I live in the UK, but I'm paid mostly in US dollars. As a result, watching the exchange rate is a big deal for me. If you're changing money, picking the right time makes a lot of sense.

One of my favorite tools are the real-time quotes you get from the Forex Directory. Here's the dollars-to-pound view. You can watch and see how the latest trades are going, which is super handy if you're trying to decide if you want to change up on a particular day or perhaps hold off for better times.

Also look at the bottom of that page. There's a chart of the exchange rate over time, which is again a great tool to better make your decision. Right now, the dollar's doing sucky -- about $1.86 to the pound. Change the Time Scale option to monthly, and you can really see how sucky. Back in 2001-2002, it was about $1.40 to the pound. Now those were happy days. Still, we're below one of the most recent all time highs of $1.95 to the pound, as was the case in 2005.

I'm not a currency trading expert, but in general, what goes up does tend to go down. Right now the pound is going up, up, up. So I'm sitting tight on doing any exchanges, since I know in a few weeks, there's a pretty good chance it will fall down. That's not guaranteed, of course. It might keep climbing and climbing. Our national debt in the US certainly doesn't help things. But as our interest rates have climbed while the UK has stayed level, the dollar-pound exchange rate has gotten better. And as long as Gordon Brown keeps spending more than he's taxing me, there's still hope for the dollar (assuming George Bush might decide to spend less than he's also taxing me, compared to Gordon).

If you're living in the UK, I highly recommend getting a Citibank UK account. Get a current account in pounds, then a US dollar current account as covered here. Pay into your US dollar account, then you can move money over through the online system whenever you want into your pound account. The rate is very competitive -- you'll only get a better rate if you call Citibank directly and are changing a large sum of money.

Ignore the advice on the Citibank site about how you'll be able to move money instantly to a US-based Citibank account. It's a joke. Citibank US and Citibank UK act like they don't even know each other. I tried this a few years ago and encountered all types of hassles in moving money from the US to the UK. Instead, either do wire transfers into your UK-based dollar account or just write a check from whatever US bank you have and send it in for deposit. It takes about three weeks to clear, so don't be anxious.

Want to track the exchange rate more? Investica has a newsletter you can take. Here's the latest forecast on the dollar-pound situation. I can't say if they are accurate, though. I always forget to go back and check. Well, let's do it now!

• May 2: $1.837 is predicted
• June 2: $1.786 is predicted (so hang in there!)
• Aug 2: $1.8335 is predicted (so change in June!)
• Nov 2: $1.824 is predicted
• May 2, 2006: $1.793 is predicted (so wait a year!)

OK, I'll check back on these dates and see how they are doing.

Personally, I've always operated on the baseline of $1.65 to the pound. Why? That's about where it was when I first came to the UK, and it just "feels" like the right level. So if I change up below that amount, I feel I'm a winner. But given recent years, I've operated more on the $1.75 to the pound rate, since I haven't seen the $1.65 in ages.

A couple of more exchange tools. OANDA lets you pick any two currencies, then you can get the current rate (and choose from a variety of different levels, such as interbank versus credit card rates). And yes, Google has a currency conversion feature, like this: 1 gbp in usd. I just never remember what acronyms to use and searching for 1 pound equals how many us dollars doesn't cut it. The only place that does work is on Ask, as does 1 gbp in usd, which doesn't work at Yahoo or MSN).

Yahoo does have currency conversion, despite the two queries above not working. You've just got to remember to use the word convert, such as convert 1 pound to dollars. MSN has lots of special shortcuts but currency conversion is not among them.

Finally, there's the Pacific Exhange Rate Service's historical data. Pick two currencies and you can chart them back to 1971. Here's the pound-dollar chart from then until today. You'll see how good 2001-2002 really was, with only the 1984-85 period being better.

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