Paying USD into my Current Account

keeko

Hi all,

I'm lucky enough to have some US dollars coming my way, it's payment for some music I wrote. The total amount is over $7000.

I wondered if money savers had any thoughts on where I should get the money paid into. With the dollar so weak against the pound at the moment, my money isn't going to be worth as many pounds as it would have been a few years ago. I've held off invoicing for a couple of months and watched exchange rates grow slightly. In effect, I have earnt myself about £100 by doing this. But I can't hold off forever - plus I'm losing interest while I wait.

I have a Smile current account - they will charge me £6.00 to have the money paid into my account and were quoting a rate of 1.8407 yesterday. This seems reasonable to me, though a couple of cents less than the "base exchange rate".

I have an ING account - I wonder if I could get the money paid into there? I have a Paypal account - could I use this? Or is it worth opening another bank or savings account just for this transaction?

There are a few threads around discussing buying foreign currency for sending abroad, but I've not seen any advice for buying pounds.

Thanks for reading! Any advice would be gratefully received.

(and thanks to Martin for such a wonderful site - I tell all my friends about it)

grumbler

1.8407 was an exelent rate for yesterday. You will not find anything better. And £6 is a very small amount for $7000. If I were you I'd stop wasting time on looking for a better deal.