RetireJapan

I am going to visit the U.K. from August 21st for 3 weeks. I’ll need some spending money. But the exchange rate keeps becoming more and more unfavourable. Today it’s at 175 yen to the pound. I want to have about 1000 pounds in my U.K. bank account for when I’m back. I’ll use Wise to transfer the money.

Of course, none of us can predict the future. But if you were me, would you:

A - transfer the money now as it seems that the exchange rate is only going to get worse

B - wait. The exchange rate will get better before August

C - don’t send money. Just spend on your Japanese credit card

D - transfer half now and transfer the other half nearer the time

E - another option

Thanks!

There are known knowns (the current exchange rate, and the fact that you want £1000), and known unknowns (the future exchange rate). You *know* you want £1000, so I'd focus on what you can influence (whether you pay the current price to get £1000), than take chances on what you can't influence (that the rate might be cheaper in the future - but might not).

You want a budget in GBP, I'd convert to GBP now so you know exactly how much JPY it'll cost you, and just forget about it (if you can).

On the other hand, if you're content to have a budget in JPY instead of GBP, you could load Wise with JPY and accept the market rate for each transaction. But you might have to go over-budget if the market moves against you so much that your original JPY budget doesn't cover the trip. This is what I did (actually not because of the exchange rate, I just spent too much money ).

I like the idea of calculating how much it would cost you now, versus how much it might cost you later, in good and bad scenarios.

Best case, 140,000 yen?
Worst case, 200,000 yen?

It’s a couple of man yen either side maybe?

If you want to speculate on the currency rate, I would open a forex trading account (your nisa broker probably offers one), and knock yourself out that way (just not with your travel money)! Of course, it’s not perfect, because if you did make money you’d need to pay 20.xy% tax on it (maybe needing to file a tax return), whereas you can just spend your foreign currency without realizing a profit.

Well, I suppose since I know the price today, I would buy today and not worry about the price so much. For £1000 its not too much.

I visited this site though when I was converting money, and apart from major shocks, it's not been that much of a difference. Although I went crazy buying pounds in 2008 onwards, and when Brexit happened I sold all the pounds. I have no idea how good it is....but i have visited it.

https://poundf.co.uk/gbp-to-jpy-today-p ... n-forecast

I decided to go with option D and send half the money now and the rest later.

Sent 100,000 yen today and got 546.11 pounds in my U.K. account. Not great. Could be worse.