Paying off US student loans from the UK

[raketje]

Does anyone have any clue how I can pay my monthly student loan fee from the UK? The US loan companies won't take a UK cheque, I have no money in my US account and considering how much I have to send every month (£350-400), I really don't want to have to do a bank transfer, as it'll tack on another £40-50/month that I don't have.

Ideas? Anyone?

Comments

[anerise]

sign up with XEtrade.com- I believe you can do that to transfer between UK-US bank accounts without incurring a fee (and the currency conversion rate isn't too bad.) It takes several days, though.

[raketje]

Unfortunately, it's going to be hard enough to make the £350ish/month as it is - there is no way I could move large chunks, or even two months at once, over a few times a year.

[raketje]

I owe $100,230 - too much to put on a credit card!

[mizzykitty]

Paypal allows you to transfer between your bank accounts without incurring extra fees, if you have both accounts signed up on it. You must do the UK one first, I believe, then add the US one. Something like that. It's useful if you're not transferring large sums, and takes 2-3 days.

conversely you could perhaps set up a bank account through an online bank and use that as your primary bank account, so that you can pay your UK money into it, and set up a direct debit for your US payments.

[tisiphone]

Use a credit card or debit card?