October 4 photo assignment: Money

Back in NJ, I lived a fairly cashless life - most things went on the credit or debit card.  I would get money out periodically but it wasn't a big occurrence.  Things are very different here!  Except for a few of the big, Western-style stores, this economy is cash only.  And since the Tanzanian shilling (Tsh) is about 1,600 to the U.S. dollar right now, you need a wad of cash to do anything major.  For example, a fill up of gas costs just over 100,000 shillings.  It has definitely taken some adjustment to sticker shock...I have to keep reminding myself of the exchange rate.

The maximum you can withdraw from an ATM per day is 400,000 Tsh, which is just under $250 USD. This is what it looks like...a sizable stack of 10,000 shilling bills.  It's crazy to hear all that cash dropping out of the machine!

When we went to buy our refrigerator, our credit card wasn't working (it keeps getting blocked for suspected fraudulent transactions...apparently most Americans don't decide to live in Africa so it's difficult for Master Card and Visa to adapt).  Tim was forced to bring over one million shillings in cash to the store.  You can imagine what that looked like! Thankfully we had that much cash on hand...and thankfully he wasn't robbed!

Tanzanian shillings come in paper money of 10,000; 5,000; 2,000 and 1,000 and coins in increments of 200, 100 and 50 shillings.  Unlike U.S. coins, these are logical:  the biggest one is worth the most and the smallest one is worth the least!  Because the smallest currency is 50 shillings and because many places don't deal with coins, there is significant rounding going on in this economy (usually to the detriment of the consumer).

Here's what this very colorful money looks like (2,000 shilling bill and 100 shilling coin not pictured):