scoobydooathome

This has to be a wind up, please someone tel me that its gonna go up again

Hoping it look's better in a couple of months time, but who know's ...

Cheers,

FOX

Depressing isn't it!!!

Seems like a cruel joke that so many of us who have been waiting for a long time have finally got our visas only to have such a crappy exchange rate! We didn't risk changing any money until we had the visa in our hands, typical!

We go on 13 April............ Do we wait..............?

Sarah

baldbutts

What we need is a good war,that always boosts the quid


BB-I'm e-mailing Blair now pretending to be Saddam,& calling him a gay-lord

bussie

exchange rate

Goose

I wouldn't hold your breath for an improvement in the exchange rate, that is if you are wanting to exchange sterling for Aus dollars.

There are few factors at play here. Firstly commodity markets are booming in the shadow of the Iraq war, the floundering US dollar and world stock markets in general. So commodities including Gold have been going up in price. Australia has a commodity based economy and as a result the Aus dollar is geting stronger.

Secondly, the Aus dollar suffered tremendously during the dot com bubble years up to year 2000. No one wanted anything to do with commodities when there was "gold" in them thar dot coms. Money flowed into the US and UK stock markets. Now money is flowing out of the US and UK stock markets (have you noticed what the FTSE and DOW have been doing recently?)

I don't have the figures handy but if I recall correctly the Aus dollar was $2.50 to the pound in 1996 or 1997. My guess is that it is headed that way again (or worse).

Dilbert

Changed my meagre sum on Wednesday, got $2.66, bloke at Halewoods reckoned that the decline might continue.
'spose it depends how long you can hold out for. I could have changed my money at $2.8 + but didn't want to risk it then as didn't have the visas at the time. bummer.
Anyway its done now, so I'm never going to look at the rate again in case it rockets.

Cheers,
D

sofistek

The pound's falling against many currencies at the moment. I'm watching the NZ rate and that's down to 2.88 or worse. It hasn't been helped by the cut in interest rates in the UK.

The rate moves up and down, however. I guess you have to assess whether it's better to have the money over in Oz or NZ (possibly earning a higher rate of interest) or wait for the exchange rate to improve. It is a bummer, though I'm hoping it improves by the time I need to move money.

tinaj

If you are not desperate for all of your money at once, you could leave most of it in a Uk account and transfer it over the net when the rate rises. Might be an option for you.

pommiesheila

If you look at the various Forex sites (e.g. Moneycorp, Oanda etc) you will see that the Aus D has been as high as 3.0 and as low as 1.9 in the last 7 years ( in 1996 it was 1.9, it rose to 2.9 in 1998 and in 1999 went as low as 2.4).

We came over with an exchange rate of 2.62, which I felt was awful, considering it had been as high as 2.8 not long before we changed our money.

However, even though it is depressing to see you`ve just lost "a car" or whatever because of the exchange rate (and I still kick myself for changing ours when we did), most expats over here work on an exchange rate of £1 = $2.50, and reckon anything above that is a bonus.

sue5665

Hi,

We are off at the end of March and have opened an a account with the commonwealth bank in London. We are putting all our money in this account and change it a little at a time when we need it, and they will watch the exchange rate for us, so we will agree on a rate and if it reaches that rate they will exchange it for us.

Sue

onlyme

I hope the Oz dollar gets stronger and stronger .. I wanna go home for a holiday !!

Herman

Correct, consensus forecasts among the banks is that it will be 0.4 (or $2.5) on average over the next 3 years, getting slightly stronger each year. Coal prices are forecast to go up, gold prices are rising, copper prices are rising, zinc prices are rising. All in all its all good for the Aussie dollar but not so good for your British ex pat!

2thick

Well it will always suit somebody - PB and some of the others should be ecstatic as they're going in the other direction. Actually aren't you going back to the Czech Republic soon Herman? How's their currency holding up with all this global uncertainty?

2thick

etlniwd

The truth is that nobody knows which way it will go.

If any of us knew for sure then we'd all be stinking rich in a few months time.

The natural place for the dollar should be around 50p because then Aussie prices and wages would be on a par with the UK.

scoobydooathome

The rate is now 2.64 ...

Anyone know otherwise,