‘I bought a $24 smoothie in NYC’

I was busting to get back to visit friends and my favourite delights in NYC, but when I checked my bank account I was shocked.

I couldn’t have been more excited to return to New York City post-Covid.

Having previously lived there for three years, I was busting to get back to visit friends and my favourite haunts and to delight in what used to be my favourite smoothies.

Yes, I do love a smoothie. That was until I saw the $24 price tag, Escape reports.

Juice Press was always my go-to for a moment of liquid wellness during Big Apple summers. So one afternoon on my recent holiday, after sweating it out at my former yoga studio and wandering around the Flatiron district, I dropped into Juice Press on 22nd Street.

I’d just done a workout, I deserved it.

One Nurse Green Ginger please. I ordered the large; at $12.94 it was only a few dollars more than the smaller size. And I’d just done a workout, I deserved it.

What I didn’t deserve, or expect, was what the actual price would be in Aussie dollars until the Commonwealth Bank notification popped up on my iPhone to say: $23.58 spent at Juice Press. What? My yoga high quickly disappeared.

If a $13 smoothie equated to almost double that in Australian dollars – which it did once the bank added their international exchange fee – then what had dinner the night before cost?

Over $300 as it turns out. A cold brew with oat milk at La Colombe on Lafayette came in at $9.39. One scoop of chocolate ice-cream in the East Village? A teeth-freezing $10.20. And my yoga class? It equated to a $57 stretch and sweat. As for the T-shirt I bought my daughter at Gap in Times Square? No comment.

Kelli in NYC back in 2014 when the smoothie obsession first began.

In my own absent-mindedness (I had just spent six days at a conference in Colombia) I had not realised, nor bothered to check, the Australian dollar had dropped to roughly $US0.66.

I also hadn’t taken the time to do what any sensible traveller would do and load foreign currency onto my Qantas travel card.

This would’ve saved me a total of $A177.80 in my bank’s international transaction fees for tapping away with my Australian debit card.

And don’t get me started on the $14.01 and $18.58 I was charged for the privilege of drawing out cash from an ATM.

This is what it costs to withdraw money from an ATM.

Those sneaky cash machines would only let me draw out a max of $US300 too, no doubt wanting me to return just to be charged a ridiculous usage fee again.

At the time, I justified that very tasty but incredibly pricey smoothie by telling myself I was paying for the experience of sipping something delicious and refreshing (that I could have whipped up in a Nutribullet) in New York, with the iconic Flatiron in view and the soundtrack of horns and sirens in the background. Who wouldn’t pay for that? Well, not me. Not again.

Right now, with the exchange rate the way it is, ($US0.64 at time of writing) I’m wondering, is the US really worth it? It costs an absolute bomb to get there, who knows if your luggage will arrive (to be clear, mine did) and you’ll have to take out a loan to afford a hotel stay.

My next trip will definitely be to somewhere more affordable, a destination whose currency is more on par with ours. Hawaii, I hoped to cruise your shores soon, but the Mai Tais will just have to wait. Philippines, Bali, New Zealand, Fiji, Thailand … I’m ready for you and your affordable smoothies!

This story originally appeared on Escape and is republished here with permission