corbyn10

To everyone

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

paulgee

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

wizzard

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several countries use the "pound" although the Ireland one is out of date since they got the old Euro thing going.

flashman

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

danny1001

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

iaink

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

danny1001

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.

danny1001

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

iaink

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

danny1001

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

iaink

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

Iain

CalgaryAMC

Now that's real education.

lee2

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.

danny1001

thats the guy!!

Covenant

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.