r/ExpatFinance

Wife and I are going to amicably divorce in 2027, she has been living in Japan since 2023. She still has a US Verizon phone number I've been paying for for the last three years (esim has just been turned off the whole time).

She is coming home to visit so we can close on the sale of our house next month, at which point we also want to switch banks, and I want to cancel her Verizon service so she will then no longer have a US phone number.

Currently we just have a joint account at our small local credit union so I just put money in there and she pulls it out at an ATM in Japan. I want to basically have her be able to do the same, but without a joint account.

I'm looking for a major US bank where we can both have individual accounts (she can use my address, as I said we are amicable) but where I can quickly and instantly transfer money from my individual account to her individual account, that she can then pull out of an ATM in Japan.

Most important thing here is that beyond initial account setup, it cannot require dependency on a US phone number at any point thereafter - any two factor authentication or anything whatsoever after initial setup has to be able to be done with an email address instead since she's no longer going to have a US phone number once we get this set up and finally cancel her Verizon service.

Is my best option something like having us both have a Capital One 360 checking account with Zelle and use email to set up the Zelle portion?

Or am I barking up the wrong tree altogether by trying to do this as a US account --> US account transfer and I should use a different method where she doesn't need a US account at all?

Used the same debit card for almost 4 years. Worked across two countries in southeast Asia, was the closest thing I had to a constant.

Moved to Portugal two weeks ago. Suddenly there's a 1.5% FX fee on everything I buy. Monthly fee kicked in too because I don't qualify for the free tier anymore without a local salary feeding the account, and the ATM cap is half of what it was.

The local bank route isn't quick either. The non-resident process wants paperwork I don't have collected yet, so in the meantime I'm bleeding money on coffee and groceries.

Went through a version of this last time I moved too. The setup tax of relocating is starting to feel heavier than the move itself.

How do you all handle the card layer when you actually live across countries long term? Not interested in the private banking version. Just the boring problem of wanting one card that doesn't quietly get worse every time my address changes.

Divorced parents, different states, different banks. Dad in guadalajara on banorte, mom in tijuana on banco azteca. $300 to each monthly from my US checking. Same corridor, two sets of recipient details to manage, and not every app delivers cleanly to both.

taptapsend us to mexico deposits to both banorte and banco azteca, no separate fee on the send and the rate has been consistently better than my old wells fargo wire. Lands within 30 to 60 minutes typically. Wise supports both banks too, percentage fee around 0.6 to 1 percent, mid market rate. Remitly supports both, $1.99 flat fee plus rate markup.

At $300 per transfer the three apps come out within 100 to 200 MXN of each other on a given day. Rotate based on which shows higher MXN that morning. Over a year I track roughly $30 to $50 saved by comparing versus picking one and sticking with it.

Real cost win was dropping wells fargo wires for both. Two wires at $35 each per month was $70 in visible fees plus rate markup on $600 total. Roughly $82 monthly cost. Current app flow is about $8 monthly cost combined. Savings of $900 per year for 3 minutes of phone comparison per send.

All transfers fund from my US checking and are exempt from the 1 percent remittance tax that started january 2026. The tax only hits cash, money orders, and cashier's checks as the funding source.

Hey everyone, I've done a lot of research and want to confirm my tax strategy before committing. Would love input from anyone who has done something similar.

**My situation:**

- US citizen, leaving California permanently end of summer

- W2 employee, fully remote, employer fine with working anywhere

- Very clean CA exit — no CA driver's license, no lease in my name, no voter registration. Only ties are work payroll and car registration, both gone before I leave

- Planning to spend ~350 days abroad annually with ~2 weeks back in the US at Christmas

**My planned strategy:**

1. **State domicile:** Establish residency in a no-income-tax state (leaning South Dakota for simplicity but also considering Florida or Texas) via mail forwarding address and getting a SD driver's license. Update employer payroll, bank accounts, and voter registration accordingly.

2. **FEIE:** 330+ days abroad should qualify me for the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion on my W2 income.

**Specific questions:**

1. Does SD domicile via mail forwarding + SD driver's license hold up cleanly for someone with no fixed home?

2. Does FEIE apply to W2 income from a US-based employer?

3. Is my CA exit as clean as it sounds given my minimal paper trail there?

4. Any gotchas I'm missing?

Planning a paid consultation with a nomad tax specialist before October but wanted community input first. Thanks!

I went to to BOG in Tbilisi and it seems to be very easy to open an account. I was told there are options for accounts in Georgian Lari, USD, Euros, and Pounds. Lari accounts can pay up to 10% for fixed term deposits. I realize there is some risk with the currency but it has been relatively stable. The options in Georgia seem fairly good since its not possible to open an account as a US citizen in most countries without residency. National deposit insurance in Georgia only covers 50,000 Lari ($18,695).

My reason for wanting to open an account is to move part of my savings away from the dollar but still get interest. I could hold some savings in Lari but would probably want to put most in a Euro account though interest for Euro accounts would be very low.

Does anyone have experience with banking in Georgia and in particular BOG's SOLO service? Has opening an account in Georgia worked well for other Americans considering the particular complications of our tax law? A 10% interest rate on a Lari account seems good. Are there costs or fees that I'm not aware of and should be considering?

8 months a year in mexico city. US based income. Landlord in roma norte wants 18,500 MXN monthly (roughly $1,000 usd at current rate). Spent 3 months testing the stack to find the cleanest recurring flow for this specific setup.

taptapsend us to mexico lets me push to my landlord's bbva bancomer CLABE directly, no separate fee on the send, the cost is in the rate which has been a few pesos per dollar better than my old schwab wire. Delivery within 30 to 60 minutes. Wise has a multi currency account where I can hold USD and MXN, convert on demand at actual mid market, and send a SPEI transfer inside mexico for free once the peso balance is loaded. Remitly works too but their $1.99 fee plus rate markup comes out more expensive than either option above at this amount.

For a nomad running this every month, wise's multi currency account is hard to beat because you only pay the conversion cost when you actually convert, not per transfer. taptapsend is simpler if you want to push US dollars from your US account to the landlord's MXN account without thinking about balances. Both dramatically cheaper than a schwab international wire ($25 fee + bad rate) or any US bank wire.

For 5 years I've tracked my finances in Excel because nothing handles my

situation cleanly:

- Schwab + IB (US brokerages)

- UOB-SG (SG bank)

- HSBC-TW + a TW broker

- Coinbase + Maicoin (crypto)

- Cash in USD, TWD, SGD

Every month I'd open the spreadsheet, manually paste prices, redo currency

formulas, accept it would be stale by next month, and move on.

The existing tools all have a problem for my situation:

- **Kubera** ($150/yr) — closest fit, but US-leaning, weak TW/SG support,

plus you hand all your wealth data to a third-party SaaS

- **Empower / Personal Capital** — US-only and they call you to pitch advisory

- **Sharesight** — accounting-heavy, mostly AU/UK

- **Tiller / Mint** — manual templates, not designed for cross-border

So this past weekend I built my own

What it does:

- USD/TWD/SGD toggle with real-time FX

- Real-time prices via GOOGLEFINANCE (no API keys, no rate limits)

- Cost basis + P&L per holding, day Δ in each holding's native currency

- Grouped by account (Schwab-main, IB, UOB-SG, HSBC-TW, Coinbase, etc.)

- Data lives in **my own Google Sheet** — nothing on a third-party server

- Mobile PWA

- $0/mo to run

It works. I've been using it daily.

**Real question for the sub: would you use this if you didn't have to set it

up yourself?**

I'm considering productizing it — sign in with Google, app auto-creates a

Sheet in your Drive, start tracking. The "your data stays in your own Google

account" angle feels like a real wedge vs Kubera.

Specifically curious:

1. What's your current setup, and what breaks first?

2. What countries/currencies/accounts would you need?

3. Would $5/mo be reasonable for unlimited multi-currency tracking *without*

   auto-sync? Or is Plaid-style auto-sync a hard requirement for you to pay?

4. Is "your data stays in your Google Sheet" meaningful, or do you just want

   the dashboard to work and not care where data lives?

Not selling anything — this is pure validation. If 50 people here say "yes,

take my money," I'll spend the next month building it for real. If most say

"Kubera works fine" or "I need auto-sync," I'll keep enjoying my personal

dashboard.

Happy to share screenshots, code, or details if anyone's curious.