Time Grows Nigh.

[swestrup]

Its finally starting to sink in that in just a few days I'll be inside a large metal bird flying over the ocean. Today I plan to do my packing so I have a couple days to possibly remember things I forgot to pack. Tomorrow I'll have to head into town to drop off my library books and buy some American and Danish money. Tuesday I'll get up early enough to give the house a quick tidying up, and then I'll head off to the airport where the adventure begins in earnest.

Comments

[swestrup]

Oh, I won't buy much of each, but I like to have the equivalent of $20-30 of each in my pocket. That way I can stop at a restaurant or buy a book in a shop without having the hassle of figuring out how to get my cards to work in a foreign envirionment. As well, who wants to pay a $5 surcharge to use a debit card to buy a $5 item?

[cpirate.livejournal.com]

Is the surcharge really that big these days? Yikes. I don't recall CIBC charging me anything (other than a slightly preferential exchange rate) for my American dollar purchases last year.

[swestrup]

Recently in montreal I took $20.00 out of a BOM ATM when my account was with RBC. Both banks charged me $1.50 for doing so. That's only $3 total, but I was still in the city.

taxlady has already discovered there is a $5.00 surcharge for accessing our RBC accounts from Copenhagen. I have no idea what it will be like in Boston, but prudence dictates I have some ready cash.

[cpirate.livejournal.com]

You're totally right. I was misremembering, since I managed to lose my bank card within about 3 hours of landing in the States last year (note: don't do that). The one fateful transaction I made on it did cost me an extra $3. What I ended up doing was putting just about everything on my credit card instead, which was the one that didn't charge me any overhead costs.

Regardless, having a bit of hard cash on hand is a nice safe plan. The cost of having to convert it is negligible compared to the amount of hassle it might end up saving.

[tjernobyl.livejournal.com]

If you have less than $1000 in your account, CIBC will bleed you dry. I figured it out a while back. If I used debit for every transaction VS took out my maximum in cash every payday, I could get mugged twice a year and still come out ahead.

[azrhey.livejournal.com]

you try to buy a bottle of water for 0.95$ with a travelers check! ;P

[taxlady.livejournal.com]

Try $3 for a bottle of water. Heck it's a $1 for a glass of tap water at a restaurant.