House SOLD

Today we completed the sale of our house in London, and for a few hours we have a massive UK bank balance. A few hours only, as we need to move funds over to the US to pay for the house we are buying here. Sadly the exchange rate has suffered of late due to the poor UK economy, so we're expecting to exchange at a rate of about 1.5 dollars to the pound. The good news is that this is exactly the rate we started our calculations at over a year ago, and we can transfer enough to buy the house and furnish it to a good standard, and leave more savings in London than we started with. Such is the nature of house prices and living costs in the US.

The remaining savings we may transfer later when the rate improves, but I can't see that happening until after the imminent General Election and then some. We'll want to keep some UK funds regardless, as I'm still paying into a UK pension, and it'll be easier and cheaper to use UK funds on visits.

We've been watching the exchange rate for over a year, and it tends to start low each day and then climb towards 5pm, so Beth is watching carefully and will initiate our exchange at the propitious time.