Journey of a Trump Refugee
El Viaje de un Refugiado de Trump
Le Voyage d'un Réfugié de Trump

TD Bank is a great resource for US expatriates and anyone living in Canada who has a nontrivial amount of US dollars. Some people have asked me specifics about accounts at TD Bank, so I decided to write this post. I have the following accounts with TD: TD Canada U.S. Daily Interest Chequing Account TD US TD Convenience Checking TD Preferred Savings with Rate Bump The Details TD Canada Two US currency account choices are available: The U.S. Daily Interest Chequing Account officially has no minimum balance, but a minimum balance of $1500 is needed to avoid being charged a fee of $1.25 per transaction. The Borderless Plan requires a $3000 minimum balance to avoid monthly fee. Additional perks include free bank drafts and better exchange rates, but the exchange rates are still very bad compared to those of the currency exchange companies described in my other post , so I don't care about the better exchange rates. TD US I like TD Convenience Checking...

Hello, friends! I know I have been silent here lately. I am still alive and kicking and loving Canada, but I have been busy and am also still trying to keep a low profile for now as I get better established here. My current focus is on finding my next investments, one of which I had been hoping would be real estate here in Toronto, but I might revise that plan. Recently I also started a contract job and am trying to finish an online French class before I begin offline French classes in September. And of course, I am trying to meet more people here whenever I have the chance. Stay tuned for more developments in the upcoming months. I spent way too much time researching bank accounts and currency exchange in Canada and wrote reviews and shared and revised them in too many places as other newcomers have asked for tips on these topics. Finally I just got around to putting them all in one place to refer to and share with other newcomers, so in the meantime, I share my reviews of bank ac...

Summary Updated November 2020: I have opened accounts with the following banks so far: BMO - first year free of monthly fees for newcomers. Builder savings account with decent interest rates. https://www.bmo.com/main/personal/newcomers-to-canada/ HSBC - first year free of monthly fees for newcomers, $500 cash bonus for depositing $10,000 and signing up for online banking within a month. Message me to get an additional $100 refer a friend bonus. http://www.hsbc.ca/celebrate Tangerine - online bank. Savings account gives 2.75% 2.5% 2.15% (as of November 2020) interest for the first 6 months and 1.2% 0.2% 0.15% (as of November 2020) after. No fee chequing account . Use my referral code 53568186S1 to get an additional $50 signup bonus. https://www.tangerine.ca/en/products/saving/savings-accounts/ EQ Bank - online savings account with an ongoing 2.3% 1.7% 1.5% (as of November 2020) interest rate, but you cannot keep more than $200,000 in the account...

I did a lot of research and made some mistakes on currency exchange in my first few weeks in Canada. Since I only had US dollars, all my research was based on getting the best rate for converting US dollars to Canadian dollars, and this post is written from that point of view, but all the currency exchange companies mentioned exchange a variety of currencies, so hopefully those of you exchanging from other currencies will also benefit from the information below. Summary If I have a small amount of US cash to convert, I post on kijiji or craigslist to find someone local to exchange cash with at the official rate . If I can't find anyone or need to convert a large amount (more than a few thousand dollars), I check rates at all the currency exchange places described below but usually end up going with Knightsbridge . I transfer US dollars from my TD Bank account in the US to my US currency account at TD Bank Canada and instruct Knightsbridge to take the US dollars from...