Changing Euros...

seismicryan

This year I am going to try and cut down on my spending, reduce my credit card debts, and generally save money where I can.

One area I have identified as a waste of money is in currency exchange.

In my self employed part time business I do quite a bit of trade in the Republic of Ireland, and am paid in Euros. If I lodge these into the bank I am it with the inflated exchange rate, so either I change my ROI prices to suit the exchange rate (a hassle) or I try to save on the exchange.

I was thinking of opening a bank account in the ROI and not bother changing back to Sterling, at least not in small amounts, but I’m not sure I can open a personal account there as I’m not a resident…

Any advice on how I can save from giving 10% of the money to the banks?? I’m in the ROI quite a lot, so keeping it down there would be preferable, but at the moment putting the Euros in a tin would be a more economic idea…

As an example of the rip off… if someone pays me 100 Euro, and I lodge this in my UK account, today I would get £84.75… minus £3 for commission and I’m left with £81.75 in my account… now if I withdraw this in the ROI I will only get about 90 euro… or alternatively if I lift out 100 euro It will cost me about £90… so I loose about £10 either way…

Obviously I’m best not lifting out money down there, and using the cash I have, but whatever way you look at it I lose out In the exchange.. so what’s my best option??

peachyprice

Who is your business account with?
You should be able to get a Euro account here in the UK to run alongside your stirling account. You can leave the money in there and transfer a large amount over to the sterling account when necessary.

seismicryan

my account is a personal account... im not prepared to pay for a business account for a small part time business...

i run another business that has a business account and i am getting a currency account for that as we get paid in USD and have to pay our suppliers in USD!

Ryan