Back in 2007 – if you can stretch your memory back that far – we had a period of time where the British pound would have got you two US dollars if you were to exchange it for that currency. This was a time when we should all have enjoyed a US holiday, because it would have been far more appealing and affordable then than it is now.
But even before the two dollar exchange rate was in place, the pound was in the high nineties. Exchange rates of 1.95 and 1.98 were commonplace for a while, but after the two dollar times ended towards the end of 2007 and into early 2008, the rate started dropping fairly rapidly.
The pound managed to regain a better rate around March of 2008, but if we thought things were going to get better we were sadly mistaken. By the beginning of 2009 we hit a low point of 1.36 dollars to the pound – a far cry from where we had been previously.
So where are we now? Well it has been a long time since we dipped that low and thankfully we haven’t gone back to those dire times. Now we seem to be hovering between 1.55 and 1.60 US dollars to the British pound, and while there are ups and downs they are certainly not on the same scale as they were before. We can but hope that we are able to push back up to the two dollar pound once again, but at the moment it seems unlikely that this will happen. We are still recovering from the effects of a major recession, and until this is firmly put behind us and things are on the up again, little more is likely to happen.
Perhaps at some stage we can look forward to getting more dollars for our money, but for now this is long in the future and not something that will happen soon. Just as it took a while to fall from the 2.00 mark down to 1.36 and then back up to around 1.60 again, so it will take a long time to achieve 2.00 again.
We can but hope that it will be sooner rather than later – but don’t expect it.