Kevin Blake's Blog

Knowing when you’re getting a good deal in another country can be hard. You just don’t know if the hotel room you’re booking is good value, especially when the exchange rate is good and you’re comparing it to rooms back home. The same goes for everything else with a price-tag. Twenty zloty might seem like a lot for a piece of authentic rock salt, but maybe that’s actually the going rate.

So how can you tell? Well it’s simple, and luckily I’m going to help you by passing on one of my all time helpful travel nuggets. The McDonalds rule of financing is a really effective way of providing a universal currency exchange rate you can use in almost any city or country in the world.

Step one is to find a McDonalds “Restaurant”. Don’t worry, you don’t have to eat there. Actually any of the major worldwide chains will do, McDonalds, Subway, Burger King, KFC etc are all good examples. I say McDonald’s for two reasons. 1) They’re everywhere. Pick any from that list and show me a town that has your alternative but not a McDonalds. You can’t, can you? Well there you go then. As a side note, (it was only a matter of time before I mentioned this) – there’s no evidence of a Subway in Krakow. Barbarians. 2) It’s called the McDonalds rule of financing. Duh. It’s not just a nice name, it has to relate to McDonalds and that’s how it is.

So you’ve found your McDonalds. The next step is to find the cost of an extra-value meal. No go-larges, no supersizes, no “gourmet” burger deals and absolutely no salads. Bog-standard Big Mac extra value meal – that’s the one you’re after. Armed with this knowledge you can use your extra value meal as the base currency for everything you spend your money on. You can work out how many meals it would cost to buy those sunglasses, souvenirs, even to eat at real restaurants. Now think about how many meals it would cost to do a similar thing back home and you’ll know if this shop is the right place for you.

For these examples I won’t be using McDonalds, because I haven’t eaten there. Ashamedly, I did go to KFC for lunch today and it cost me 11,80 zl. About £2.30 for the meal. So we’ll go by that.

Imagine you’re going to Pizza Express for lunch back home. It’s an average level sort of pizza restaurant, right? In the UK it costs 2-3 KFC meals for your average main course pizza (at approx £4.00). Now if you want a similar sort of meal in Poland you can use the rule and estimate the cost at 23,60zl – 35,40zl, or £4.60 – £6.91. If you’re paying more than that, it’s probably worth shopping around. Anything lower, just act cool and try not to laugh when they hand you the bill.

And that’s the McDonald’s rule of financing. You wait, salesmen will be bringing that up next time you go to buy a car… now you’ll be prepared.