thomas10:03:48

it seems that I can only transfer in chunk as well... but limit is with my bank in the UK.

thomas10:03:25

but that might be a good strategy to spread some of the risk... as pound/euro are quite volatile at the moment.

mccraigmccraig12:03:19

@korny when i send money abroad i use transferwise or worldfirst - transferwise fees are about 0.5% and worldfirst a bit lower, but they only deal with larger amounts... you can xfer up to £20,000 (maybe £19,999) in a single transaction on a debit card, but once you jump through your bank's fraud detection hoops you can do multiple consecutive transactions

mccraigmccraig12:03:59

oh, and the best way of comparing different services is to get a quote for a round-trip transfer (A->B->A) and see how much that costs you in currency A... otherwise comparing different combinations of rate margins and fees is hard

korny12:03:41

I think my limitation on transfers was my Aus bank, wouldn't transfer more than $10k a day - there may be some way around it, but it wasn't obvious from their website. Still it seemed worth spreading the transfer over several days, so I didn't really mind, and the process was very smooth and simple on Transferwise (and their rates seemed to be quite good, though I didn't look at the round-trip rates, seems like a good idea).

dominicm12:03:15

@korny You moved from Aus -> UK?

korny12:03:19

@dominicm yep. I'm one of the very few to benefit from #brexit 😞

dominicm12:03:45

@korny Why did you move 😮

korny12:03:55

For the sun? 🙂

korny12:03:54

Two reasons: 1. Australia is a very long way from anywhere else, it's a lovely country but a bit limiting. I love being able to jump on a plane and be in Amsterdam in an hour. In Australia you have a 8 hour flight to go anywhere really foreign.

korny12:03:23

And 2. once I got here, I met the person who is now my wife 🙂

dominicm12:03:23

@korny does that mean the original plan had been to go back once you were all travelled out? 😛

korny12:03:04

Well, the original plan was to spend a few years here, then a few years elsewhere most likely, and eventually end up back in Aus. The plan did require a certain amount of adjustment 🙂

dominicm12:03:54

Makes sense. I hear mostly good things about aus, so the idea of aus->britain was a bit surprising really.

korny12:03:38

Well, Aus has it's issues too. Racism is alive and well there - it's pretty bad here, but I tend to think it's worse there, especially outside liberal bubbles. The horrendous ongoing treatment of asylum seekers boggles the mind. Also climate change is hitting there harder than most places - horrible heatwaves, massive fires, and Australia's economy is largely dependant on digging stuff out of the ground, which makes me worry about how it'd cope in a global crisis. Politically, it's in a similar situation to the UK - right-wingers in power, left-wing parties torn between grabbing the centrist ground and betraying their principals, or trying to be actual leftists without really knowing how to sell that or how to show leadership.

korny12:03:31

They do have the advantage of a political system where minor powers can actually get seats though, so there's a solid number of greens and other small parties who have influence - not locked in to a 2-party system.