Great, just great. My consultant cheque finally arrives from the US… and the Canadian dollar hits a 30-year high, being worth around three cents less than the US dollar.
I can’t believe I’m almost going to lose money on this. I wonder how long I can sit on it. Or maybe I’ll just race to deposit it as quickly as I can.
As I understand it, most cheques are valid for six months following their date of issuance. That said, I wouldn’t hold out for our dollar to plummet (or more importantly, alas, the US economy to recover and the US dollar to skyrocket to its former level) within that time-span.
I feel your pain, believe me.
I imagine you do. Ah, the vagaries of the freelancer’s life…
*remembers she has a US cheque to cash*
*remembers she also has no time to get to the bank, ever.*
DAMN IT!
Yup.
I have had a steady client in France for about 6+ years now. At the time, they were referred to me from a U.S. office and so they asked if I wanted to be paid in U.S. or Canadian funds.
“U.S.” I replied (and reaped the benefit of the low Canadian dollar)
Long-story short, fast-forward and I am making about 30% less from this client than I did 6 years ago. On top of that, they don’t want to hear about it, since (according to them) when they switched from francs to euros they got hit.
I am gradually inching my way back up, but boy it ticks me off!
I just try to leave those funds in a U.S. account for traveling, internet buying and other U.S. stuff, because if I change the $, it hurts!!
(ps…I don’t think we will see the dollar plummet as long as the Harper-Bush right-wing romance continues!)
And even once this administration is past down south, it’s going to take whoever comes after them a looong time to clean up the mess and restore their economy.
The bank tellers used to ask me why I didn’t open a US account, and I’d look at them like they had three heads. What, and not get the extra money? Yesterday I started considering it again, although it would really just be for holding the money since I don’t vacation or shop in the US, and the cash is needed more to run the household and such.
And we should feel grateful, I suppose, that we weren’t caught up in that messy euro transition; that must have played havoc indeed with rates and payments all over Europe.