Heading to France at the weekend and the pending Euro-gre-pocalypse is making me wonder whether to buy them today or give the election result a couple more days to trash the value of the Euro and see just how cheap it gets? Any opinions from the room?

Are you a currency trader?
How much will 10% mean to your holiday budget
Will you buy exactly what you need?
If not pay as you go

You’re going nowhere sunshine! The whole of Europe will be in flames, and in the grip of anarchy by the weekend

I’m buying about £800 worth so 10% isn’t insignificant. Sadly I’m not a trader otherwise the money probably wouldn’t matter to me. It’s to cover 2 peoples food and drink for a week in the Alps so I will likely spend what I have and then more given past experience.

How do you pay as you go with foreign currency – prepaid card? (Genuine question no sarcasm intended)

@Binners – cheers, now everyone is wondering why I’m laughing at work – fun is not allowed here!

My CC has no fees for overseas transactions so I pay the rate on the day, do you know which way the rate will go? (if so buy/sell as much as you can) if it’s 10% (big change) then the max difference on what you are asking is 80 quid on your holiday. Is that enough to stress about?

If you want to walk about with £800 worth of money in your pocket buy it now. Post Office are cheap.

But if you don’t want the risk of loosing that much money just pay for stuff on your debit card or get some local currency from a hole in the wall when on holiday.

Euros are a little bit cheaper now than before Xmass, but you have to balance that with hassle / risk etc.

My CC has no fees for overseas transactions so I pay the rate on the day

Do you get a reasonable rate that way Mike?

My card is similar but they “hide” the fees by exchanging at a rate that is a few points off the market rate. 🙁

Close enough that I don’t worry, the alternative is to fix the rate and carry all the cash I might need for however long I’m away (last time it was a month) not exactly practical and the overall difference is not worth the hassle.

they “hide” the fees by exchanging at a rate that is a few points off the market rate

quite. And a “few points” is putting it generously.

I get over 5% better rate from Transferwise than from my high street bank. Unfortunately I dont think there’s a way you can benefit from this method unless you have your own € account either here or on the continent.

I get over 5% better rate from Transferwise than from my high street bank. Unfortunately I dont think there’s a way you can benefit from this method unless you have your own € account either here or on the continent.

and that is the point, either you carry around all the Euro you need (exactly as you will get screwed converting it back) or you have your own Euro account or you PAYG.

I’ve got the Halifax Clarity card specially for this – no charges and the rate today it’s 1.34 🙂

I just use my debit card at hole in the wall machines, the rate’s close enough to not worry about.

Google the rate at exchanges at the destination too, I’ve found much better rates even at airports in other countries than the post office etc offered (mainly eastern european non-euro countries).

The euro recovered after Asian hit today. Almost impossible to gauge in ST. You could average in (buy some over several days) but check that transactions costs don’t kill this.

You can get one of the post office travel cards that you can top up while your abroad and pay the usual post office rate.

Just use a cash machine when you get there, or credit card for any big bills.

It only dropped a couple of cents against the dollar didn’t it? it’s already recovering.

On the subject of currency trading I was thinking about buying some Danish Kroners speculating that they will depeg.
The in laws are Danish and we go there a couple of times a year. Ignoring the obvious risk that they may do a runner with the money is it as simple as transferring them money which they can look after until I want to cash in when they transfer it back to me?