Devin D. Thorpe:  Championing Social Good

Devin D. Thorpe thinks he is the luckiest person alive. After being “let go” from the best job he’d ever had—as the Chief Financial Officer of the multinational food and beverage company MonaVie—he and his wife ended up living in China for a year where he wrote Your Mark On The World and embarked on the career he’d always wanted yet hadn’t dared dream.

Now, as an author, a popular guest speaker and Forbes contributor, Devin is devoted full time to championing social good. His current life isn’t much like his past.

As an entrepreneur, Devin ran—at separate times—a boutique investment banking firm and a small mortgage company. He served as the Treasurer for the multinational vitamin manufacturer USANA Health Sciences years before becoming CFO for MonaVie. Over his career he led or advised on the successful completion of $500 million in transactions.
Devin squeezed in two brief stints in government, including two years working for Jake Garn on the U.S. Senate Banking Committee Staff and another year working for an independent state agency called USTAR, where he helped foster technology entrepreneurship during Governor Jon Huntsman’s administration.

Devin is proud to have graduated from the University of Utah David Eccles School of Business, which recognized him as a Distinguished Alum in 2006. He also earned an MBA at Cornell University where he ran the student newspaper, Cornell Business.

Today, Devin channels the idealism of his youth with the loving support of his wife, Gail. Their son Dayton is a PhD candidate in Physics at UC Berkeley (and Devin rarely misses an opportunity to mention that).

I’m planning a vacation abroad; how do I avoid currency related problems?

Travel abroad is exciting, fun and scary. There are so many new things to worry about: language, traffic patterns and signs, delicious food, strange food and colorful money. Virtually every currency in the world, except U.S. currency, is bright and colorful. Figuring out how to use the beautiful, colorful money without overpaying in country or being charged high fees along the way takes planning.

The following are currency related issues that you should plan for when traveling abroad:

  1. Exchange rates:Exchange rates, the price of foreign currencies in terms of U.S. Dollars, will vary from one day to the next. In fact, they vary from one moment to the next, though in most retail exchange locations you won’t see changes happen throughout the day. On the internet, you can watch exchange rates fluctuate moment to moment. The rates you’ll see on the internet will always be better than the rates you can get when you are exchanging currency. There is no easy way for consumers to hedge or protect themselves against painful swings in currencies while planning for or going on an international vacation.
  2. Exchanging Money:As a general rule, you want to exchange money as seldom as possible. Do some research and careful budgeting for your cash use on the trip and exchange once at the beginning of the trip all the cash you plan to spend so you won’t have to frequent money exchange services, banks or ATMs with frequency.

This article was first published at FamilyHow.com; to read the entire article, click here.  It is also included in my latest book 925 Ideas to Help You Save Money, Get Out of Debt and Retire A Millionaire So You Can Leave Your Mark on the Worldavailable for free at Smashwords or for $0.99 at Amazon.

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