Moving money between JP and USA

[Ungarmax]

Hello everyone,

I am from the United States, in New York State, and I have been offered a salary type position in Osaka. I will be there for around 3 years according to my contract. I have been trying to research the best ways to move money from Japan back to the states for my student loans, which I need to pay every month. What I am looking for most is some advice on what other people have found to be the cheapest ways. I did some searching on these forums but most things I found were not that relevant and/or were about 2-4 years old.

From what I have found in my research thus far, HSBC is the only bank that has locations in both places. Citibank does not have any branches in my region of the US. HSBC has told me that there is a $15 charge just on the US side for incoming money wires, and that to send them from JP will cost another fee of between $20-$60 depending on where I send it from.

I have kind of looked at forex sites like xe.com and golloyds, and I was wondering if people have found these to be the best.

I saw another forum that briefly mentioned using two paypal accounts that were tied to each location's bank accounts, but nothing was mentioned about how quickly this takes place.

Does anyone have any other methods that can cut down on fees? If i end up paying $30 per transfer every month its gonna cost $360 just to spend my own money, and that's not cool.

Thanks a lot for your advice. If there is another forum that covers all of this that I didn't find feel free to link it to me.

[ponadok]

i personally used paypal for when i would send money for things to my fiancee from russia to the US using paypal itd charge like an exchange rate tax (changes everyday) and take 3 to 5 working days to go from paypal to bank but it was the easiest and cheapest way to do it.

[Ungarmax]

Well, that sounds like it could work out just fine. Thanks for your input.