Financial Freedom

Or rather, the freedom to receive and spend money without it all having to go through the U.S. We finally have a bank account with ATM/Debit cards and online banking capabilities!

Setting up the account, at Živnostenská banka, was actually rather easy and that was done in the first week of December. We had to wait for our cards to be mailed and while we had online banking we had no money in the account. Wiring money from a US account abroad, while abroad, was a nightmare process. From both our normal bank account and brokerage account I was told (after many phone calls) that I needed some paperwork or signature guarantee completed before I move abroad - a bit late for that. I'm getting paid out of our Czech office so we just had to wait for that money to be deposited. There were a few glitches along the way: online banking wasn't showing my account even after the money was there so I didn't realize we had the money for a few days; we weren't notified the cards had arrived, I happened to contact the bank to check; when I first tried to set up our rental payment the amount exceeded our daily limit so I had to go the bank to have that changed. But now we can stop taking money out from our US account or stop using US credit cards which both charge extra fees. It's just another little thing that seems very ordinary yet now helps us feel that much more integrated into Czech life.