Best way to minimize fees when buying BTC with USD to buy XRP?

Hello,

I seem to be drowning in fees and maybe this is just the normal out there, but I wanted to check to make sure I am doing things as best as possible to minimize my fees.

In my example below, I transfer $200 CAD into my CoinBase account, the fee for doing this is $7.67.

Because I ultimately want to buy XRP, I have an account on Kraken which allows you to buy XRP with either USD or XBT - so I transfer the BTC from CoinBase to XBT and get slapped with yet another fee, $21.77 CAD (network fee).

Now I finally have funding in Kraken to purchase XRP, make a purchase for 169 XRP, Kraken takes 0.42686 XRP in fees, I end up with 168 XRP with my initial $200 CAD investment.

In the end, 168XRP is $157 CAD - so I lost about $40 bucks in just FEES.

The most significant fee here is that of XBT, I understand this is the network fee (essentially I am paying a fee for the network bits) - if I transferred $200 or $20000 the fee would still be the same - is this correct assumption?

I guess i should be buying a crypto currency that is lower in fees, but the issue is Kraken will only allow you to buy XRP with either XBT or USD/EUR - and I don't want to go through the hassle of wiring money.