Euro

[Barny]

Last year my Euro was worth about 77pence but now its worth 79 pence but people say the rate is not good. Am I missing something here ? Not that I will drink less Mythos in 13 days time!!

                                 Barny.

[Graham_and_Karen]

I'm surprised your rate for last year was 77p per Euro. It was 71.5p for us, last September. So, if it stays at 79p, until September, that will be a 10% increase since last year. Not too bad but a it will make a difference.

[Raymond]

Early last year the Euro was around 70p per Euro. This was good. Now that it is 79p per Euro or so it is very bad for people - mostly English, converting to Euros.

It means that one Euro used to cost 70p and now it costs 79p. This means that the value of the UK pound has dropped from the Euro value. Now you will get around 10% less Euros for each pound that you convert. That means less beer per pound. Plus the prices in Greece have also risen so you will probably drop at least another ten percent - more bad news.

It is even worse for people like us who live in Crete, when we take our money out of the UK to buy a house or just live our lives we are looking at nearly 20% less than we calculated. That is a fifth, so it is a great deal. For example if you buy a house here for 20,000 Euros you just lost 4,000 Euros on the currency and price rise exchange.

There is a price for pound euro exchange on my website that is updated daily. I just pray that it stops, but it is unlikely due to the state of British business these days.

Ray
http://crete.wordpress.com

[Graham_and_Karen]

Well put, Raymond. I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky - we only have the bad effect of the weak pound for 2 or 3 weeks per year - but then again, we do have to put up with more than enough miserable weather so I think, on balance, you have the better deal.  

[Mike G]

To add to Raymond's comment, it obviously depends what dates you are comparing the rates for. On the normal way of looking at it (i.e. how many € does a £ buy) I reckon the rate has fallen from around €1.40 to €1.19 to the £. This is a 15%drop. If Barny hasn't made a mistake then he was getting a REALLY bad exchange rate last year.

On the bright side I didn't find prices had increased significantly in Plakias. A good example was bread, which has gone up hugely in the UK but only a little in Plakias (in € anyway). Must be owing to the strength of the € against the $ I guess.

As I said in another thread, the price of my May 2008 Plakias holiday with Olympic has increased 70% for May 2009.      

Mike