Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Society’ Category

Although you might expect America to be just like a version of England it turns out that it’s very different in a number of areas, notably in terms of financial sophistication.

One very important point to note from the outset is that foreign exchange is not something that American banks generally deal with. Whilst in England you can change foreign currency in any bank, you can only do that in the largest of branches in America. Also worth noting is that ATMs aren’t as common in America as they are in the UK and you won’t be able to use a cash-back facility so it’s worth carrying, say, $100 in cash.

That lack of foreign exchange facilities means that you must take cash in American dollars. These come in $1, $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 notes (“bills”) with each one being the same shape, size and colour so you need to look at the amount printed on them. You do get used to that lack of difference quite quickly. The dollar is divided into 100 cents and these come in 25c (“quarter”), 10c (“dime”), 5c (“nickel”) and 1c pieces. There are $1 coins but these are very unpopular and hence rare. It’s handy to take about $100 in cash (preferably in a mix of 10s and 20s); this is available commission (but not charge) free at the Post Office. The downside of cash is that if it’s stolen, it’s gone as holiday insurance rarely covers cash to any significant amount so if you are taking it, limit the amount to $100 or so. If you buy foreign currency on a card, it counts as a cash advance with all the charges that implies.

Travellers cheques (or, in America, “travelers checks”) are much better than cash in that they can be replaced fairly easily if stolen (keep a note of the numbers, date bought and where you bought them). However, they are equally expensive to purchase and there is often a charge to cash them too. In America you can use dollar cheques as though they were cash in shops (even where they say “no checks accepted”). If you have any left over after your holiday, keep them rather than cash them in your bank as you can use them later (there is no expiry date) and this will save you paying the commission again. If you buy travellers cheques on a card, it counts as a cash advance with all the charges that implies. Make sure that your travellers cheques come with the Visa or Mastercard or American Express brands as others may not be accepted.

Credit/Charge cards are used nearly everywhere these days. If you don’t have a card already, you should get one (Visa or Mastercard) even if you only plan to use it for emergencies. Bear in mind that not everywhere accepts them though and also that not all places take both Visa and Mastercard. If pushed, you can get cash on these cards either in an ATM or over the counter in a bank but save this for emergencies only as you’ll get charged a cash advance fee, currency conversion fee and interest. The exchange rate used is much better than you’ll get for either cash or travellers cheques. You will need a credit or charge card to hire a car and to reserve hotel rooms.

Debit cards are almost always branded Visa/Electron/Plus or Mastercard/Maestro/Cirrus and work in the corresponding systems however sometimes you may be issued with a card which can only be used in your own country: check that one of the Visa/Electron/Plus or Mastercard/Maestro/Cirrus symbols are on your card as if they aren’t you probably can’t use the card internationally. Charges are as per credit cards except that you don’t get charged interest on cash advances.

Cash cards are often limited to the country in which they are issued but if they have a Plus or Cirrus symbol on them, you can use them abroad too. Charges are usually the same as for debit cards in ATMs. The principle advantage of having a cash card is that they are a lot less attractive for thieves as they can’t be used without the PIN.

Prepaid cards are becoming increasingly popular with CaxtonFX and FairFX offering excellent value. Both offer cards denominated in dollars, euros and sterling. For travel to America take either the dollar or the sterling cards. Charges on both are broadly similar with Caxton taking a £10 charge (refunded) upfront and having a minimum top-up of £100 whilst FairFX charges a non-refundable £9.95 (but free by clicking on the link here) and have a minimum top-up of £10.

As well as the above options you also have a choice of providers of the various methods of payment. Travellers cheques may be offered “commission free” by your bank (and the UK Post Office), although note that this is not the same as “free”.

If you use one of the banks within the Global Alliance banks (BNPParibas, Bank of Nova Scotia, Bank of America, Barclays, Deutsche Bank and Westpac) you can use machines from one of the other Global Alliance banks without transaction charges (currency conversion fees still apply).

This article is part of our series on holiday planning which covers things like how to book your holiday, how to take your holiday money, what to pack, etc.

After a bit of arm twisting I managed to persuade Wendy to take up both an English and a maths class at school.

Although the primary school has organised them basically so that the parents attending can in turn help their children with the homework over the coming years, they’re at a much higher level than the kids will reach in that school with the highest level currently on offer going to GCSE equivalent. The Essential Skills classes that they’re doing come in two levels with the first starting at a very low level and it’s only the second level that gets to GCSE.

English was the most popular class going by those signing up for it last week and Wendy reckoned that there was a fairly full turnout this morning. She also reckons that there’ll be quite a dropout over the next few weeks as, by the sound of it, a fair number of those attending weren’t expecting to actually have to do much thinking. Having said that, high drop out rates are par for the course for open-entry courses with 40% being quite typical. That might seem like quite a high rate but there are all kinds of reasons for it and more than most apply to this course: there was little information in advance about course content, it’s open-entry and there was a lot of peer pressure to sign up.

The little information about the course meant that people could easily have expectations about the course which were wildly out of line from what it actually covers. For the English course, that probably means that a number of people will be expecting to read novels for the course but it’s a course about the language rather than the literature so they’ll not be reading novels at all. Being open-entry means that people who’ve had little or no effective schooling will be there along with those who’ve had quite a lot of effective schooling and that’s already causing problems with a small group who never learned that they need to keep quiet in class and particularly so when the teacher is interacting with another student. Finally, the peer pressure means that some people are there who don’t really want to be which will be causing problems too.

Worst of all though she’s got homework so that’s three lots of homework that I’ll need to check now?!?!?!

In some ways I always expect that as the weather gets colder, the people running the ice cream vans would swap over to some kind of hot food van but they never do.

Once the summer is out of the way, both the ice cream vans and their hot food equivalents disappear until the following spring. Almost simultaneously too which is peculiar because they’re rarely in the same spots so don’t get the chance to say “is that you finished for this year?”. It’s also a bit daft as I’d have thought that most people would continue to buy from the hot food vans quite a while after it was a bit too cool for ice cream.

Just where do they go over the winter though? Aside from one, somewhat knackered, old hot dog trailer, I’ve not seen either an ice cream van nor a hot food one parked anywhere. I suppose they could migrate south for the winter but given the relative lack of fluency in foreign languages exhibited by their owners I don’t really rate them as migratory beasties.

Of course, perhaps since they’re so good at predicting when the winter will set in they’re all closet meteorologists?

Does anyone know the answer?

It’s been a long time since we’ve mentioned anything of consequence about France.

The main reason is that there’s nothing much of note happening. Having said that, over the past few months we’ve had a growing level of interest in Mas Camps with three or four more interested parties having a look at the place. The latest one is offering a mixture of cash and a house which seems interesting if a little complicated financially and legally.

Alongside that we’ve had the usual run of bills from assorted arms of the French government who don’t seem to be able to fully grasp the concept that we’re no longer living in France. One particularly interesting one is for a tax that’s only payable if you’re living in France for which they’ve managed to change the address to an “interesting” (read: barely legible) version of our home address here ie they know that we’re not living there yet still sent a bill for a tax that would only be payable if we were!

It appears too that the rumoured bypass of the village is going ahead with the new road to be finishing up not too far from our front door.

Yesterday morning saw the presentation on what courses the local tech (OK, Belfast Metropolitan College) can offer in the school for the parents or at least those participating in the community group anyway.

It turns out that English was the most popular option with 18, followed by computing with about 15 and with maths trailing at 11. Those numbers appear to reflect the perceived difficulty of the three courses although I suspect that particular perception could turn out to be somewhat flawed if comments by the prospective tutor for the English and computing courses after the numbers were collected are anything to go by. What it also reflects is the almost exclusively female nature of the group which is why English had no trouble getting the numbers whilst maths had problems even getting to 11.

Anyway, Wendy’s signed up for maths and English which’ll keep her busy in the mornings ’til sometime in June.