School,

  Most of the grocery stores around here have a Western Union contract either at the Customer Service area or as a stand-alone kiosk.  They have quite an array of money services based upon cash in, whatever format you want as output.  Cheaper than a bank.

Speaking of cheap, the lowest cost one I know is Postal Money Orders.  They'll cut them up to $700 or so each but you can purchase as many as you like.  Only a buck or two each.  Wire is faster, of course.

  More recently, I've used PayPal but they seem to take their pricing from wire transfers and reduce only a little from that.  Easy, though.

I hope this helps.  Stetts