$#&%!!!! indeed, Ginger! Think I'll have to start putting some extra money away so we can afford our trip to Piemonte and England in Oct-Nov. One can only hope the dollar strengthens a little against both the euro and pound in the next few months, or we'll be doing a lot of picnicing and less eating in restaurants... aargh!
Posts: 1863 | Location: Berkeley, CA | Registered: 22 March 2005
Guess I'm confused. This article (http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/columnist/block/2006-05-29-currency-exchange_x.htm) talks about the credit cards that absorb the credit card fees/transaction fees that occur with the currency exchange. Do you think that is part of the difference in what the numbers are?
I guess I'll find out the hard way, one way or another, as I live for Italy on June 9th.
What's the source of the $1.40? The rate for buying cash in the U.S.? Using an ATM or credit card in Europe should be 1-4% more than the $1.29, unless there's also a per-transaction charge, so it should be $1.34 at most.
I think that that is a "free quote". In Italy the banks have to charge the exact official quote , ok, ok, they will make you pay a 10€ commission, but this morning the exchange is 1,29€. Coulsd have you seen it on an Exchange agency?
The US Embassy IRS in Paris offer this site for Americans living abroad to do our lousy tax return every year even we do not earned a penny from US sources;huh!!!
http://www.oanda.com/ they take the exchange rate as posted. Now diff banks diff dollars/euros you know fees and commissions play a game always. Dig dig dig for best rates always. If you travel often and have someone to help you why not open an Euro account in Europe? keep some there so when you are ready to travel the losses are less; just a thought?
If you travel often and have someone to help you why not open an Euro account in Europe?
Actually , one can get euros or British pound ( or pretty much anything else) very easily at Everbank in the US when the dollar is up and one can easily get an offshore account in Europe with digital banking.Based on our huge twin deficits , I would count on the dollar to continue to fall over the long haul.
I would look at lots of them and see what works best for you.We will be wintering in Spain so we are interested in ones with branches in Gilbralter because that we be close to our winter place ( easy driving distance).You might be looking for different things than what we want and we don't have a whole lot of experience with this ( so its not like I can say I have been doing it for years and know its great) so I am hesitant to give a name.
RBS international ( royal Scottish bank) is one that has a high rating that we like so far.YMMV.
Thanks WT! I'll search around in some of the countries we are considering. Since we'll be in Switzerland for 2+ months, I'm sure we'll find something since they are of course "the" place to off-shore, right!
The Norwegian Krone is very strong to the dollar right now I think that 1 dollar is now about 6.1 Kroner. When I went to Florida a few years back 1 dollar was 8.4 Kroner. This means of course that it is more expensive for american tourist to come to Norway but it is cheaper for us to buy stuff online in the States and it is cheaper to go on vacation in the USA :-)
The dollar has been weak in Europe for a while now. The silver lining, if you want to look for one, is that more Europeans are coming to the U.S. to buy cheaply.
Its just a bank that is offshore like in Gilbralter or the other many places where one can do offshore banking.
We are going to be near Gibralter ( I don't know exactly how near ,haven't bothered to figure it out just yet,but Gibralter is near Andalucia and the offshore banks there do business in English ,so that was part of the pull for us).Thank goodness for digital banking! ( Which we are quite new to).
We knew this trip was coming and the dollar has been and wen think will continue to be in a falling pattern ( as far as I can tell by looking at fundamentals with the twin debts),albeit there will be some blips up from time to time, so we had to look ahead as we will be in Europe for the next 2.5 years probably.So we put some dollars some time ago into British Sterling ( like Warren Buffet) and Euros.
It just seemed like common sense to trade it when the dollar was high since I knew we would be spending in Euros for a while.
They have similar products like they do in most banks ( they call them slightly different things than we do here).
We are no experts on the topic ,still trying to figure it all out as we have to look far into the future and just guess best choices on some of this.I might be wrong,but with housing falling fast& deficits continuing to climb, I can't see how the dollar is going to do anything but go down during our long stay.To us ,it seemed like the logical choice to put money that we would be spending there, into that currency when the dollar was up.( When it goes up , I am always wondering if I should put more in).I hope it serves us well,but we will see.
( We knew it would have been smarter to go where our dollar would buy us more,but we wanted to go to Europe first,so I hope it works out well).
BTW, I enjoyed your latest blog entry..I can so relate! I am also envious of your 7 bags!
For us, 1.00 EUR Euro = 1.41134 CAD Canada Dollars 1 EUR = 1.41134 CAD 1 CAD = 0.708549 EUR is an improvement. I'm desperately strapped over there. Get the impression the Canadian dollar has risen a bit against the mighty €, which would be a good thing for me as I had to buy my ticket - it will be reimbursed over there.
Posts: 868 | Location: Montréal | Registered: 29 January 2006
Topic Closed
I think that 1 dollar is now about 6.1 Kroner. When I went to Florida a few years back 1 dollar was 8.4 Kroner. This means of course that it is more expensive for american tourist to come to Norway but it is cheaper for us to buy stuff online in the States and it is cheaper to go on vacation in the USA :-)
Cindy 