Hello there,
I have never been to Hungary before and I am not familiar with the local currency. Does anyone have an easy memory aide when converting (ballpark estimation) Florints into American dollars so you can easily guess how much money you are spending?
Thank you in advance!
Just google HUF to USD. Right now, it is 288.9 to 1.
If you just want an easy figure, think about 300 to 1, If a glass of beer is 900 HUF, that's $3.
If you are planning to take your phone, xe.com is a good international exchange rate website. But if 300 to 1, easy enough to divide by 3 and subract 2 zeros.
Yay, thank you so much! That is very easy to remember :)
Currently 1 US dollar is worth about 289 forints. That's pretty close to 300 forints, so a quick-and-dirty estimate can be obtained by dividing the forints by 3 and moving the decimal point two places to the left. Note that this will underestimate the dollar cost.
Example:
You see a sandwich for sale at a cost of 800 forints. Dividing by 3 gives you 267. Moving the decimal point two places to the left gives you $2.67. The actual cost is $2.77.
This is what I do when I have to deal with an ugly conversion rate like that: For items I expect to purchase frequently, like meals, I decide on a target dollar value I hope not to exceed and convert that to the local currency. I only have to do that one time for each planned purchase. For example, I might decide to keep my main meal of the day under $25, in which case I'd be thinking "7215 forints" as I looked at menus. That's much easier than converting the price of every interesting menu item into dollars to see whether it's less than my target figure--one calculation rather than many.
I do it by figuring 2900 is about $10. I've been perusing Budapest restaurant menus lately for an up coming trip and that ballpark seems to work well.
I figure 3000 is $10, close enough for government work.
I like to shop, especially the flea market, in Budapest, so I print out the mini conversion chart on www.coinmill.com I hate wrestling with my phone to check and it comes in handy for those discretionary purchases. Food and drink etc are quite cheap and not worth worrying about the exchange rate, to me.
Thank you everyone for your thoughtful responses! So helpful, much appreciated!
When estimating, remember that rounding up (289 to 300) gives an UNDERESTIMATE of the cost. For a glass of beer, not important. If you want to buy a house, important.
