I would eventually like to buy a place....

maryanne

New member
Mar 16, 2003
277
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I need some advice and I'm sure that there are several members on this board that can help me out. Although I am far from the age of retirement, I often think about my plans anyways. I would eventually like to own an apartment in Costambar because after all my trips over the past 2 years, I prefer this area. So, I would like to start saving some money with the hopes of purchasing something. However, all prices that have been quoted to me are always in US dollars. I am Canadian! I'm trying to figure out if I should be saving money in my peso account or open a US account during my next trip. I'll lose on the exchange from Canadian to US, but I think in the long run, it might be worth it. But then when I see how good the exchange rate has been with the Canadian dollar, I get more confused. Help! If anyone can offer some advice, I would greatly appreciate it.
 

ricktoronto

Grande Pollo en Boca Chica
Jan 9, 2002
4,837
0
0
Quick Advice

Don't even have a peso account with any serious $ in it. The interest rate you may get is unlikely to match devaluation so it would be like a US$ account with negative interest rates.

If you are in Canada the biggest hurdle to saving in US$ is that so few institutions offer any decent interest rates - if you can find one ( maybe ING) then a US$ account is likely the best bet since you are apt to get best covnertion to peso when needed directly from US$. Also FWIW CDIC does not insure foreign currency deposits at all so pick a big bank or what have you to invest in.

You can take advantage of the current and maybe continuing US/CDN devaluation by obtaining US$ progressively less expensively over time. (Of course if it just goes up and up and up - the CDN$ that is - then you'd be better having all savings in CDN$ and buy US$ in the future exactly when you need it).

If you knew exactly how the CDN/US$ were going to move you could make billions with futures so since you cannot, at least don't put it in an account that gets smaller with time.