How long did it take you to Stop converting

If I can get a nice blouse for 10 pounds is that a good buy?  Some of you who have lived here help those of us who are new out. What do you consider a good buy?

£10 is probably the average I pay for a nice work-appropriate blouse.  I've gotten better deals, and I've paid a lot more, too.  I just splurged and spent £30 on a blouse from Wallis that I won't even be able to think about wearing for the next few months!    But I just HAD to have it and couldn't take the chance my size would still be available when/if it gets marked down.

I do a lot of my clothes-buying by mail-order.  It's quick and easy and I can try things on at home at my leisure, not in some horribly lit dressing room!  Returns are usually free AND are picked up by a courier from my house, so I don't even have to make a trip to the post office!

I only convert if I'm trying to figure if it's cheaper for my mother to pick something up AND post it to us.  Otherwise, I earn my money in £s, I pay my bills in £s, and $s don't really come into play in my day-to-day life.

I am the same way!  I think the fact that DH is paid in pounds makes the difference.  We are "living in the economy" so to speak.  My friends who are paid in dollars are constantly converting and fretting about how expensive things are, especially lately!  

My mom & dad are coming for a visit in April and I've already started online shopping (not buying yet) for stuff for them to bring over.  So I'm converting the other way - "Whoa - $150!!  Oh, that's only 80 pounds - not so bad, then."  

converting money from GBP to USD is definetly depressing...  especially at the grocery store!  its even worse now, with the dollar being almost 1/2 GBP.  

my other conversion-confusion is the temperature scale.  my family always asks what the temps are here, and i have to convert it back to Fahrenheit so they don't think i live in the Arctic.   "aaah... its a lovely 23 degrees here!"    it just sounds weird when you're from Wisconsin...  


the UK seems to have their own system of measuring things here, and i find it difficult to get used to...

*your weight is always in "stones" instead of "pounds"

*measurements of food is usually in liters/millitres

*gasoline/petrol is in... um... liters or something  

*speed limits and distances are miles, not the metric kilometers that you'd expect (thank goodness)

*temperatures are Centigrade, not Fahrenheit

*weights of some stuff is in kilos, too



i need to get one of those little hand-held computer thingies that do conversions for me...  (as if i don't have enough stuff to worry about!  )

 

my other conversion-confusion is the temperature scale.  my family always asks what the temps are here, and i have to convert it back to Fahrenheit so they don't think i live in the Arctic.   "aaah... its a lovely 23 degrees here!"    it just sounds weird when you're from Wisconsin...

Your not alone there!I think that I will always have problems with that one.No matter how long that I have lived in the UK.  

Actually, I also think in Fahrenheit - most of my generation over here still do.  It was only about twenty years ago that the Met Office and the weather reports started to use only Celsius.

I also still think in inches, feet, and yards, and in ounces and pounds.  I find it difficult to imagine what a centimeter or a gram is like!

PS:  the UK pint is larger than the US one, and pub beer, thank God, is still measured in it!

Howard, we are of the same mind!  Pounds, ounces, Fahrenheit, inches and feet.

I've picked up a few things by osmosis.  For instance, 28C is 82F, 18C is pretty comfortable, and 180C is that magical cooking number of 350F (lots of things I used to cook in the US were done at 350F).  I've even figured out that 450g is a pound.  I'm getting there slowly but surely, however, I suspect I will always think in Imperial measurements rather than metric.

My wife and I think that meters, litres and celcius are very alien and we've never come to terms with them.  As Howard says,  a pint of beer or a pint of milk is a pint is a pint is a pint. So bugger Brussels new fangled ideas.  I always buy petrol by price. 20 quids worth at a time.  I know how long that will last.

My daughter though doesn't know a yard of cloth from a pound of apples.

After 4 years of speaking to Sean and 6 months in the UK, I still have no clue about Celsius/Fahrenheit conversion.  I just know that 50C is 122F.  That comes in handy when telling Brits the all-time record high for my home town of Phoenix is 50C.  I love the expression on their faces.  I don't find too many brits that know where I'm from, complain about the weather to me  

I stopped converting money the last month or so I was in England.  I'm sure I'll start again when I'm there in May.

No grasp yet of litres, kilometres or anything else  :-/

But I do know my weight in stones.  Not sure if that's good or bad  

I wonder how 'stones' dropped out of the scale (if you'll excuse the pun) in the US, and when?  Perhaps about the time that 'fortnight' stopped being used as a measure?

Do Americans still use rods, poles, perches as units of length?  What about the chain?  And furlongs?

They still use furlongs to measure distance at horse tracks all over the country howard, I know that.

I wonder how 'stones' dropped out of the scale (if you'll excuse the pun) in the US, and when?  Perhaps about the time that 'fortnight' stopped being used as a measure?

i never even heard of weight being measured in "stones" before i met my husband.   was it ever used in the states?  

...and what is a stone, anyway?  is it equal to 15 lbs? ( i always forget that one...)  also, what is the number after it?  is that ounces or lbs?  
i.e. if someone is 10 stone 11, what does the 11 mean?

1 Stone is 14 lbs.. and the number after the stone is in lbs.

so like.. 10st. 7 lbs.. = 147lbs

so like.. 10st. 7 lbs.. = 147lbs

I could only hope...