I wanted to write a little bit about Revolut, an online banking option that I joined a few years ago.
My original reason for joining was to receive my payments from Testable Minds without any fees (PayPal often charges fees... and often earns fees from you in sneaky ways, like having bad exchange rates when you get paid in US dollars, for example). I didn't know what Revolut was, so I did some reading.
The part that sold it for me was that it was free to join and I'd pay no fees to exchange currencies. That meant when I got paid in US$, I could switch it to pounds at exactly the current rate. Nobody does that!!! I couldn't believe my eyes. It also functions just like your normal bank card. You can load it with any money you like and take it on holidays, and use the card like a local. And I pay no fees. So when I go on holidays, I can switch my Pounds to Euros then spend away without a care. On my last trip, I used it for groceries at Lidl, I used it to get on a local bus, I used it to pay for a taxi, and I even used it to pay for my hotel. It was so easy and I didn't have to worry about whether my bank was ripping me off.
I can also send money overseas. I used to send birthday money on PayPal but now I just do it in Revolut and get a far better deal (a perfect one, in fact, since the exchange rate is exact). I can also receive money, even if it's in Aussie dollars or Euros, it's no problem, I just switch it to pounds and then I can either use my card or move it to my other bank accounts. So easy.
Here's the link to join (click here). It's free to join and you can use it from Google Pay/Wallet or Apple Pay on your phone, and there's no charge to manage the whole lot like that from the app on your phone. If you want a physical card to go with it, this is £5 and it only takes a few days to arrive.