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Andrew Curry once loved going out for dinner and drinks in Berlin feeling far wealthier than he did at home in the United States.
With the dollar now worth about 20 per cent less than when he first arrived in 2005 the 30-year-old freelance journalist has a leaner lifestyle.
"I used to be able to brag that Berlin was really affordable, but now my rent actually works out on par with Washington and New York," said Curry, whose income is almost exclusively in the devaluing currency.
"I do everything to try to spend fewer euros now."
The weak dollar and recent tax laws are hurting many of the 350,000 or so Americans who live in the European Union, especially those who are paid in dollars.
It is being felt by students, professionals and pensioners in Berlin, Paris and London - where the dollar is at a 26-year low against sterling and, according to a Reuters poll, expected to stay above US$2 to the pound for the next six months.
For those who work in the creative industries and are often self-employed, the dollar's plunge to all-time lows against the euro has hit already fluctuating incomes and lifestyles.
"The dollar is having a terrible impact on us," said US writer Eunice Lipton, a New Yorker who most of the year lives in Paris with her husband.
"We earn our money primarily in the States and then transfer it here. In the past few days we have transferred US$15,000, which became €10,200 - and that is killing us," she said.
Americans making dollar-euro transfers have seen the amount they receive shrink by about 50 per cent since early 2000, when the currencies were at parity.
Like other Americans in Europe, Lipton says she feels the pain of the weak dollar most when entertaining friends or going out to dinner.
"I can't complain because the Americans have had it round the other way for years," she said.
"In the past I knew the exchange rate was great for us and I sort of gloated about it. Now our terms of reference are different. It is not amusing. I just hope it gets better."
About 50,000 Americans moved to Germany in 2006, according to the German statistics office, many attracted by its art, music, history and relatively low cost of living, according to Americans living here. Those who rely on dollars now need to keep a close eye on their wallets and are finding they might not be able to live so comfortably.
"My grants have basically been cut in half with the dollar-euro exchange rate," said assistant professor Mara Leichtman, who is renting a friend's apartment in Berlin and not shopping for clothes to cut down costs.
Adding to Americans' woes are laws passed last year that raised the amount some pay in US tax.
But a lot of Americans plan to stick around even if it means home-cooked meals and old clothes.
"It's not going to make me go back to America," said Lipton in Paris.
"It won't stay this way. [President George W] Bush hasn't cared at all about what the dollar is worth because he is so provincial. Americans are provincial in general and most of them don't even realise what the dollar is worth overseas."
- Reuters
