Tempted to buy Dollars now

[muffa2308]

Or before the election. If the Tories get a majority then a deal will go through and any trade deal will boost the £ if its a hung parliament then back to square 1 etc with the arguing. What does everybody think. We are getting £4000 (English) between us.

[CrumpThree]

Get £2K now and £2k after the election.

[floridasarah]

I had the same dilema about buying before 31st October. I ended up buying a chunk. My reasoning was if it goes up it goes up but I would be kicking myself if it crashed again. I still need to get more but that is still in the savings tin until after Christmas.

[pinkspideruk]

I just got a few more transferred on my Revolut card ready for April - I agree with pp to maybe split it get half now and then half after the election.

Moneywise if it jumps 10p to 1.38 (we can hope!) or if it drops 10p to 1.18 then thats a $400 difference either way so by splitting the difference you are only going to lose/gain $200 which is better than losing $400 by waiting and hoping and it goes down - if that makes sense?

[YorkshireT]

Speculating when to buy currency is a waste of time, as you are effectively saying you'll beat the market.
If you are risk averse, best thing to do is 'hedge' as above and buy half now, and half after the election just before you go.

[ChrisS]

Originally Posted by muffa2308

Or before the election. If the Tories get a majority then a deal will go through and any trade deal will boost the £ if its a hung parliament then back to square 1 etc with the arguing. What does everybody think. We are getting £4000 (English) between us.

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It's a gamble muffa - currently the £ is Bullish (good) which means it could go up, but it depends on other currencies, in particular the $ and what's happening economically/non-farm/employment in the US. It did reach $1.30, just, last week and may do so again, nobody knows until there's a firm move one way or the other.

[Andi]

It is always hard to know what to do but I decided to go ahead and get some recently and will get more later on next year.

We don’t go until August next year but decided to buy some now and the rest next year so it hopefully evens out.

[katiec68]

Id buy some now and some later.

We bought at 1.21 but it had gone down to 1.18 and gone back up so I was worried it would go back down again.

We have 3 lots of accommodation to pay for in $$ so im glad its gone up a bit.

If we bought at todays rate we'd have an extra £42 - but we cant do much about it now!

[Thorpy]

If you buy early, you lock in the early rate. You know exactly what you are getting, if the rate gets better you do get to feel a bit annoyed because you could have had more, but you still get exactly what you were expecting and can budget the required pounds accordingly over a longer period. If the rate goes down, you get to be happy because you got more than you would have if you waited.

If you decide to wait, when you start waiting you will have an idea in your head of what dollars you can get, and how many pounds you need to have set aside to get it. If the rate gets better, the chances are you won't see it as an opportunity to save some pounds, you'd change what you planned, and get extra dollars. If the rate goes down, you'd then need to find extra pounds just to get the dollars you had planned, or you go on holiday with less spending money. Both of these options might cause significantly more worrying and stress than being fed up because you could have got more spends than you did.

I'd say buying earlier is less stressful. Half now half later, means you half the losses or gains.
One tip is to let people know you'll change anything they have at mid market rate, that way you both do better than you would at any normal exchange place. (Tesco, Asda, high street, post office etc).

[trampslikeus]

The exchange rate is always the market rate with everything the experts know factored in to the price with mild fluctuations dependent on one currency's strength against another's weakness.
Unexpected events such as the Brexit referendum result caused a shock to the GBP from which it has never recovered. If you want to gamble on an election result you might win or lose a few pounds but I honestly don't think it will make all that much difference.