Banking and budgeting
Please note information supplied on this page is for the benefit of Fulbright Scholars travelling to Australia, to assist with travel preparations and also to support Scholars in their transition to life in Australia. Please note: the information has been extracted from recent Fulbright Scholar Final Reports and is not necessarily the views or recommendations of the Fulbright Commission.
Banking has been incredibly easy in with St. George. The one word of advice would be to sign up for the online/Internet banking straight away, as it greatly facilitates your ability to budget and keep track of your spending… 2006 Postgraduate Scholar In terms of a rough monthly budget, once I was set up in Melbourne, I try to overestimate and allow for: $450 rent/month, $400 food/month, $150 bills/month, $120 transportation/month, $200 entertainment/shopping each month, adding up to a total of about $1300/month. Obviously with travel factored in (visits to other friends/scholars around Australia or visits to New Zealand etc.) this monthly cost will go up significantly. 2006 Postgraduate Scholar Australian bank fees are high, but American banks will also charge fees for using their cards internationally. There’s really no getting around either… 2005 Postgraduate Scholar There are only three St. George ATMs in Melbourne. All of them are within a few blocks of each other in the middle of the city. As a result I changed to Westpac which offered several benefits including many more ATM’s and the option to get a debit card. 2006 Postgraduate Scholar There is only one St. George's Bank branch (the bank the Fulbright Commission set us up with at the beginning of our stay) in all of Western Australia, which made it kind of annoying on those infrequent occasions when I wanted to deposit a check or some other nonsense that could not be handled at an ATM. 2005 Postgraduate Scholar |