I'm moving to Costa Rica on May 2

Dseabaugh, you do not provide enough background info from which people can make suggestions.  What I read so far brings to mind the phrase, 'the blind leading the blind'.

You say you are planning to move permanently.  OK, is that to work or are you retired? 

You say you will transfer funds from your US bank.  OK, are those funds simply cash savings or are they from some kind of income stream generated in the USA?  If an income, what kind of income? 

After retiring early (very), I have spent the last 27 years living in various countries and have become familiar with the ways of handling funds from one country to another.  Yet, I cannot make one suggestion to you without having more background information.  Those who are making suggestions, are making assumptions which may or may not be correct and in some cases suggesting ways of transferring money that are definitely not the best way to go regardless of circumstances.

Using a credit card from your home country on an ongoing basis for example does not make sense unless it is a card that adds no exchange loading.  Specifically for TerrynViv, if you have been using RBC debit and/or credit cards for 2 years, they have cost you 2.5% of the total amount you have used them for.  If you have spent say $20k a year x 2 years, then you have GIVEN the RBC a nice $1000 profit out of your pocket.  If some of that was transferred bank to bank as you seem to imply, the same 2.5% is probably being charged for exchange loading.

People making monthly transfers of funds 'bank to bank' may also be losing similar amounts on exchange loading with every transfer as well as paying transfer fees.  The best way to transfer large sums to another country, whether one time sums (such as a house purchase) or regular transfers (such as monthly income), is using a Forex company, never a bank transfer.  Forex companies will charge you 1% over the Interbank Rate for each transfer, banks will charge you more than that.

If you have a bank account in your new country and some of your income is from pensions, it may make more sense to have your pension deposited directly in your local bank account.   Many countries will pay your government pension payments directly into any bank account in any country in the world you want them to.  In some cases, they send the funds in their currency and you then have to deal with the exchange loading that your local bank charges.  That can mean shopping for the right bank. 

In some cases, a pension provider will exchange the funds to your local currency before sending the funds to your bank account.  In that case, the exchange loading cost occurs at the front end.  But often when they do that, they use a service like a Forex company and pay a minimal exchange loading of say 1% vs. a common bank loading of say 2.5%. 

My wife for example gets a UK government pension paid directly to a bank in Canada and the exchange is done at the Canada end and costs 2.5%.  She also gets a UK private pension paid directly to the bank in Canada and that exchange is done at the UK end by the pension provider, using a third party forex company and gets done at 1%.  If she had that money deposited into a UK bank account and then made withdrawals using a UK Debit card or spent it using a UK credit card, she could lose as much as 4.5% on exchange loading depending on which UK bank's cards she was using.  If she used cards from a UK bank that charges 0% exchange loading, that would be better but that then leads to questions about where are you paying income tax on the income and are you a 'non-resident for tax purposes' in a country or not.

So as you can see, this is not a simple subject.  Each individual's circumstances differ and without knowing more of the background, what anyone says they do vs. what you should do can be completely different.

My experience has been that most people dealing with income from one country going to another country, do not really know what is in their best interest.  They may THINK they do, but they often don't.  It sounds like nickalas for example may well be paying exchange loading plus his $60 fee for transfers from his USA bank account and that is simply GIVING away money.  And it sounds like TerrynViv are probably GIVING their Royal Bank of Canada a nice profit as well.  It also sounds like Sambuenaventuraman may also be losing on exchange loading with cards.  I may nor may not be correct about them, I simply don't have enough info on their circumstances to be certain but I'd bet on my having got it right in at least 1 out of the 3 cases and that means someone is losing money they don't need to.

I don't see any responses you have received that look to me like someone has a real good handle on how BEST to handle money coming to CR from another country and no one has a good handle on YOUR personal circumstances on which to give suggestions.