Will you take a vacation this summer and want to enjoy complete peace of mind? Then you should make sure that you will have an ongoing access to money and take care of your savings before you depart!
- To prevent any unpleasant surprise, you should ensure sufficient access to money at all times during your holidays. Cash is king but it is not the best idea to bring your entire holiday funds in your luggage. It is recommended to bring around 150 euros or equivalent in local currency to ensure being able to pay for the taxi ride to the hotel and smaller shopping during the first day – afterwards you can easily withdraw money from an ATM, which is the cheapest and easiest way to get local currency (there are around 3.8 million ATMs worldwide). In case you want to bring more money to exchange at your destination you should visit a reliable currency exchange or a local bank – please avoid exchanging money at airports or dubious currency exchanges and do not bring your complete funds in a single purse or handbag.
- Alongside cash, you should bring plastic money to pay for larger amounts and to be able to withdraw more cash if needed. In order to be on the safe side, you should bring various credit and debit cards: Visa and MasterCard are the two most common payment processors for credit cards and bringing both will enable you to pay almost everywhere. It is also recommended to additionally bring debit cards to pay for your shopping or withdraw cash from ATMs: Maestro is accepted pretty much everywhere and V PAY mainly in Europe.
- You worked hard during the year and did not spend everything? Perfect! During your time off you should not leave your savings sitting dormant: Let your money work for you when you are not! Invest your savings in term deposits and benefit from the most attractive interest rates. The offers at Raisin are always worth a look: Here you have access to attractive savings products from all over Europe that probably offer a significantly higher interest than on every other deposit account and of course higher than on your current account. When it comes to current accounts there is only one good advice: Keep your balance as low as possible, but as high as necessary!
