It pays to plan ahead

Fortunately, a British bank account saved the day. He plucked his Barclays Bank debit card from his wallet and was able to withdraw the dollars he needed. The professor is not alone in using ATMs when he travels. According to Visa's second annual Cash Access Survey,released in April, 56 per cent of Australian travellers use ATMs to access cash.

Visa's country manager for Australia, Vipin Kalra, says the debit cards "allow consumers to spend abroad much like they do at home accessing their own funds safely and conveniently with competitive exchange rates." It comes at a cost, however. The major banks charge $4-$5 for a cash withdrawal from an overseas ATM, plus a currency conversion charge of 2 per cent to 3 per cent of the transaction, and the overseas ATM operator may attach another fee.

In some countries you can run into trouble if your PIN has letters or more than four digits and there are still places, such as Myanmar and parts of Africa, where ATMs are sparse or non-existent.

Prepaid travel cards come into their own for those concerned about the direction of exchange rates and want to lock into a particular rate. The money is converted into the preferred currency or multiple currencies when the card is loaded. Darren Brown, Asia-Pacific director for Travelex, which issues the Cash Passport prepaid travel card, says: "It can help the consumer manage their budget [because] they know how much foreign currency they have."

From a security perspective, the cards are not linked to an individual's bank account and access is via a PIN. They can be used to withdraw money from an ATM or to shop online or in-store.

General manager of Flightcentre's Travel Money Oz, Dion Jensen, says these advantages make them attractive to travellers embarking on long trips.

"The trend is really now towards prepaid cards if they are travelling for a longer period of time," Jensen says. "Those cards can be used like a normal credit card but they are not subject to the fees that a bank would normally impose." They are, however, yet to enter the world of contactless payments where you don't have to sign or enter a pin for payments less than $100.

The latest development in this space is Virgin's Global Wallet, which links a travel money card with its Velocity frequent-flyer membership. Charges vary on prepaid travel cards, which are offered by the major banks as well as players such as Travelex, OzForex and Travel Money Oz. Some charge a fee of $10-$15 to buy the card, and there may be a transaction fee of up to 1.1 per cent to load the card with money initially or to reload it. Monthly inactivity charges can apply after 12 months of non-use.

OzForex issues the card free, charges $15 for the first load and then nothing for reloads, but there are flat fees for ATM withdrawals and balance enquiries and a 3 per cent fee if a transaction is made in a currency not loaded on the card.

Cabral discovered one of their potential disadvantages in Germany when he wanted to transfer funds from his bank account to his prepaid travel card from the same institution to buy his partner a special present. "Because it was a Friday night in Australia it took up to six days to get the funds off the card," he says. He also found the currency conversion rates attached to the cards can be up to 1 per cent higher than those associated with credit cards.

On the flip side, when his wallet was stolen in Rome, he was glad a back-up card had been automatically issued with his prepaid travel card.

The credit card is how travellers tend to pay for flights and accommodation, Cabral says. It can also be the "in-case-of-emergency" option. A recent study by technology provider HP and research firm RFi found that the preference for using cash as a payment method had dropped from 51 per cent of Australian travellers in September last year to 40 per cent in March, because of the increased use of credit and debit cards.

"Card issuers have started to identify the removal of international transaction fees on credit and debit cards as a means to capture a greater share of online spend," the report says.

The GE Money 28 Degrees MasterCard is one of the new breed, catering to travellers wanting to withdraw cash at ATMs. It doesn't charge for ATM withdrawals overseas. Where it can hurt is if you spend up big and don't pay off the balance within the 55-day interest-free period, Cabral says. The interest rate for purchases is 20.99 per cent.

Nokia struck gold with its Asha range of devices. The sucess of the range not only aided the Finnish giant in getting up on its feet but also maintain a stronghold in the feature phone market which was earlier dominated by the budget Android devices. We have seen the range expand and with Nokia promising more innovative and attractive devices, the lineup is bound to grow further.

The latest addition to the lineup, is the Nokia Asha 301. Priced at Rs 5,140, this candy bar smartphone brings good old alphanumeric keypad, a 2.4 inch display which gets neatly integrated into the good quality plastic body of the feature phone.

It runs on Nokia S40 operating system which is pretty well optimised for it. The main selling point of the phone is its 3G functionality as a majority of the devices in the Rs 5,000 category do not feature 3G. In addition to that, it also features the Nokia Slam which lets you transfer data between two devices over Bluetooth without actually connecting them.

At the rear is a 3.2-megapixel camera which is embedded in a metallic strip like the Lumia siblings which looks pretty good. It gets glossy as well as matte colour options to suit your needs. The camera gets a slew of features such as Panorama shot, burst mode among others. It even features command prompts to help you position your device when taking self-portrait shots so that you do not have to check the screen of the device.

With dozens of Democratic lawmakers struggling to live on a food stamp budget to protest GOP cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, a Republican staffer says he is living on a SNAP budget without problems.

Texas Republican Rep. Steve Stockmans communications director and agriculture policy advisor, Donny Ferguson, says he has been able to eat well on $27.58 for a week, less than the $31.50 House Democrats have limited themselves to for their SNAP Challenge.

I wanted to personally experience the effects of the proposed cuts to food stamps. I didnt plan ahead or buy strategically, I just saw the publicity stunt and made a snap decision to drive down the street and try it myself. I put my money where my mouth is, and the proposed food stamp cuts are still quite filling, Ferguson said of the challenge.

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