Bank charges - Page 3

This is going to be the problem withdrawing cash but I guess if you withdraw €500 at a time then €1.80 is alot better than €13.50 a month coming out your account.

To be honest I only keep enough in my account to pay the bills so to have to keep a €1000 in is a bit extreme, I will push on with wise for now and come to the cash bridge when I have to I pay most things with my card anyway.

Allan, I hope all goes well at Cajamar it will be worth it, ensure they understand you are non resident(our account was done as resident until I asked about the charge for non res certificates then told they stopped making charges and they redid the account as non res. Also on opening the ability to do transfers to other accounts (like for builders for instance) it has to be "contracted". In other words you just ask for that service and they contract your account to do it. These are the only tips you may need(I needed this to send money to company who do our non resident tax and for workmen etc). I already had a hits mobile payg cos I have an alarm with modem that sends messages to my keyholder or myself if activated and I have a hits sim in it. Funny enough we never keep less than 1k€ balance anyway to feel secure. We haven't paid a cent in fees for over 2years and we, re very happy. Another tip I,d give you is while you,re there download the app and change the language to English so you,re comfortable with it. I did it later and it wasn't a choice 2yrs ago but it did change a year ago thankfully. 

Well good luck

Regards 

Pauline 

Thank you. That's useful and comforting!

Having read it again I noticed the reference to a hits sim.

What exactly is hits? 

It's the brand of mobile sim, uses Vodafone network but cheaper version. Like I, m on Tesco mobile in UK but cheaper than O2 but piggy backs on their network. They have a good English website.I use it payg. www.hitsmobie.es   I pay 2€ Yr to keep number and never lose any credit, they top it up with 10€ from my bank when credit drops to >5€. Basically it tops up once a year so costs 10€ year. There are stockists around (listed on website) or can buy a sim by website and they post out, also have English speaking cust service. I, ve had mine 15years as they were cheapest in Spain then, but I, ve never bothered to research others since (too lazy). I have it because my alarm sim is hits too and free hits to hits calls. 

Regards 

Pauline 

As there's no decent interest rate for savings anywhere in Uk(wouldn't put our savings in Spanish banks) 1k€ isn't a hardship to maintain a balance. I look at it as that's next visit,s spending money already in so I, m always ahead of what we need and I have 3 monthly and 5 annual d/debits, wouldn't want to be topping up constantly, I only use Wise to transfer when rate is at its best. 

Regards 

Pauline 

Hi I've opened up my cajamar account thank you and have an appointment tomorrow to pick up my card. So that going well using the option to keep around £1000 in but I did want to follow up your option of a hits sim as that has other advantages to me. I can't for the life of me find a distributor in the area. If I click on distributors on their website it just gives me a page about becoming a distributor!

I did see on their site an advert for a low cost sim with a 29 euros startup fee. Is this something you paid as well?

Thanks 

I opened my hits a long long time ago(15+yrs) when they charged me €10 for sim with €10 on it! So free! 

However having been on their website now I find the keep your number is now 5€yr, was 2€, still not bad as you don't have to remember to top up and don't therefore lose credit. If you hit the menu at to right it has "points of sale" try there for a distributor(but the one supposedly by us is no longer a stockist.). If you are going payg then opt for automatic top up as rates are cheaper and again never run out of credit as they do a bank debit when low. The sim and del is free so get one sent to you if can't find a distributor. 

Regards 

Pauline 

Thanks. I'll look at that. I've been reluctant to use the post as I don't know how reliable it is with one of these shared post box areas but I guess its worth a try.

Just thought I'd let you know that my account is set up with cajamar with the deposit amount and working well.

I've now got the HITS sim too but they tell me that if no top up is made for three months the number is terminated. As I seldom make calls in Spain I think I would just end up with a growing balance!

However thank you for all your help.