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Old Jul 19, 2019, 12:14 pm
  #5  
STS-134
 
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: SF Bay Area
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I've got a bunch of envelopes at home, all of which have ISO 4217 currency codes written on them. When I visit a foreign country, I take the relevant envelope with me (or create one if I haven't visited before) and when arrive, any US money I have goes into that envelope for temporary storage, and any money in said envelope goes into my wallet. When I depart that country, I just keep the local currency and it goes into the relevant envelope and the envelope gets put on my shelf. When I go back in the future, I'll take the envelope with me and if there's sufficient money in it, I won't have to go to the ATM immediately the next time. So far, I have CNY, CLP, GBP, HKD, JPY, KRW, MOP, and TWD envelopes (I've been to more countries than that, but I didn't pick up any MXN or PAB when I was there, for example).

I don't like ever exchanging one type of cash for another whether at a bank or even worse, one of those exchange booths at the airport. All of the foreign currency I have I got at ATMs in the visited countries (because you lose almost nothing in the exchange so long as you have a debit card that doesn't charge fees). But I won't try to exchange it back to USD because you typically lose at least 2-6% in the process, so I just keep it. The only currencies I'd really not want to hold, and would want to exchange back immediately, are ones like ARS, TRY, or VES, but I've not been to those places yet. In any case, I don't think the value of the CNY is going to decline that much, so one option is just to keep it and use it next time.

Last edited by STS-134; Jul 19, 2019 at 12:21 pm
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