Currency exchange....
 

I just joined the hobby about 4 years ago. It was because of good timing I guess I discovered this great hobby when the Canadian dollar was at par or actually above US at one point. But now times have changed , what use to be an already expensive hobby has now become out of reach. I know I'm not alone with this struggle and there are many others suffering from currency decline worse than people in Canada.
I consider myself blessed to have had the chance to build the fleet I've got. And I feel bad for those who desperately want to get into this great hobby and yet the value of their dollar makes it impossible! :mad:
These must be the tough times of the hobby. Guess I have to wait till the dollar comes back up......someday....:rolleyes:

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Well said Mario.... I am in the same boat.. I am glad that I did a bit of buying this time last year when the dollar was a lot closer... Time will tell if we can do anymore big ticket buying....



Wayne

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either wait for the dollar or gonna have to suck it up a bit more when it comes to parts off ebay.

engine rebuild kit for my 73 f100 was 330 usd and came across on my visa at 420! ouch!

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I hear what your saying the aud is 70cents to the 1 usd and there are parts that I want but there i no way I can get them atm till it rises more lucky I got most of it before the AUD went crap and steves wheels will have to wait....

Cheers Tracy

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I'm in same boat. Would like to buy a front loader or excavator but our dollar is just so weak I can't justify making the purchase. No choice for me but to wait and hope the dollar bounces back...

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I'm glad with what I have to . U.S. People that don't live in the U.S. Have to find or make stuff That south of the border wants . I've been cutting small wood for a couple train kit guys , it gets me a few Yankee dollars . The other thing is postage is getting silly . Mike

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I know the feeling all too well. On SSI, my money is on food, bills, & co-pay for med's. I was fortunate enough to start my fleet before I was diagnosed with the "brain tumor" when I was still driving OTR. The past 10 years I've been purchasing my trucks little by little, one piece at a time. It takes forever, but at least it gives me some goals to accomplish.

- RCT

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All so true, suck it up or wait. Lots of items I want to further many projects but all must wait.

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How much did it change? The Norwegian "krone" has changed 30%+ in one year. I'm spending a few days in the US these days, and I can feel that change... Even a BigMac is expensive now ;)

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The canadian dollar now stands at 0.75cents=1us. The us and cdn dollar were relatively Of same value a couple years ago but that all changed over the last few years.

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We've lost about .20 to the greenback in just over a year but our dollar is forecast to continue it's slide to around .70US. It is currently a little less than .76US. Everything here is getting more expensive again, not just hobby parts. It sucks for the most part. It will be interesting to see if our election makes it better or worse.

I was writing this as Brandon posted.lol

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I guess I shouldn't complain too much about the cost of the hobby nowadays. To put things into perspective, if I owned a construction company and wanted to buy a new machine for 300K US , that's just under 400K Canadian!.....now that's a whole lot of suck it up ! :eek:
the drop in the dollar has definitely had an effect at work. Machine sales have really dried up and not much work in the shop the last few weeks now.:(

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so this means a good deal on a canadian trailer??

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Hey Bigford anything you buy in Canada now is 25% off welcome to the sale! . Reg up your prices 25% you can make money 😃. Mike

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That's the main reason I started pricing items in US funds early this year. It was that or stop building and selling all together because I was making less and less on each build. Everything I buy for supplies are either sold in US or effected by it so I had to jump on the train too or get left at the station.

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Trains now this is a good subject start modelling railroads ! Mike

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Please Mike! For the love of God , don't get him started! Let him sleep a little :lol: :D

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Haha, I love my wife. I would like her to continue loving me back. I don't know if our marriage can stand another scale model obsession.:rolleyes:

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reg kinda grabs me as a scale steam guy LOL!!!

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Cut it out you guys. I'm trying to save up for a new MX bike...

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Aw, come on Reg!! I've got a couple of live steamers for sale!!!

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Reg with your talents scratchbuilt the bike , buy a locomotive from steamer . There 2 problems solved . Steamer what are live steaming is i/14 scale ? Mike

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So now you know how we feel when we have to buy stuff that's priced in euros. Let alone in british funny money.

Dealing with euros is actually tolerable since you can deduct the vat, especially from any german seller. Now the brits though are too greedy and attempt to shaft you on the exchange and their VAT by refusing to deduct it -oh we are not VAT registered is the usual excuse.

So welcome to the fun times. Part of the game...

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Actually we still don't know how you feel. The US dollar is 25-30 cents up on us against the Euro.lol Maybe our new government will help Canada's economy...not likely...

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yep you are right on that Mario ..however i pull government Canada Post loads and trust me ..the online business is growing out of control..for some reason it is not effecting the consumers online for e-bay or amazon....But it is only early yet and i will have to see how we stand in a few weeks if it is still busy like it is or dead.that is true about buying over the years..i won't be buying any big ticket items for awhile yet until the relief is there with the dollar for sure :mad:

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Live Steam close to these trucks is in 13.7 scale. Mostly small narrow gauge steam engines to run on the popular LGB 45mm wide track.

Saw a Utube with Garden Trains and Garden Trucks combined together - pretty neat to watch a RC excavator loading up railroad dump skips!