Good morning. I recently returned from a trip to Ireland (which was lovely, thanks for asking), where I learned firsthand just how humbling it is to travel with the Canadian dollar right now. And the news this week isn’t going to make things better anytime soon. Let’s get into it.
Loonie troubles
Not sure if you’ve heard, but we’re in a trade war with the United States, and it was reignited last week when negotiations fell apart at the eleventh hour.
That sent the already-weak Canadian dollar tumbling, although it clawed back some ground this week. On Thursday, the loonie was trading 0.2 per cent higher at $1.3855 per U.S. dollar, or 72.18 U.S. cents, recouping a small part of Monday’s decline.
But the loonie was hurting well before the latest trade drama. Last week, I visited both Northern Ireland and Ireland, which meant getting humbled by two exchange rates. In Northern Ireland, one Canadian dollar bought me about £0.532. Across the border, it got me roughly €0.623. It’s hard to have a “Euro summer,” when a £5 coffee is actually closer to $9.40.
I did find a few ways to make travelling with our measly loonie slightly less painful.
For starters, I used a prepaid debit card with no foreign-transaction fees. Some Canadian credit cards waive them too, including the Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite Card. Otherwise, the typical 2.5-per-cent foreign-transaction fee means you’re making an already-bad exchange rate even worse.
Another rule is to always pay in the local currency. At plenty of tourist spots, the card reader gave me the option of paying in pounds or euros, or converting the purchase into Canadian dollars on the spot. CAD feels like the natural choice, but you must resist. When you choose Canadian dollars, the merchant or payment processor does the conversion at its own exchange rate, which can be worse than your card issuer’s. Whenever I compared the CAD price offered by the machine with what eventually appeared on my statement, my card won.
It’s also worth looking for discounts. My partner found a deal through his employer for an application called Go City, which we used to buy tickets for three popular Dublin attractions and saved about $30 each.
And finally, think in Canadian dollars. A €20 lunch somehow feels like a $20 lunch when you’re on vacation. It is decidedly not. Doing the mental conversion before buying something (particularly the forgettable stuff) can help prevent the dreaded “how did I spend $300 today?” moment.
For now, I’m feeling thankful for my travel budget that I made good use of and am missing Irish whiskey.
The Calculator
What’s happening: Renters in Quebec’s biggest cities aren’t getting the same relief as elsewhere in Canada, as intense demand for older, cheaper apartments collides with new rental supply that is largely aimed at the higher end of the market.
The Retirement Receipt
Illustration by Alex Siklos
How one piece of advice changed her perspective on aging
The lesson: Years ago, Isabella Mindak befriended an 80-year-old woman named Lillian, who told her that older people shouldn’t be pitied for the ways their bodies change. They should be respected for everything they’ve already endured.
The reflection: Now that Mindak is getting older herself, she finds Lillian’s words help her make sense of the small frustrations of aging, from stiffness and weaker eyesight to feeling dismissed by younger people.
The takeaway: Aging can bring physical limitations and a sense of invisibility, but it can also be understood as evidence of a life lived through challenges, happiness and change.
Best of the Rest
💰 Canadians are boycotting U.S. travel and booze, but investments are a different story. Despite the trade war, Canadians continue to pour money into U.S. securities. Financial planners say abandoning American investments could actually increase risk.
📈 Speaking of risk, here’s a case for staying invested in the U.S. Globe reporter David Berman notes that the S&P 500 has returned an annualized 13.4 per cent over the past decade, compared with 9 per cent for Canada’s S&P/TSX 60, making a politically motivated boycott potentially costly.
💉 Young Canadians are borrowing to pay for cosmetic surgeries. Alternative lenders can offer up to $50,000 for procedures such as breast augmentations, liposuction and tummy tucks, but interest rates can run as high as 29.99 per cent.
📚 Dolly Parton gave away millions before she died. The country music icon, who was worth an estimated US$450-million, spent decades funding literacy, education, medical research and disaster relief.
Try This
💰 Use multiple savings accounts to make big bills easier to manage. Personal finance columnist Rob Carrick suggests creating six separate savings “buckets” for expenses such as property taxes, insurance, vacations and emergencies, then automating transfers into each one. If you’re retired, you’ll need a seventh account. It’s a bit of a pain to set up, but it’s worth it.
