baypond

Whatever you first assessment of cost is for renovation, I would double it. That way you might be pleasantly surprised at the final figure, rather than distraught.

Sorry, no use at all regarding a campsite, but thanks for revealing this little gem. I will be trying this walk this summer.

I think the person remitting the funds may have inadvertently/deliberately had payment charges debited from remittance amount. You get asked when making the payment whether you want the charges debit from you account or from proceeds, so perhaps it is an oversight somewhere.

Ernie I guess depending on your proximity to retirement, a larger portion of your investments may well have been in bonds which have outperformed due to the 'flight to quality' during the financial crunch.

Tessa I wish you all the very best. I have a house in the Gers which is just a bit too far away to suggest the builders in that area. Also, anyone I know is more on the route down to Toulouse. I am sure as people settle down for the weekend and sign onto the forum, they will read this mail and you will get some positive feedback. Finger's crossed, and hoping that the damage is easily sorted. Giles

Tessa can only call the insurance company if she is insured ?   

Is the house insured? Maybe worth giving the insurance company a call. It would be in their interests to assess the damage as well.

I am not a financial whiz kid, but if your pension funds were invested in equities (rather than bonds), then that kind of number looks likely. One year ago(ish) the FTSE was in the region of 5500/6000 and dropped to between 3500/4500 over last 6 months. So it depends at what time your investments are valued, but in any case the FTSE is broadly trading where we were in 2004, having been as high as 6500 in 2006.

It's the mating season, it sees it's reflection and thinks it is competition from another male. It should stop very soon. However a tempory solution would be to put something non reflective on the outside of the window so that it can't see itself. We used to get it a lot with crows..... that was noisy.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b31c06a2-5a7a-11de-8c14-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=rss Short and sweet. Basically the first year has been worse than the first year of the Great Depression, but the policy responses around the world should ensure that we do not suffer the same effects going forward.

Chicken or egg ? Paul McCartney's youngest child goes to a school that has had meat free mondays for the past year. Now, the question is, did Paul get the idea from the school where his youngest goes, or did he influence the school himself.........

The only advantage I find of 'in-built' systems over the external options is that in-built systems seem to have satellite lock on immediatley (even from cold start up), where as external systems can take up to 5 mins to hook up to satellites.. I don't know why in built systems are so quick, so if anyone can answer that I would be interested to know.

TOM TOM Europe...superb.

[quote user="Scooby"]Sorry Baypond you are completely wrong.  European banks have to FV ASB's, derivatives etc.  Remember the hated IAS39?  In fact, until October last year (when IAS39 was modified) the rules were even more onerous for European banks.  The modifications were introduced to level the playing field and remove the competitive advantage the US banks had. (US banks didn't have to FV mortgage backed securities when the market for those securities was frozen - meaning EU banks were forced to take massive writedowns but their US counterparts weren't).    [/quote] I will check, but my understanding is that European have toxic assets on their books marked at 80 /85 cents in the dollars, that have been marked at 20/30 cents in the US, meaning that there are significant mark to market losses tat havn't been taken yet in the EU. The last time I looked, the exposure of European banks to subprime etc is much the same as US, and yet the capital raised, and amounts written off are far lower in the EU.   I am popping out but I will get some details later. The fact remains that IMF US and UK are concerned about the lack of transparency in EU bank's disclosures and the numbers do not stack up.

[quote user="Jay"]Toxic debt fears undermine euro This seems to be news. Didn't everyone know this and wonder why it has not been reported earlier? [/quote] I agree it is quite baffling that this news has not gained greater column inches. The U.S banks have just been through a very transparent 'health check' which resulted in steps to ensure the bank's balance sheets could withstand further economic stress. In Europe, these 'health checks' have been opaque. Some countries have performed them, but do not divulge methodology or data. I think the main difference is down to different accounting procedures (although I am not an expert here by any means). Basically, US banks have to take 'mark to market' profit and losses. This means that if they buy an asset at 100, and the market later prices it at 20, then they have to take an 80% mark to market loss, and report it in their quarterly earnings. As I understand it, the rules on EU banks place many of these assets under accrual accounting procedure. This means that if they buy an asset at 100, they leave it marked on their books at 100 until it expires (or defaults) even if these assets are marked at 20 by US banks. This means that whilst US banks have been forced to clean up their balance sheets with capital injections and writedowns, it is feared that most EU banks have not disclosed their true losses and will continue to have impaired balance sheets for many years to come. The US, IMF and UK have all highlighted this issue recently, but EU countries do not seem to be very keen to force the issue.

thank you Cat.... goodnight

when u click on the link AVG warns you that there is no authentication certificate and the site may be trying to trick you MODERATORS PLEASE CONSIDER REMOVAL

[quote user="Iancharlton"]Hi Steve, The thing with Internet tranfers is that they mostly just initiate a standard bank transfer. You cop for the usual mediocre transfer times, bad exchange rate spread & higher costs. If you do it by debit card, it's instant, free & the exchange rate is generally good. [/quote] My experience is that FX brokers such as world first HIFX etc offer the best rates, and the transfer times are generally only 2 or 3 days with little or no charges unless your receiving bank imposes them which I think is rare.

This looks a bit strange. They say worldwide candidates welcome, and then ask for CV with location details. You can not post a reply to the message, so how do we know whether or not this advert is genuine. I would avoid at all cost until I knew more. GBP 250 a week is too generous.

[quote user="allanb"][quote user="baypond"]The story of the last 2 months is that the USD has weakened. However GBP has strengthened more against the USD than the EUR has (so GBP has strengthened relative to the EURO). In the last few days, the EUR has fallen ag the USD more than GBP has fallen against the USD so the number of EUROs per GBP has moved up again.[/quote]Well, that makes it fairly obvious what we should do next. [/quote] Well I trade foreign exchange and I couldn't honestly give you reliable advice on the future path of currency movements. The only advice I think is really relevant is: Make sure your liabilities are in the same currency as your income. Otherwise you have exchange rate risk that at some point could very easily force you to leave your adopted country. Easily said, harder to follow unfortunately. At the very least you have to be able to survive at least 50% fluctuations in the exchange rate and still be OK, sothat you can afford income in one currency and expenditures in another.

[quote user="WJT"]The euro has strengthened against the dollar or vice versa. A little over a month ago it reached .80 and now has recovered a little but is still at only 71.54. So that would suggest to me that the pound is strengthening not the euro weakening.[/quote] The margins are all fairly small, and it depends on what timeframe you are looking at. The story of the last 2 months is that the USD has weakened. However GBP has strengthened more against the USD than the EUR has (so GBP has strengthened relative to the EURO). In the last few days, the EUR has fallen ag the USD more than GBP has fallen against the USD so the number of EUROs per GBP has moved up again.

Is it the pound getting stronger or the euro getting weaker? Please dont say both as that does not fit with my black and white view of the world [:P] ************************************************************************************************* The usd index stayed pretty stable. The EURO trade weighted index went down and the GBP TWI went up by a little more. So you would probably say it was mostly GBP strength.

[quote user="P2"] [quote user="baypond"]1.1765 now[/quote] Amazing isn't it people getting excited because it is at 1.17. [/quote]   It was more a statement of fact rather than me getting excited. However, every one percent move is making it 1pct easier to stay in France for many people it seems.    

1.1765 now

yeh looks like the southern smooth snake from ChrisPP site....   although "does not like cold or wet" in which case why is it swimming in your pool!!