Thread: Converting Currency - British Abroad

Managing a quick bit of mental arithmetic confuses most of us who don’t have a head for figures. But just how hard expats and British holiday-makers find mentally converting currencies is revealed in the latest survey of over 2,000 travellers who juggled foreign money this summer. Forex experts Caxton FX says that nearly a quarter confessed that they couldn’t covert a price accurately in their heads when required to do so while one in five Brits said they could only manage mentally converting amounts of up to €50.
When asked which country’s currency currently had the best exchange rate with the pound - over half (52%) admitted to not knowing - just 7% correctly identified Morocco (currently MD13.2 to the £1) while the majority who did take a guess (13%) thought it more likely to be the Turkish lira (currently TL3.14 to the £1).
Currency conversion is an essential part of expat money management. Without calculating what the equivalent worth of your local currency income is to another currency’s value leaves an expat exposed to financial risk on all levels - be that in terms of spending or saving.
Currency tools for quick day-by-day conversions, or information on the means for planning forex conversions ahead, are available on most forex experts’ sites. These tools aim to take the sting out of a sudden detrimental dip between any two currencies that matter most to an expatriate, through monitoring with graphs on market trends and data backing up rate alerts.

LOL,, I know they say you should compare and convert but its natural IMO to compare to what you know. When we moved to Spain i was always converting prices and then when we arrived in Aus i did exactly the same thing. I did use my 'head' to convert but will admit to rounding 'up' or 'down', to make it easier,,lol

Cal x

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