Do most Europeans still think in their older currency or have you learned to think in Euros? Two of my friends moved to Europe, they still think dollars, then guilders, then Euros. Do most non-UK Eurodopers think in their old currency and then switch to Euros? Or, has the Euro replaced your former currency?
No, I don’t. Of course I think of prices that actually were in Mark from time to time, but when I go shopping or look into my wallet, I just see a sum in Euro and don’t make any conversion. However my parents do that all the time. When they want to make an amount of money more tangible, they give amounts in Mark (“That cost 50 Euro, almost 100 Mark!”.)
This may be age-related. I’m 24 and of course I have been handling money for most of that time, but of the “real” bills that I paid, and the groceries and clothes that I bought, a substantial part was in Euro.
I roughly convert any significant amount into francs. Actually, I often mention a price, income, etc… in francs. I’ve no intuitive grasp of the value of something expressed in Euros. For smal amounts, I don’t make a conversation, but still, I underestimate the price. Anything below 10 euros, for instance, looks like small change (1 Euro is worth roughly 6,55 francs) : spending 5 euros is closer in my mind to spending 5 francs than 30-35 francs.
Before the switch, I had decided not to ever convert in order to be more quickly acustomed to the new currency and to have soon this intuitive grasp I lack. But actually I didn’t do so. I’m wondering how long it will take for me to “get it”.
Interesting that clairobscur says that. I’ve encountered that phenomenon in France, as well as on my honeymoon in Guadeloupe.
I’ve probably recounted this before. I had a €100 traveller’s cheque that I wanted encashed in the hotel. The guy behind the counter worked out what the cheque was worth in Francs, and then converted it back into euro. :smack: :wally He then refused to encash it. He simply couldn’t grasp that the euro was his mofo currency!
Here in Ireland, however, it’s been much more readily assimilated. Pretty much everything is expressed in euro (or “yoyo”, as everyone now says, even on some TV commercials, though the old slang for pound - “quid” - is also common).
When talking about what things cost a few years ago, you specify the currency you’re talking about.
When I moved to Ireland 4 1/2 years ago, it took me a while to start thinking in punts instead of dollars. But after the changeover I began thinking in Euros fairly quickly.
I spent about a year in Germany before the switch, and left for India a month before it happened… I came back about 6 months into the switch, and didn’t have any trouble with the conversion… However, I did spend the first few days converting everything back into Marks and being absolutely shocked at how much the price of everything had increased!
For items I buy frequently, Euros. For everything else it’s still in Escudos.
My mother is worse, every single offer she analyses for her company is converted to escudos, she’ll never learn.
Exactly the same here. (but in Dutch guilders, not French francs)
There is no point in converting Euros to Lira, as pre-Euro prices in Italy bear no relation to present prices. Lit.100,000 used to be a fairly substantial food shop for me: €100 (roughly double) gets me very little indeed. Needless to say, salaries have not increased exponentially.
Same thing here zephyrine. £1 = €1.27, but did items costing £1 before 1st January 2002 cost €1.27 after? Like hell they did. First they cost €1.30, then €1.40 and some were even €1.50 or higher within the first six months of the changeover. Meanwhile, salaries were converted to the penny.
The Swedes, Danes and British have the right idea IMHO.
Color me a clueless American, but if the local currencies have been discontinued what basis is used for converting euros to the old local currencies?
On 12/31/1998 the exchange rates for all participating currencies were fixed at those values:
http://www.euro.ecb.int/en/section/conversion.html
From then on it was nominally used for all cashless transactions, although people could usually specify either currency. Shops started to list prices in Euro, too. On 1/1/2002 the Euro coins and notes were issued.
All the other currencies from euro-based countries are now worthless, correct? So if someone finds an old suitcase full of guilders they can no longer be exchanged for euros?
So people can get used to it. When we went to (or rather tried to go to) metric in the 70s (?) from what I’ve heard stuff was listed in both for the same reason, so that those who have used one system for 70 years or something could get used to it.
But I may be wrong… (ha, can’t be bitched at for being wrong if I have a disclaimer 
)
Shops won’t take them anymore, but in Ireland and Germany at least - and I suspect the other Eurozone countries - they can still be exchanged in the central bank.
Old coins and banknotes are ‘worthless’ only in the sense that they are no longer legal currency. As ruadh mentioned, you can still exchange them for Euro’s. The full list of old currencies and the timeframe in which they can still be exchanged can be found at the website of the European Central Bank. The actual exchange must be done with the national Central Bank.
Also, like clairobscur and Maastricht I can’t help calculating back to guilders, as it’s the only way to get a ‘feel’ for the cost of something. I hope that one day I’ll get over it. I guess it’s partly an age thing, as kellner suggested. Too much experience with spending ‘old money’ interferes with the change.
Last dumbass American question today, I promise. Are the exchange rates adjusted for inflation, or will they be at some point?
The exchange rates between the old currencies and the euro will never be changed, they’re completely fixed. Inflation does occur, but that affects the euro prices. Of course as a result of that, it will affect as well the prices when converted back to the old currencies.
Hence no correction is necessary, except for the memory which still remembers the last, low, prices in old currency.
So if things were able to travel more freely, why would the prices be going up so fast after the conversion?
I’m assuming that the changeover tied in to some sort of relaxation of trade restrictions. Assuming, and I’m one of the S-M-R-T ones. If you asked 100 random people in CA what a euro was, probably 30-40 wouldn’t know, depending on the age and area.