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It is no secret to anyone who knows me at all that money torques me off. Not individual dollar bills, perhaps -- though the stack of twelve quid coins on my desk was annoying me while it was in my wallet; for some reason everyone wanted to give me change in coins today -- but the very concept of money. Although it is ultimately unavoidable, and I do treat my financial obligations responsibly, I try as hard as I can to avoid thinking about money.
Despite my annoyance at monetary systems, I do still remain a numbers geek. And money is quite quantifiable. When I came to the UK, I had carried $5300 in cash (from the sale of Pazu) with me as my start-up funds, since it would be one month before I received my first paycheck in pounds. For practical purposes, I quickly located the best place in Oxford to change cash and I monitored the daily fluctuations in the dollar-to-pound exchange rate, as even a slight difference in rate could add up to a considerable sum. In the end, I changed $3150 into pounds sterling before I started drawing my salary. So even a 1% difference in the exchange rate translates into a savings (or loss) of over thirty bucks!
At this point, I am spending the pounds that I have earned, rather than dollars. So, for now, the exchange rate no longer has a practical meaning to me. However, I am still monitoring it on a daily basis, because I am indeed a numbers geek. The last time I changed dollars to pounds was about half a month ago. At that time, the rate had been more or less stable since I had first arrived in the UK, three weeks earlier. Since then, though, the dollar has been losing value like it was going out of style. Maybe it is. This site monitors exchange rates and, over the past two weeks, the dollar has gone from an exchange of about $1.745/pound to, at today's update, $1.845/pound. That's a decrease of about 5.75% in the value of the dollar. This plot, from the same website, shows the number of pounds that one dollar buys, and may help to illustrate my point (note the supressed zero):
Thankfully, I have not had to change any money at the current rates. 5.75% may not sound like a lot, but if I had arrived in the UK one month later, I would have lost about $180 (out of the $3150 I exchanged) due to the rate difference!
Despite my annoyance at monetary systems, I do still remain a numbers geek. And money is quite quantifiable. When I came to the UK, I had carried $5300 in cash (from the sale of Pazu) with me as my start-up funds, since it would be one month before I received my first paycheck in pounds. For practical purposes, I quickly located the best place in Oxford to change cash and I monitored the daily fluctuations in the dollar-to-pound exchange rate, as even a slight difference in rate could add up to a considerable sum. In the end, I changed $3150 into pounds sterling before I started drawing my salary. So even a 1% difference in the exchange rate translates into a savings (or loss) of over thirty bucks!
At this point, I am spending the pounds that I have earned, rather than dollars. So, for now, the exchange rate no longer has a practical meaning to me. However, I am still monitoring it on a daily basis, because I am indeed a numbers geek. The last time I changed dollars to pounds was about half a month ago. At that time, the rate had been more or less stable since I had first arrived in the UK, three weeks earlier. Since then, though, the dollar has been losing value like it was going out of style. Maybe it is. This site monitors exchange rates and, over the past two weeks, the dollar has gone from an exchange of about $1.745/pound to, at today's update, $1.845/pound. That's a decrease of about 5.75% in the value of the dollar. This plot, from the same website, shows the number of pounds that one dollar buys, and may help to illustrate my point (note the supressed zero):
Thankfully, I have not had to change any money at the current rates. 5.75% may not sound like a lot, but if I had arrived in the UK one month later, I would have lost about $180 (out of the $3150 I exchanged) due to the rate difference!
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*grrr*
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Thankfully, the amount that you are bringing over is much smaller than the start-up funds that I needed as a deposit on a place to live, first month's rent, boarding at St. Johns College, etc. Nearly half the money that I changed went to housing expenses. Your "egg" is about 1/4 of what I had to change. So the loss due to the recent shift in the exchange rate will be about 1/4 as well, or about $45. Not trivial, to be sure, but better than $180.
My other hope is that, in the nine days left before you arrive, the current trend will reverse and the dollar will re-gain some ground. I shall keep fingers crossed for you. *more hugs*
Unfortunately, things over here are indeed damn expensive. So often, the price in pounds over here is the same as the price in dollars... except the pound is worth so much more -- nearly double! This simple fact has caused a big shift in my current financial situation because, although my salary has stayed more or less the same, once you convert pounds back to dollars, it's buying power is much less.
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1 oz gold = 35 oz silver= $35 = 10 barrels of oil. it all changed in '63 culminating in '71.
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One ounce of gold was really only $35 within living memory??
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Gold was $20/oz before 1933, 76 years ago.
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clarification
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Re: clarification
Also, correct me if I am wrong, but the price of gold being kept at $35/ounce for so long was simply because the dollar was defined as 1/35 the value of an ounce of gold?
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Re: clarification
http://www.ingrimayne.com/econ/Banking/Silver.html
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That could be true, I haven't completely investigated our history with fiat currency; yet.
Neither of which has served to make anyone richer. With artificial inflation matching run-away deficit spending, the USD is worth less then the cotton it's printed on.
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Heh... Not quite yet... though I believe that the penny is getting close to that point. I was reading that the metals in a penny (mostly zinc, as copper became to expensive some time ago) are worth about 0.8 cents. Once the metals are worth more than a cent, it's time to melt down all the pennies in that jar!
For the record, it costs an additional 0.6 cents over the metal price to mint a penny, so the cost of making one cent is 1.4 cents.
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That's pretty sad. ):
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Groups like LibertyDollar.org (http://www.libertydollar.org/) have a handle on the situation, though. Unfortunately they cannot call their currency legal tender or anything else such as that, although the government has called it legitimate, not counterfeit that really isn't saying much considering how worthless the greenback is.
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The part that gets me, though, is the 7% cost. A pack of one hundred Liberty dollars costs $107 US dollars. Hurm...
Overall, I'd like to do away with monetary systems entirely in the long run.
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7% cost really isn't surprising given the price of gold against the (worthless) U.S. dollar. It's something like $325/ounce IIRC, so even with that cost, you're making out.
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math is hard.
still...math....uck!!! :P
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Re: math is hard.
Heh, math's no so uck-y! :)
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Re: math is hard.
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If you are Canadian, though, it must sucks to buy things that have the US$ price and the CA$ price already printed on it, because you're getting ripped off now! The preprinted prices assume an exchange rate that is less favourable to the Canadians, because it is out of date.
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Yeah, it was fun to go shopping in Canada during the month long Boxing Day sales when the dollar was at 62. "Wait, this costs $20 USD back home at Wal-Mart, but it costs $13 CDN on sale at The Bay, so that means I'm paying about $8 or 9 USD for this... Hrm, I'll take three!"
Even back in 2000, there were branches of CIBC bank in Toronto that have a "By George!" logo on it. This means that on that ATM, you can do entire transactions in USD, or even convert from USD to CDN and back... but only if you have a CIBC account. Drew did, so that made things very easy, and I wouldn't always have to hit the first bank in Sarnia, Ontario, usually a CIBC or RBC, possibly an HSBC, or TD Canada Trust.
Speaking of which, there's a branch of Manulife in Lombard, a few branches of RBC (Royal Bank of Canada) around here, and yes, TD does mean Toronto Dominion. In Canada, they've changed the name to Canada Trust, but the rest of the world will be seeing TD Financial Services, and I've seen them in Arlington Heights. And yes, I've applied to all of them, repeatedly. My friend Neil started out with Household International, and it's HSBC (Hong Kong... something or other) now. I've been trying to use him to find out about jobs there, but not had any luck yet. :( I'm still hoping to get a job with one of these, and take the slow process of impressing them enough that I can transfer to a Toronto branch or something. Hey, je parle un peu français! (comme une vache espanol!)
Je m'appelle Adrienne, et je voudrais ton argent. :)
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As for the money story, I'm not surprised Canadians will happily accept US dollars. Back in 2003, the US dollar was worth 40% more, so they make a tidy profit if they sell to you in US dollars instead. Even today, with the US dollar so devalued, it is worth 15% more than the Canadian dollar, so it is still in their interest to take it. Wait a bit longer and if the US dollar becomes less than the Canadian dollar... well then maybe they won't be as eager. :)
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Interestingly enough, when I worked in Argentina, the exchange rate was about three AR pesos for one US dollar. It dropped to that rate when the AR peso was decoupled from the dollar, where it had been pegged at a one-to-one exchange rate, around 2002. As the dollar drops, the AR peso exchange rate hasn't changed... meaning that the AR peso is dropping about as fast.
I'm just glad that I'm being paid in pounds sterling right now!