Finding discounts

I thought I would talk about one of my favorite website for finding deals on caving supplies. SlickDeals.net is an forum where people post…slick deals. If you can think of an item, it probably has been posted on there. After you make an account, you can create “deal alerts” that are triggered by key words, such as, carabiner, water bottle, freeze dried food, rite-in-the-rain paper, Petzl, etc. Alerts are available by email or through your account.

Last week, Amazon.com was selling HDPE 1 Qt water bottles for $3.39 each! That’s less than my wholesale cost.

Slickdealers (the name for people that post deals) routinely post deals on gift cards, too. If you are going to buy something from Target or Home Depot, might as well buy a gift card for say 15% off the face value.

Sending and receiving foreign currency

Xe allows you to send money from the US and many other countries to a foreign bank account completely free, and they offer a pretty good exchange rate. The receiver can be a person or business.

I have a personal account and The CES has business account with Xe.

Transferwise is another very good option. They are free to use like Xe, and they allow you to set up local bank accounts with a debit card in Europe.

If you need hard currency (paper money), most of the time the safest, cheapest and easiest way to get local currency is from an ATM at the airport. If your bank charges a foreign transaction fee, consider looking for a bank that does not. Last time I checked, Charles Schwab bank accounts are free with no minimums, and have no foreign transaction fees.

While at the ATM, you may be given an option for a “dynamic currency conversion” or something that says “convert the transaction to US dollars (assuming you are from the US)”, do not select this option. Transferwise blog explains why this is a bad idea.