Recent currency conversions

One of the hardest parts of traveling outside of the EU, or any area that uses the same currency as your own is dealing with exchange rates. Many people traveling from Ireland for business or pleasure to their neighboring country, the United Kingdom, many times find themselves exchanging their hard earned euros for a lesser amount of British pounds.

As of late, any person traveling from the EU to the UK may have noticed a decline in the value of the pound compared to that of the euro. Within the last month and a half, the pound has hit record lows since 2009; the exchange rate is 88.92 pence per euro.  

This low extends to the exchange rate associated with the United States dollar. One pound sterling is currently exchanged for $1.268. In just the beginning of May 2019, the rate was $1.32/pound. This is a significant loss in value over one month’s time.  

This fall is heavily due to the instability of the economy that rests on the shoulders of the October 31 Brexit decision. The …

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Ireland affordability from a US student standpoint: Groceries

There are many noticeable aspects that differ significantly between the United States and Ireland. For me, one of the largest changes is that the value of every euro I have us significantly more than that of my US dollar.

When coming to Ireland, I used my local bank to exchange dollars for euros with the euro being 1.2 times more valuable than my crisp dollar bill. Although I was aware of this rate, it has continuously thrown me off as I go in and out of sandwich shops, Tesco’s and the occasional Spar.

When I walk into any of these places, I think only in terms of my euros in hand. I am amazed by the €4 sandwiches, the €1.5 salads, and in general much less expensive grocery prices. When getting my first installment of groceries, I was amazed by the €36 price. This is because I usually spend around $50 at the grocery store in the US in order to stock up with those same ingredients.

Although that seemed cheap, the extra $5 in conversion made the payment just …

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Falling euro, friend or foe?

Many critics of the Eurozone are sceptical because they have always raised the fact that countries cannot devalue their currency, think twice would be my response, what is happening with the Euro is a large scale depreciation that means nobody has to leave the zone to get cheaper currency.

There is a race to the bottom happening in my opinion, the Chinese have definitely lead the way thus far with their Yuan manipulation, the only reason the world plays ball with them is due to their manufacturing output of cheap goods (which would be cheap compared to 1st world production costs even if Yuan traded at fair value) which we want and willingly buy.

Then you have the dollar, the US has such massive forward liabilities that the dollar will have no choice but to tank, the UK sterling doesn’t have a great future either, fifty years ago it was worth five dollars now it is at $1.43 – but currency is not absolute, it is relative – and that is why you have to look elsewhere to see what …

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