Exchange rate

As I am off on holidays at the moment I have spent the past two days booking some of our accommodation and looking at some tours for our USA trip in July. 

For those who don't know, on average the Australian dollar usually sits roughly between 75 cents and 80 cents US to 1 Australian dollar.

When we first booked our airline tickets in September the US dollar had plummeted and as a result the Australian - US exchange rate was at 97 US cents to 1 Australian dollar (lucky for us!). However, once we started planning what we wanted to do whilst there and then created our budget for this trip back in October so we could save enough in time, the exchange rate had dropped back to 61 US cents to 1 Australian dollar as the US dollar grew in strength again.

So I worked our entire budget on 65 US cents to 1 Australian dollar as I figured it would climb back to at least that by July but just in case the US did enter into a recession I did not want to rely on it climbing much more than that.

Today I looked at the exchange rate and it is sitting at 72 US cents to 1 Australian dollar... meaning if it at least stays where it is, we might have some extra spending money for Dustin to get some new boots whilst there with our current savings plan!

With the present financial situation and the volatility of the exchange rates I find it really difficult to predict how much we will need to save for the trip... I would much prefer going the other way as the price of everything would almost half or at least drop by a quarter compared to us having to double the price of everything! 

The joys of international travel! 

This may be my financial ignorance showing here but why can't they create a universal currency much along the same lines as the Euro so I do not have to keep adjusting our holiday budget every time the exchange rate changes?