Money
 

To everyone

What is the difference between the £1 and the Canadian Dollar?

Re: Money
 

Is this the first part of a joke? If not, here are some possible responses:

1. The £1 doesn't have a daft nickname

2. You can buy more with a loonie in Canada than a £1 in England

3. The £1 isn't similar to any neighbouring currency with the same name but a different monetary value. Ok, the punt sounds similar but they don't use those any more

4. About 58 pence or $1.35 CAD

5. The $ CAD doesn't share it's name with a unit of weight with a stupid abbreviation

6. You can't go into a shop in Canada with a $1 CAD and buy something that's priced at $1 CAD

7. There's no conversion if you want to know what you'd earn in Canada. Just take your UK salary and change £ for $ CAD

8. Petrol is priced more or less equally in £ in Britain as $ CAD in Canada

9. Her Majesty's head is larger on the Loonie

10. The Loonie looks like some kind of roman coin with a rough edge, whereas the £1 looks like a car wash token

11. You can't seriously express your weight in Loonies

according to Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound_(currency)

several countries use the "pound" although the Ireland one is out of date since they got the old Euro thing going.

Re: Money
 

The £ doesn't have any alternative competitive currency whereas the Canadian Dollar has Canadian Tire Money!

Re: Money
 

surely you mean the other way round!!! you can buy twice as much with a quid than you can with a loonie!!!

Re: Money
 

No, right first time I think, cost of stuff seems way cheeper in Canada. If it costs $1 here, it seems to be at least 1GPB in the UK.

So if you are bringing pounds and changing to dollars stuff here is really a bargain, but on the flip side, as I earn $, I can barely afford to go back to the UK for a week at a time.

Iain

Re: Money
 

i think it depends what you are buying... in canada i pay $1 for a can of coke and 50p in UK... or 30p for a chcoolate bar or bag of crisps, but you cant get 3 for a dollar in canada.
However other things i suppose are cheaper... like clothes or CD's

to be honest you cant really make a fair comparison i dont think.

Re: Money
 

also i bet it depends where u are from as i lived in north of england which is cheaper than the south...and in canada, alberta which i hear is cheaper than british columbia

Re: Money
 

I was thinking more of big ticket items. Cars, Houses, White goods, TVs, PCs etc. Its not strictly Dollar = Pounds, (except for gas/petrol), but it seems to be firmly in Canadas favour in nearly all cases.

my 2c / 0.9p

Iain

Re: Money
 

yes your right but the kid who asked is only 10 !!! so i figured he might be thinking more of chocolate bars than mortgages



;)

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Would that be the same 10 year old you told wouldnt be able to get a beer till 11am while watching the footy in the sports bars :):D

Iain

Re: Money
 

Now that's real education.

Judging from the opening post on this thread:

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...hreadid=224979

I think you may find the person who posted the question on this thread may be quite young.

Re: Money
 

thats the guy!!

:D

Re: Money
 

Ian explained this to me when we were discussing salaries, having now been to canada, I now know what he meant.

In terms of value, assume that your Canadian dollar will buy you the same value of goods as a british pound.

If your salary in the UK was approx £30k expect your new salary to be about the same in dollars, ie $30k, ( general although in fairness there are exceptions) therefore your purchasing power isn't as strong as it would be if you were visiting canada on holiday.

Food is cheap, though.