Do you like to travel overseas? If so, there is a good chance that you are still holding onto some of your leftover foreign cash from your holiday. I know that this is something that I am guilty of, but I never really stopped to wonder just how many other people out there do the same thing. Well, according to travel search site Skyscanner, there are a number of British homes out there stashing some kind of foreign currency.
Just How Much Currency is Being Held Onto?
Of course, there is no way for anyone to ever be 100 percent sure just how much foreign cash is being held onto in British homes. However, Skyscanner was able to give it a ballpark figure. Apparently, Brits are keeping around £1.6 billion in leftover holiday money! For anyone keeping track, that’s about the same as €2 billion.
If you’re like me, what I really wanted to know is: How did they even come up with this figure? According to the report, this figure was achieved by polling some 1,100 British travelers. On average, most Brits admitted to having around £54 in foreign notes and coins sitting in their house right now! People are stashing currencies from Japanese yens to American dollars, and everything in between.
Why People Hold on to Foreign Currency
The real question is: Why do people hold onto their holiday currency? Why do I hold onto it? There are a number of answers to this question. For me, my plan is always to use the money on my next trip to that country. Why spend money to convert the currency back to pounds if I am just going to have to change it back next trip? The problem is, I typically forget about the money by the time I go to take my next holiday. I used to think I was the only one, but apparently that is not the case. The poll went on to say that one in every three holidaymakers make the same mistake. They leave their leftover foreign currency behind on their next trip overseas.
Of course, that is not the only reason why people hold onto their leftover cash. A lot of holidaymakers tend to use this currency in scrapbooks or to decorate a coffee table (by placing the money under glass and having it displayed). I for one think this is a cool idea. If you are making a scrapbook of all of the areas you have visited, it would be great to have some currency from that location in the book as well.
What are your thoughts on it?
Skyscanner Surprised by the Results
Were you shocked to find out just how much money people had lying around? Well, Skyscanner was. A spokesperson for the company, Victoira Bailie, said that they expected travelers to keep some coins and notes lying around. Maybe they keep it as a souvenir, maybe they simply forget about it. That being said, Skyscanner was shocked to find out just how much foreign cash was sitting in people’s homes. In fact, collectively there is enough foreign money stored in British homes for the UK to “buy its own Caribbean island and a fleet of private jets to fly there.”
Now that is crazy to think about! What do you say guys? Let’s pull together all of our old foreign currency and buy a Caribbean island! However, the government better remember that it was our foreign currency that purchased the island and jets, so we better get some kind of discount. Who am I kidding…fat chance of that!
So how much foreign currency do you have sitting around your home? Where is it from? Do you ever plan on using it?
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