Saving AUS dollars

[vrooyan]

Can anyone recomend what is the best way to start saving some dollars. I am still early on in the process but do not want to wait for the rand to fall. Also where can one monitor the exchange rate so that I can maybe exchange maybe 10 or 20k at a time, if I am lucky my visa might get approved in about 10 months so I want to start putting away some money. The bulk of the exchange will happen when I sell the house but thatsonly when the visa gets approved. 

[RedPanda]

I'm not sure if you can have an Aussie bank account before you have a visa??? (Maybe someone else can chip in here with the correct info)

But you could consider investing your money in shares, in companies like SAB Miller(beer), or BAT(tobacco) to shield it from depreciating along with the rand. It's a lot easier to buy shares than people generally realise. But you have to know why you are buying the shares, what you want to achieve by it. And you should get some advice from a reputable source, or an experienced share owner.

The reason why I am suggesting this is that it sounds like you will still have quite a wait in RSA before you get your visa, and you also don't know exactly when that will be. All of the accounts that you can open in Australia from RSA that I have heard of so far, have a condition that says you have to physically present yourself at a branch within a fixed number of months (the number varies between banks). So it would be easier if your money was in a place where it could stay another few months if things take longer than you think.

Also, there is a higher transaction fee associated with sending money overseas than for local transfers, so you might want to think about this when planning to save monthly, eg if your transaction fee was R200 then after 5 months you have paid the bank R1000 of the money you are trying to save.

So just think about your options, and ask a lot of questions   

 

*Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor.

[JackoFam]

You could easily open a US dollar offshore account as a rand hedge with no need for a visa. We have been using Dale Aiken at FXcapital (dale@forexcapital.co.za) for all our transfers - they handle the tax clearance certs as part of their fee. BUT @RedPanda is correct it does cost R250 per transfer so its better to save for a few months and make 1 big transfer

[Shehraan]

Another option is to open a global account with FNB. They have the option of opening a Aus dollar account and can transfer money into this account whenever you want. Cost is R60 per transaction however I am not 100% sure on the cost of transferring your Aus Dollars when you open an account in Aus. It is just another option to hedge yourself against the depreciating rand.

Heres the link

https://www.fnb.co.za/forex/investments/global-accounts.html