Blog | Page 93 | Jean Galea

💸 Changing Your PayPal Withdrawal Currency

Last updated: March 21, 202489 Comments

I’ve already written about how to avoid losing money from PayPal’s disadvantageous exchange rates when withdrawing money from your PayPal account to your local bank account, but in this post, I will be showing the exact process that is used at this point in time (June 2014) for anyone who wants to do the same. Unfortunately, you won’t find this information anywhere on PayPal’s website, so I had to figure things out myself by contacting their support staff.

First of all, a quick explanation of why I wanted to change my withdrawal currency. My local bank accounts are in Euro and since my business is based in Malta I am only allowed to withdraw money to the credit card issued by my bank or to a Euro bank account.

Sadly there is no option to have a credit card account in USD. Therefore what was happening was that whenever I withdraw from PayPal (where most of my funds are in USD), the PayPal system would automatically convert from USD to EUR to match my local bank account. The problem is that the rates PayPal uses are much worse than the conversion rates at my local bank. So I wanted the conversion to happen on the bank’s side rather than PayPal’s.

Luckily it turns out to be easy to do. All you need to do is notify PayPal manually that you want that particular credit card to receive USD rather than EUR, and you can do this by opening a support ticket from PayPal’s website. Below I am reproducing the reply I got from PayPal when I asked them to change my withdrawal currency:

Thank you for contacting PayPal regarding questions about the withdrawal options for your Business account in Malta.

For bank withdrawals, you can only add a US bank account to your Business account, and then withdraw your PayPal USD balance to there.

For credit card withdrawals into USD, we can change the currency for your cards added to your account into USD on your request. If you wish to do this, please confirm the last 4 digits of the card that you want to be changed to USD and we will then update this in our system. This will also resolve any currency conversion loss for you when making withdrawals.

Another annoying thing for me is the $2,500 limit for every withdrawal. There is a charge for every transaction, so it is not only inconvenient to be limited in this way, but I am also getting charged for multiple transactions when I could have more easily done one. Sadly there isn’t a solution to this latter issue. This is what the PayPal support rep had to say about my query in this regard:

Regarding your question about the 2500 USD withdrawal limit per transaction, I confirm that all withdrawal limits are overridden on your account from PayPal´s side. The 2500 USD withdrawal limit is a worldwide regulation on VISA´s side, so I regret that we cannot lift this limit. However, you can make as many withdrawals per day as you want, as long as they don´t exceed 2500 USD per transaction.

I hope this post helps clear things further for those of you who have asked me how to perform this little trick and save money on your withdrawals.

Note: If you have any questions after reading this and the several other articles relating to PayPal on this site, please leave a comment or contact PayPal directly. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, I am unable to offer any advice over email so all emails related to PayPal will remain unanswered.

This is post 3 of 11 in the series “PayPal”

How to Save Money on Currency Conversions and Overseas Transfers in 2025

Last updated: December 23, 202454 Comments

There are alternatives to using high street banks for converting and sending money abroad.

High street banks are being threatened by leaner fintech companies with better technology that provide a better service at a lower cost. That’s a statement that most of us have heard from one source or another over the past few years.

The two most well-known services are Wise and Currencyfair. Of the two, Wise is my favorite.

Wise

Sending money abroad is deceptively expensive, thanks to the hidden fees we’ve all been forced to pay. Now Wise lets expats, foreign students and businesses transfer money wherever it’s needed, at the lowest possible cost. No hidden fees, no headache.

Let’s see how that translates into a real-life example.

Converting $100,000 to Euros

Let’s say we need to convert $100,000 into euros. We’ll pitch a typical high street bank against two well-known currency conversion services: Currencyfair and Wise.

I recently did some research about exchange rates offered by Maltese banks, when making a USD transfer, which automatically gets converted to Euro upon arrival in your bank account.

Interestingly enough, almost all banks offered a rate 0.745 Euro for every 1 USD. Only HSBC offered a worse rate, giving out 0.741 Euro for every 1 USD. I’ve also included the PayPal conversion rate for reference.

	Bank buys USD
HSBC	1.3504
BOV	1.3426
APS	1.3402
Banif	1.3409
Lombard	1.3402
PayPal	1.3636

This might not make much difference on small amounts, but when we deal with a few thousand dollars the difference quickly adds up. I monitored the rates over a few weeks and HSBC consistently offered worse rates. I’m not entirely sure why there is this discrepancy and will try to investigate further.

	1000 USD	5000 USD
HSBC	740	3702.60
BOV	744	3724.12
APS	746	3730.79
Banif	745	3728.84
Lombard	746	3730.79
PayPal	733	3666.67

Here are some handy links to the exchange rates offered by the main banks in Malta:

I picked two Maltese banks, HSBC and BOV. Here are their advertised rates:

BOV exchange rates

HSBC exchange rates

Currencyfair

Wise

Having checked all the rates, let’s have a look at the final results.

Here’s what each Maltese bank will give us in return for our USD:

BOV: €87,734
HSBC: €87,039

Amazingly, between the two leading banks in Malta, we see a difference of €700 for the same simple service. Pretty bewildering if you ask me. I believe that both banks also charge a fee, although I was unable to locate the pricing for currency conversions on their website.

Let’s move on to the online currency conversion giants:

Currencyfair: €88,837
Wise: €88,925

Note that Currencyfair improves on the BOV’s rate by €1,100, and Wise by €1,200. You must also keep in mind that I’ve seen banks that provide much worse conversion rates and extra fees for conversion. Even so, the differences between the fintechs and the Maltese banks are pretty impressive, and I, therefore, see it as a no-brainer to go for either Wise or Currencyfair for currency conversions.

Convert currency with Wise

And now let’s look at some more exotic options that can give you even better results with some extra work on your end.

Bonus tip: Negotiate a Better Rate with Your Bank

If you are processing a significant volume of currency conversions every year (I’d say $50,000 and above) it would make sense to reach out to your bank and ask if they are open to negotiating a better rate for you. This is a win-win situation and most banks will be happy to give you a favorable rate.

As an example, I was able to negotiate a special rate with my bank to convert from USD to EUR.

By way of example, for today they quoted a Preferential Rate of 1.0998 when the Official Buying Rate was 1.1138 (Reference or Average Rate was 1.0946).

Just to give you an example of the effect of this concession, let’s take an example transfer of US$ 66,000. The conversion of this amount would work out as follows:

Interbank rate	US$ 66,000 @ the average rate of 1.0946 = Eur 60,296
Conversion at the Quoted Buying Rate	US$ 66,000 @ the buying rate of 1.1138 = Eur 59,256
Conversion at the Preferential Rate	US$ 66,000 @ the preferential rate of 1.0998 = 60,011

This means that I gain the difference between Eur 59,256 and Eur 60,011 or Eur 1,040 and Eur 285 = Eur 755.

How do you manage your currency exchanges?

How to Time PayPal Withdrawals to Get the Best Currency Exchange Rate

This is for all those of you who don’t have a US-based bank account but work online and receive payments via PayPal.

At some point, you will want to transfer your PayPal funds to your local bank account so you can withdraw and use your hard-earned money.

However, you could be making a fundamental mistake during the process of withdrawal. Actually, I’ve been doing it myself for many years. I felt really dumb when I realized.

As you know, exchange rates are always fluctuating, so your aim is to get the best deal when transferring money from PayPal to your bank account.

Let’s say we want to transfer US dollars to Euro, which is what I do every so often. What I do nowadays is to first check the exchange rate, and also historical rates via this website. That gives me an idea if today is a good day to make the transfer or not. Looking back at the historical rates of the past 3 months, I then decide on a target rate I want to aim for. At present my target rate is 1 USD = 0.78 EUR.

Historical exchange rates

With that figure in mind, I then head over to XE and set up email alerts. Now as soon as the exchange rate climbs to 0.78 I will immediately get an email and that’s when I will make my withdrawal from my PayPal account to my local bank account.

When2Convert Currency converter and email alerts

Setting up email alerts for my desired conversion rate

When2convert is an excellent service in my opinion, because it automates the whole thing and makes it very easy for me. Before I used to check the exchange rates every couple of days (every day is just too tedious), and sometimes I used to miss a good day. So I knew I need an automated shortcut of doing this checking. Luckily I found this site, and I hope you find it useful too.

Update: I found a similar tool (also free) at https://www.specificfeeds.com/Free-Forex-Signal-and-Exchange-Rate-Tracker and there you can not only define strike prices, but you can select to get updated every time the EUR/USD rate changes by 0.02 points or so, so that it’s not a one-time notification, but you always know if there have been significant changes without spending too much time to checking it every couple of days.

Another option is to just withdraw every month on a specific day, and in this way you eliminate the hassle of trying to time the forex market to your benefit. You might lose out sometimes, but it might be more important for you to have money coming in on a regular basis, so you have to factor in the pros and cons.

Do you have any other related tips you’d like to share? Let me know in the comments section below!

Bitcoin – the Cheapest Way to do International Currency Exchanges and Remittances

Crypto stablecoins as well as Bitcoin can be an ideal way of bypassing the banks entirely for your currency conversions.

Let’s review briefly what is needed in an international currency conversion/money transfer. Suppose my friend/relative/client wants to send me $1,000 from the US. Being in Europe, my bank account is denominated in Euro, so at some point that $1,000 needs to change into Euro. The big question is how many Euro will end up hitting my bank account.

The traditional and most common way of doing international money transfers is to let the banks handle the conversion. This is called an international wire transfer.

Of course, other ways of sending money exist:

PayPal
Wise

International wire transfers are expensive, and PayPal is just as expensive or slightly cheaper. Wise have made it their mission to offer cheaper transfers, but they are not as easy to initiate as a bank transfer of PayPal transfer. PayPal is probably the easiest method out of all the ones we’re considering.

Once I was made aware of the possibility of using Bitcoin I decided to try it out. Therefore, I opened an account at the Bitcoin exchange Coinbase, and got myself verified. Coinbase has several levels of verification and I did the Tier 3 verification. You need to do Tier 1 and 2 before you are allowed to get Tier 3 verified. Verification is important due to KYC rules that exchanges need to abide with. Once you are Tier 3 verified you can deposit and withdraw up to $25,000 on a daily basis. The monthly limit for withdrawals/deposits is $200,000. That’s plenty of fiat currency to play with right there.

Opening an account with Coinbase is free. Once the account was open and I was verified (all this was done in a day), I obtained a Bitcoin deposit address and sent it to my friend. He proceeded to send me the equivalent amount of USD in Bitcoin. I received the Bitcoins just a few minutes later. I then converted to EUR and initiated a transfer of the full amount to my local bank account. The Euro amount arrived in my bank account the very next day.

I had checked the spot rate before making the USD to EUR transfer and the money that I got in my bank account was actually higher than the result given at that day’s spot rate, so I ended up making a slight profit of a few euros on the exchange. The most important thing however was that I managed to do away with all the hefty charges that Paypal and the banks charge.

Here are all the fees I incurred:

Coinbase: Bitcoin deposit – FREE
Coinbase: Exchanging Bitcoin to EUR – 0.26%
Coinbase: EUR SEPA Withdrawal to my bank account – €0.09
Bank: EUR deposit – FREE

Note: If you want to buy Bitcoin from Coinbase there is a commission of 0.16%. So if you convert $1,000 to Bitcoin you will get charged $1.60.

That’s an absolute steal comparing to what banks or PayPal charge. One of the main reasons I wanted to try this out was to verify that this really worked as described and that there would be no hidden charges. I’m pleased to report that it worked exactly as promised.

Coinbase’s fee schedules are tier-based: the higher the volume you trade in your account, the lower your fee on subsequent trades (once the next volume tier for the currency pair is reached). Other fee considerations:

Fees are charged on a per-trade basis.
Fees are calculated as a percentage of the trade’s quote currency volume (by default). Certain pairs allow the fee to be calculated based on the trade’s base currency, which can be specified when ordering using the Fee Currency option.
User fee volume levels are measured using the equivalent market value of the listed “Fee Volume Currency” at the time of the trade. Note that this currency may be different from the pair’s base or quote currency.
User fee volume levels are measured and applicable for trades occurring in the last 30 days only.

One thing you need to be aware of is the possibility of making a loss/profit due to the volatility of Bitcoin. The few seconds/minutes it takes you to make the conversion from Bitcoin to EUR and to ask for a withdrawal to your bank can be enough for significant changes to take place.

If volatility is an issue for you, you can use stablecoins instead. Most exchanges have stablecoins in the major currencies that are trustworthy enough especially for quick currency conversions.

🤔 Which PayPal Account is Best for You?

Last updated: February 15, 202393 Comments

Contents

Note: If you have any questions after reading this and the several other articles relating to PayPal on this site, please leave a comment or contact PayPal directly. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, I am unable to offer any advice over email so all emails I receive that are related to PayPal will remain unanswered.

Choosing a PayPal account structure is not straightforward fare for most people, so in this post, I’ll attempt to demystify the whole process of signing up with PayPal and choosing an account type.

Before we start, a quick note:

If you are looking to send money as cheaply as possible then Wise is usually going to be cheaper than PayPal.

Wise does not make money off the exchange rate and only charges a small percentage of the overall transfer as its fee.

Have a look at my comparison between PayPal and Wise Borderless as well as my full review of Wise Borderless. N26 and Revolut might also be good options depending on your needs.

Send money using Wise

Now back to PayPal accounts.

You start out with a Personal account, but you can then upgrade to Premier or Business accounts.

PayPal offers two different account types; PayPal for your personal use (Personal and Premier), and PayPal for your business (Business). It’s free to sign up and each account type offers different features and capabilities. To decide which one is right for you, read on.

An account for personal use is ideal if you shop online. You can:

Shop on eBay and merchant websites using your credit card, debit card or bank account
Send and receive money from friends and family
Accept debit card, credit card and bank account payments for a low fee when you sell on eBay and/or on your own website

Make the right choice for your online business. With a Business account you can:

Accept debit card, credit card and bank account payments for a low fee
Operate in your company or business name
Manage Users, allowing you to give separate access rights to each of your employees
Consult the Business Setup guide

Buying Crypto with PayPal

Did you know you can now buy crypto with PayPal? That’s right, you can use Binance since it accepts PayPal deposits. Just hit the links below to get started.

You can also read my full review of Binance to learn more about this crypto exchange.

Buy Bitcoin with Binance

This withdrawal method is extremely popular at the moment, as people worldwide seek to get themselves some Bitcoin or Ethereum due to their extremely bright future price prospects.

If you decide to go ahead with the upgrade, you’ll get this confirmation screen:

There is no good reason to have a Premier account if you are going to use PayPal for business. The fees are similar to or same as Business but some of the features not available.

You don’t need to have a properly registered “business” to have a Business account. It can be a DBA (“doing business as”).

You can have several Business accounts (just remember that each one should be linked to a different bank account/credit card).

There are no monthly fees for any of the accounts.

Additional services cost $35/month for all of them. You need to get approved to get them. You may get approved for one but not the other.

Additional services include:
– Website Payment Pro (allows you to link PayPal to a shopping cart and charge credit cards without taking your customer to PayPal).
– Recurring Payments
– Virtual terminal (may be handy if you run live events or work with offline clients).

If you have various ventures and want to have a separate PayPal account for each one, now you can set up a “child” account that is linked to your main one. The benefit is that the money will be swiped from it daily and put into your parent one automatically and with no fees involved. Also, you don’t need to link a child account to a bank account. To set up a child account, create a new PayPal account then call PayPal on the phone and ask them to link the new account to your main PayPal account.

The concise comparison:

Personal: Recommended for individuals who shop and pay online.
Premier: Recommended for casual sellers or non-businesses who wish to get paid online, and who also make online purchases.
Business: Recommended for merchants who operate under a company/group name. It offers additional features such as allowing up to 200 employees limited access to your account and customer service email alias for customer issues to be routed for faster follow-ups.

Since my business is based in Malta, I’ll be describing the PayPal fees for this situation. Other European countries should have similar fees, but do check the PayPal website for your country for more accurate details.

Click this link to check the standard rates for receiving and sending money with PayPal.

The standard rate for receiving payments for goods and services is 3.4% + 0.35 EUR.

If you receive more than 2,500.00 EUR per month, you’re eligible to apply for PayPal’s Merchant Rate – which lowers your fees as your sales volume increases. Your fees can be as low as 1.9% + 0.35 EUR, based on your previous month’s sales volume. For receiving money for product or service sales at the merchant rate, these are the prices:

Monthly Sales	Price Per Transaction
€0.00 EUR - €2,500.00 EUR	3.4% + €0.35 EUR
€2,500.01 EUR - €10,000.00 EUR	2.9% + €0.35 EUR
€10,000.01 EUR - €50,000.00 EUR	2.7% + €0.35 EUR
€50,000.01 EUR - €100,000.00 EUR	2.4% + €0.35 EUR
> €100,000.00 EUR	1.9% + €0.35 EUR

Here’s the e-mail you get after you apply (manually) for the Merchant Rate:

Note that the rates in the table above are for domestic transactions. If you have customers offshore then you will incur what is known as a cross-border payment charge.

Click here to view the higher cross-border transaction fees. You will still benefit from lower rate bands with cross-border payments once you apply successfully for the Merchant Rate.

The accounts we’ve mentioned till now don’t have any monthly fee, but PayPal also offers the PayPal Pro solution, which costs $30 per month.

The Pro solution is for heavy PayPal users, and allows you to benefit from lower rates among other services. Click this link for more information about Pro. Go for Pro if you need full payment gateway functionality, as this system will allow you to create a fully customized checkout process that will enable customers to complete the purchase from your site rather than being transferred to PayPal as is the standard procedure.

Here’s Pro in a nutshell:

$30.00 USD monthly
No set-up fees
No cancellation fees

Transaction fees 1.9% to 3.4% + 0.35 EUR

Choosing a Checkout Service

If you are using PayPal to collect payments for products and services that you are selling online, you will also need to choose a checkout service. All e-commerce solutions such as Shopify, WooCommerce, and Easy Digital Downloads will allow you to select one out of several e-commerce checkout business solutions offered by PayPal.

The choice is between the following:

PayPal Website Payments Standard
PayPal Express Checkout
PayPal Payments Pro

Read my separate post about the pros and cons of each and then decide accordingly

Managing Multiple Currencies

You can choose what currencies to accept and how you would like to accept them. When a buyer sends a payment in a currency you hold, the money will automatically appear in your account in that currency. When a buyer sends a payment in a currency you don’t hold, you can:

Open a new currency balance to accept the payment.
Convert the payment to a currency you do accept.
Block the payment.

You can choose a primary currency as the one you use most often for sending and requesting payments. It’s also the currency that is used for your withdrawal limits.

If you convert a payment into your primary currency, PayPal offers conversion rates that are pretty bad. You can read my guide on PayPal currency conversions for more information about that. You can always preview conversion rates on currencies you don’t hold before accepting payments.

You might also want to change your PayPal withdrawal currency before you withdraw money to your credit card.

An Example

So how do PayPal transactions look? Let’s say I have a client from the US and charged him $600 for some web services I rendered. When he pays me via PayPal here’s what I see in my account:

Now what’s important here is to know exactly what that $29.70 fee stands for. Since this is a cross-border payment (US to Malta), it can be broken down as follows:

Base fee (3.40% + $0.30 USD) = $20.70 USD.
Cross-border fee consisting of a fixed (0.50% and 1.00% depending on between which countries the transfer is made) = $3.00 USD and $6.00 USD respectively.

As an average, be prepared to pay around 5% in transaction fees for every offshore payment you receive via PayPal.

If I remember correctly, with a Personal account you can accept or deny payments. Before you accept the payment, you can see the estimated transaction fee on the ‘Transaction Details’ page. If you deny the payment, the fee is not charged. With a Premier or Business account, there is no such option to accept or deny payments.

Refunds

When you issue a refund, you don’t lose any money and the purchaser gets all his money back. Click here to see the full refund policy together with a worked-out example of how refunds work.

PayPal has recently changed its policy, stiffing sellers, unfortunately.

Withdrawing funds from PayPal

Not all countries offer the same facilities for withdrawing funds from Paypal. For example, in my home country Malta, we used to be able to withdraw money only to a credit, debit, or prepaid card as well as a US bank account, but no local accounts.

This was then changed to allow withdrawals to EUR based local accounts, but unlike with other payment providers, we are not able to withdraw to local accounts in other currencies. This is a big disadvantage if you are making most of your sales in another currency such as USD.

So right now I have to accept all USD being converted automatically by my bank to my card’s currency which is always EUR by default since we’re based in Malta.

Read the following posts on this topic as it is critical that you get this right:

Withdrawing from PayPal to online bank accounts like Wise or Revolut
How to change PayPal’s withdrawal currency for credit cards

Paypal provides a handy checker where you can select your country and see which withdrawal options are available for that country.

What about PayPal Alternatives?

There are many PayPal alternatives, two of which are Payoneer and Stripe.

Payoneer

It’s worth looking at some PayPal alternatives that might be better suited to your needs. I’ve already mentioned Wise earlier in this article, but Payoneer is another widely used PayPal alternative, especially in India.

Launched in 2005 and headquartered in New York, Payoneer is a payment services provider that allows users to send and receive money online. The platform currently services more than 4 million customers located in more 200 countries.

Cross-currency transactions cost in the region of 2% above the mid-market rate, although this can be lowered if you hold a VIP account. If you obtain the Payoneer pre-paid debit card, then you’ll pay $3.15 per ATM withdrawal.

Payoneer is also a notable PayPal alternative due to its highly rated customer support. You have the option of contacting support via telephone, live chat or through a support ticket. However, response times are somewhat slow over the weekend, so you’re best off calling them if your query is of an urgent nature.

Check out Payoneer

Stripe

Stripe is recognized worldwide as the most painless way to accept credit cards online as a merchant, and it was created with developers in mind, making integrations easy. Fees are on the low side, and you can also get the first $20,000 of transactions with zero fees if you follow my method.

Further notes

Please be aware that there are two different types of payments that can be sent using PayPal – Purchase Payments and Personal Payments. With a Personal payment type, the sender of the payment can choose who pays the fee which is incurred. However, it is not free to send the payment. Either the sender or the receiver must pay. It is possible to receive personal payments to a Personal or Premier PayPal account.

If you are planning on receiving payments for a business you are running, you may need to upgrade your account type, as a Personal account is not suitable for receiving large amounts of payments. However, if you are only receiving a small number of payments, you are free to do so.

In case you are into gambling and want to make a deposit using Paypal, you should be aware that the payment platform has a strict policy about casino transactions.

It is possible to have two PayPal accounts, however only one can be for personal use, and must be either Personal or Premier type. It’s not possible to have a Personal and Premier account at the same time.

You can downgrade from a Business account to a Premier account, but not back down to a Personal account.

PayPal users can have one Personal account and one Premier or Business account. Each account needs to have a unique email address, bank account and credit card.

Hopefully, that helps to make your choice easier. If you have any questions, fire them off in the comments section.

This is post 2 of 11 in the series “PayPal”

The Value of Silent Retreats

Last updated: November 13, 2023Leave a Comment

Every year or so, I like to take a few days off and make a retreat. I don’t go on holiday to some fabulous destination (although I do that too at other times).

When I go for a retreat, the one thing I look for is silence.

I like to find a retreat house in the countryside or wilderness and spend 3-5 days there without talking to anyone. I suspect many of us don’t realize exactly how noisy our lives are. The experience of spending a few days in complete silence can at times be overwhelming, but highly beneficial.

Whenever I do such a retreat, I always come back to ‘real life’ way more focused, and with a renewed and positive attitude. Last week, I did this year’s retreat and as usual, it was a great experience. In fact, I’d like to make it a more regular thing. I’d also like to incorporate more elements of reflection and meditation in my daily life.

There are many retreat centers all around the world, what you need to make sure is that the center is one that helps you stay in silence for as long as possible. We’re not looking for a center that fills up your day with activities here, it should, in fact, be as boring as possible.

I prefer going to Christian retreat centers; one of my absolute favorites is the Montserrat benedictine monastery in Spain. The reason is twofold. One is that Christian centers tend to be centered around a really nice church or monastery that embodies the spirit of contemplation and reflection that we are looking for. Secondly, if you need it, you will also find monks ready to help you guide you along your journey.

If you’re attempting this for the first time, I would strongly recommend choosing a guided retreat. It doesn’t have to be religious, most monks and priests are happy to help you from a human aspect without necessarily involving religious teachings or readings from the Bible. If you do want to have a more religious experience, they are of course also delighted to guide you.

I’ve done both types of retreats and found them both beneficial. Ultimately, it’s all about what you believe and think about the world and your personal life journey. If you’re a religious person, it will help you to focus on passages from the Bible and spend time in prayer, while if you’re not particularly religious you will benefit from the solitude that breeds internal reflection. You can take an inspirational book with you to help out. Ultimately, both outcomes will be very similar.

My favorite retreat location – Montserrat

A key element of my retreats is always the practice of journaling or writing. While the first day or two can be tough until I quiet down my mind, once I get settled thoughts inevitably turn inwards and I usually get lots of insights. It is essential to write things down and also write about all your struggles. This will help you remember the lessons you learned and also help you if you have someone guiding you to the retreat, as you will have a handy reference during your talks with the guide.

In addition to exploring silent retreats worldwide, I occasionally organize exclusive, soul-nourishing retreats in Montserrat for members of the Good Life Collective. These gatherings offer a unique blend of tranquility and community, perfect for those seeking deeper connections and personal growth.

There are no hard and fast rules for the duration of retreats and their frequency. If you manage to find a place that you like and is not that far from home, I think that would be a really good win, as you can go there whenever you feel that you need to. So far, I have tended to stick to 4 or 5 days as that gives me enough time to quieten down and be very productive while at the same time not staying away from my family and normal life too long.

Have you ever been on such a retreat? How did it help you?

Are You Losing out from PayPal’s Exchange Rates?

Last updated: February 15, 2023120 Comments

If you have a PayPal account that you regularly use for collecting payments, and your main home currency is not US dollars, you would do well to read on.

Short aside: If you are using PayPal to transfer money abroad and change from one currency to another, consider using Wise instead. It’s what I’ve been using for years now and it is infinitely better than PayPal for this purpose.

Not too long ago, I had written about biding your time to get the best exchange rate possible when transferring your money from PayPal to your bank account. Soon after that, I discovered that there is another area of optimization which we should be aware of.

My home currency is the Euro, so my bank account uses Euro by default. Online I collect payments in USD since that’s the de facto currency on the web. That means that when it’s time to get the gold home I am subject to conversion rates when changing from USD to Euro. This is precisely where many people lose a good chunk of money, so you have to be careful.

Since your bank account is in Euro and your PayPal account is in USD, a conversion needs to take place. Now it’s a well-known fact that PayPal currency conversion rates aren’t the best; they incorporate quite a healthy profit for themselves here. So it might actually be better for you to let your bank handle the conversion at their exchange rates.

All you need to do is check out your bank’s exchange rates, make your calculations on how much Euro they would give you for a given amount of USD, then compare it to what PayPal would give you via their currency converter.

Beware also that some banks charge an extra fee for currency conversions. My bank charges around 1 Euro each time there is a conversion.

If you establish that it would indeed be beneficial for the bank to handle the conversion, you can change your PayPal account from being Euro-based to USD-based via this link.

Setting the currency to use when withdrawing money

On a related note, you can check the net amount you will receive from a PayPal money transfer via this PayPal fee calculator. Sadly, it appears that the calculator’s formulae are a bit out of date as the net amounts didn’t exactly correspond when I tested it on my account.

Note that if you have a Europe-based USD bank account, you will not be able to send USD directly from PayPal to that USD bank account. There will always need to be a conversion happening on the bank’s side, and the money will then go to your Euro account. You can try your luck with linking a multi-currency account like Wise Borderless to go around this issue, but it doesn’t always work.

As a test, I made a few transfers of $2,500 to my Euro-based bank account just to test the difference in money between using PayPal’s exchange rates and those of the bank.

Here are the results:

$2,500 converted to Euro by PayPal: €2,171.92
$2,500 converted to Euro by my bank: €2,216.06

Crazy huh?

More than €44 difference on each transaction!! That’s around 2% more added cost on each transaction. Keep in mind that PayPal is already charging you $2.50 per transaction as a fixed fee.

It definitely works better for me to use USD as my PayPal account currency, then withdraw directly in USD to my credit card. Note that changing your withdrawal currency has to be done manually by following my guide.

Buying Crypto with PayPal

Did you know you can now buy crypto with PayPal? That’s right, you can use Binance since it accepts PayPal deposits. Just hit the links below to get started.

You can also read my full review of Binance to learn more about this crypto exchange.

Buy Bitcoin with Binance

This withdrawal method is extremely popular at the moment, as people worldwide seek to get themselves some Bitcoin or Ethereum due to their extremely bright future price prospects.

Note: If you have any questions after reading this and the several other articles relating to PayPal on this site, please leave a comment or contact PayPal directly. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, I am unable to offer any advice over email so all emails related to PayPal will remain unanswered.

This is post 1 of 11 in the series “PayPal”

Wise

Converting $100,000 to Euros

Bonus tip: Negotiate a Better Rate with Your Bank

How to Time PayPal Withdrawals to Get the Best Currency Exchange Rate

Bitcoin – the Cheapest Way to do International Currency Exchanges and Remittances

Buying Crypto with PayPal

Here’s Pro in a nutshell:

Choosing a Checkout Service

Managing Multiple Currencies

An Example

Refunds

Withdrawing funds from PayPal

What about PayPal Alternatives?

Payoneer

Stripe

Further notes

Buying Crypto with PayPal

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