CDN dollar is freaking me out!

[andysgirl360]

Been watching the exchange rate like a hawk these past few months....now of course when I am ready to pay in full (due Oct 15) - its been dropping these past few days....now we are teetering on 91 cents or less. Last week it was nearly 94!!

Anyone else feeling my pain? I'm hopeful it will go up again slightly before Oct 15.

 

[nat1234]

I'm in the same boat. My final payment is due Oct 16. I don't have a whole lot left to pay off though as I have been paying a little bit at a time for a while now. I'm still excited to go though. I only have 65 days until I get to see the mouse

 

[neonurse]

The exchange rate has only changed 2% in the last week. Thats $20 on $1000. 11% is still really good compared to 20-30%. I'd like to see closer to par but I'll take 10% easily. I remember when it used to be 30%
Its probably not worth the grey hairs.

 

[MikeJ]

The exchange rate has only changed 2% in the last week. Thats $20 on $1000. 11% is still really good compared to 20-30%. I'd like to see closer to par but I'll take 10% easily. I remember when it used to be 30%
Its probably not worth the grey hairs.

I have to laugh when I see threads like this. (Not laugh at anyone in particular, that wouldn't be nice. Just laugh in general. ) No one knows what the dollar is going to do; anyone who says they do used to sell snake oil in a previous life. Neonurse is quite right. If you're spending $5000 on a WDW vacation is it worth the stomach acid to worry about an extra $20-$30 because of the fluctuating dollar? It's like using up an extra litre of gas driving around to save 2/10 of a cent per litre down the street. On a 40 litre fill up that would save you 8 cents.

If you want an extreme case, we bought two DVC resale contracts at OKW when the dollar was approximately US$0.62. Some "experts" were saying the Canadian economy was in the tank, the dollar could drop as low as $0.50, it's never going to recover, we should fix our dollar against the US dollar, etc. What happened next? The Loonie started its long inexorable climb, eventually making its way up to $1.07 or so before dropping back down to where it is now. The difference between what we paid and what we could have paid if we'd waited was approximately CA$13000. We could have done the usual "Why did we buy then? Why didn't we wait?" But on the other hand, we've had the pleasure of enjoying some of our best vacations in the best accommodations that we never could have afforded otherwise. Do I regret the fact we spent that much more than we would now? Not really. Our kids are now both off to university and we realize that we may not vacation as a family again for a long time. We have many fabulous memories of our vacations together that are worth (to us, anyway) far more than $13000.

Wow, I've rambled on long enough. Point being - pay the balance whenever you're comfortable, don't sweat the small stuff, and build those memories which you'll cherish for a lifetime. I guarantee you they'll be worth the extra $20-30.

- Mike

 

[My 2 princesses]

Totally agree with Mike. We too are in the process of buying into DVC. Yes, it would be nice to buy at par or so, but think about years ago when we were no where near the 90 cent mark. The strong CDN dollar and the deals given to us by Disney has helped a lot of us make our 1st trip (though for some of us, it is now an addiction)

 

[snickerboo]

I'm sorry, OP, but I'm w/ Mike. Last year we went at the end of October. We had saved and saved for months for our vacation while the dollar was near par. Two weeks before our vacation it dumped. At one point it was at 76 and 77 cents, meaning our money was worth 3/4 of what it had been while we were saving: $1000 was now worth about $770. It also happened within about a 9 day period so there was no real chance to do anything about it. The difference between 94 cents and 91 cents is really quite minimal in the grand scheme of things. If you see it jump up at the start of next week, take the opportunity to pay your trip off. Generally, the start of the morning is not a good gauge of what will happen that day. The asian markets are usually responding to the previous day's North American activity. Also, it does seem the dollar does its most movement at week start and week end. If you're considering what to do, keep in mind that the Canadian dollar is largely tied to energy stocks. If the NASDAQ is up but crude and natural gas are down, the dollar will be down. On the upside, if crude is down, you might be losing a little money on your Disney vacay but you're saving money on your everyday gas expenditures which probably adds up to a lot more than your loss on your vacay. Here gas has fallen 4 cents/litre this week.

 

[andysgirl360]

Thanks snickerboo - I know what you're saying does make sense. I just think about the extra 50 or 75 dollars and think about that it could have paid for a MVMCP ticket, or a meal or souvenirs, etc. I have to stop thinking about it that way and just pay it off already. If you haven't figured it out - I'm a bit of an obsessive planner!

Notice you're going to DLR in a few weeks - we went for the first time last summer and had a blast. Hope they don't kick me off the WDW boards for saying this (LOL) - but I think Disneyland is actually better than Magic Kingdom!

 

[snickerboo]

Hey Andysgirl. I just saw the dollar is going up this morning and thought of you Hopefully it'll go up to 93 or 94 and you can pay it off without losing. I'm a big time budgeter when it comes to our travel so I know it does hurt to lose the money. Last year we just took the attitude, "well, there's nothing we can do about it so we might as well just try to look forward to the trip and have fun." We just did not end up buying as much to bring home.

Yeah, DLR coming up very soon. Looking forward to it but feeling a little unprepared since I know my way around WDW and Kissimmee so well!