Paris, Tokyo/Boston, Oxford

Oh, the glamourous, transatlantic, jetsetter life I lead. Dollars, Pounds, Euros, West African Francs... It all gets to be a little much.

In fact, I go to considerable lengths to keep all my currencies separate. As much as possible, I keep dollars in the U.S. and pounds in England. I actually broke this rule when I ended this summer's field research with a bunch of extra Euro travelers checks, and went ahead and cashed them in Boston. But usually I try my best to keep currencies segregated. Here's why...

Moving them around electronically is a no-no because of the charge for "wire transfers." I know, charging me to send myself my own money? Ridiculous.

Also, as I discovered when I got into some tight spots last year and tried to transfer money from my U.S. savings account to my U.K. checking, wire transfers passing through the U.S. take a very long time these days. The nice young man at my local Oxford bank who I turned to on the verge of tears explained that transfers going through the U.S. are some of the slowest around because of post 9/11 money laundering checks/regulations. Awesome.

Last but certainly not least, the financial crisis has wreaked havoc on the exchange rate. To begin with, the dollar is super weak against the pound right now, although not as weak as it was this time last year. That means that moving U.S. dollars into a U.K. account instantly loses me money. Sad face. But grateful face for my luck in having a U.K. scholarship that pays all my fees plus a stipend in pounds. U.S. students who are self financing or using U.S. federal (or private) student loans for their expenses in the U.K. are basically paying 50% more, plus interest. Yikes.

The "exrate" is still moving around a bit, so, stressball that I am I prefer to just keep everything where it is. I actually have a friend who's been managing to make money by moving his cash between accounts at just the right moment, but I'm just not that adventurous. It doesn't help that I'm pretty certain I learned about this particular maneuver in Econ last year, and I'm just not ready to be doing anything out of my Macro textbook.