Posts by Amanda Moore8

When it comes to falling into debt, your actual income isn't really the deciding factor—it’s all about your mindset regarding money. I have this friend who was pulling in $3333 a salary, yet she ended up $25,000 in the hole just because of a shopping habit. Then, thanks to the recession, her pay got cut, and you should have seen the absolute panic. On the flip side, another friend of mine makes a $1.50 salary, but she manages to tuck something away every single month, even if it's just $33. It's all about discipline.

As luck would have it, about two years ago, I found myself carrying balances on two different credit cards through $8.25. Once I actually sat down and added up all those interest charges, I told myself, "enough is enough." I made this mental switch—just a total shift in perspective. I started scrutinizing every single cent and picking up some extra side gigs to boost my cash flow. I began asking myself these little questions, too—like, do I really need to head downtown for coffee four or five times a week? No, I don't. I can just make it at home or hit a local spot in the neighborhood where it's much cheaper. Do I need to buy a physical newspaper? Not really. You can find ways to save on your phone bill, too. These are all tiny things, sure, but when you tally them up at the end of the month, you can easily save a few hundred bucks. And when you multiply that by twelve months, you're looking at a pretty significant chunk of change.

Thanks so much for getting back to me! I took a look at the website—super helpful, by the way—and I was wondering about the logistics of the paperwork. Specifically, do they need the signed documents sent over via snail mail or fax, or is it okay to just scan them and send them digitally?

A few weeks back, I finished up a translation project for an agency based over in Austria—well, they're actually located in a similar part of Europe, let's just say a major European hub. When the payment finally hit my account, I actually went into a bit of a shock—I was looking at a $19.50 deduction for some sort of processing fee. What really threw me for a loop, though, was that when I worked with a different agency from the same region previously, I never saw a charge like that. Both transfers were handled using a standard Routing Number and SWIFT code. My bank—I'm with Bank of America—couldn't really give me a straight answer as to why this happened. From everything I understand, you shouldn't be seeing extra fees just for using a Routing Number and SWIFT.

Anyway, I managed to clear things up with the agency, and they've agreed to send the difference over via PayPal. They did suggest that I should look into opening an account within the European Union to avoid this headache in the future. So, I've been wondering—is it actually possible to open a checking account in the European Union entirely online? If that's a no-go, would I need to physically fly over to Austria to set one up? I did stumble upon a few articles online suggesting that you might need a work permit to do that kind of thing.

Thanks so much for any insight you can share!