in other news

[arethinn]

I realized that the text of the letter I got from Canada seems to imply that I was somewhat pessimistic with my time estimates in this post from June.

The first factor was that I didn't check the "last updated" date on the page, which was (probably still is) a date in May, not in June when I was looking at it. Thus, my response was received within the expected time, not late, which bodes well, considering.

Secondly, it would seem that the year delay is not for them to start evaluating it, but actually for the evaluation. So if all goes well I should next hear from them by next July, not that they won't even start until then (my choice of September was implied by the months mentioned on their afore-cited web page). If I was extremely fortunate, or somehow managed to win the heart of the officer responsible for my file with my, er, elegant prose, I might even hear from them in less than a year (not holding my breath, though). So the possibility exists that I could actually be there sometime next fall, as opposed to late the following spring.

Of course, that in turn does some interesting things with the prospect of a car loan. The shortest term is 2 years and that's what I was planning to sign up for, since I was figuring I was going to wind up here for nearly 2 more years anyway. If I somehow make it to Canada next fall, I would either have to pay it all off before I went, or continue to make the payments out of savings somehow from Canada. I'm sure that the lender won't care where the money comes from so long as they get it (perhaps I could set up a relay with my parents), but still, it's a hassle.

Comments

[twopiearr.livejournal.com]

It's more than just a hassle...thanks to the wonder of currency conversion, you'll also be losing money on every payment. Better approach might be to get a used clunker to tool around in for the hopefully-less-than-a-year that you're local, and save the getting of loans until after the relocation.

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

*shakes head* Not an option, for a bunch of reasons I detailed twice (trying to make them clear) and then decided to delete. Heh. Losing money also isn't so bad - the bank takes a few cents on the dollar (i.e. one never gets a rate as good as the published exchange rates), or as I said, if I set up something with my parents, I could possibly avoid that. *shrugs*

[twopiearr.livejournal.com]

It's more than just the bank taking a few cents on the dollar. I used to have a consultancy client in Canada who pay me by sending funds directly to my checking account. The nationalized Canadian bank would charge a fee for the wire transfer which was a fairly exorbient percent of the total on top of a flat fee to initiate it, and then it would arrive at my bank in Canadian funds, whereupon they would convert it to US and take a larger percentage than seemed reasonable. And of course it's illegal to mail cash across the border, so...

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

I wasn't picturing a wire transfer. (It depends on your bank how much that costs, although transborder is likely to be high - one time I wired money to a Canadian account, Wells Fargo charged me I think US$45 for the privilege.) Something else could probably be worked out. Perhaps I would leave one of my three US bank accounts open, for example, and pay within the US with US funds. *shrugs*

And of course it's illegal to mail cash across the border, so...

What? since when? I've done it. I know they don't want you mailing money in, like, Global Priority envelopes, and I'm sure there's a limit, but I've sent reasonable amounts of cash across the border through the mail before (like $500).