Changing money has gotten to an all time ridiculous point.  Since inflation has been out of control and the currency has been revalued (10 zeros were dropped off and a new set of notes was printed), there are several different exchange rates:

1. Cash for cash black market coin rate: this is where you exchange us dollars for zim dollars on the streets.  If you want zim coins, then the rate is $1=85 zim dollars
2. Cash for cash black market bill rate: this is where you exchange us dollars for zim dollars on the streets.  If you want zim dollar bills, then the rate is $1=80 zim dollars.  (It is slightly a worse rate from the coin rate as people prefer bills rather than coins).
3. RTGS Bulawayo rate: this is when one does a bank transfer from their bank account to your bank account.  In Bulawayo, this RTGS rate is lower than in Harare.&# ... Read More »
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   Kayle's Blog

    Living in Zimbabwe, you learn that if you need anything, you either buy it locally for exhorbatant prices (because everything is imported and marked up) or you wait until you are making a trip down to South Africa (SA) and buy it yourself.  We typically opt for option #2 as you end up saving a lot of money this way.  We know that we only make trips every 3 or 4 months, so we make detailed lists before going to SA and try to pick up everything we need.
    We just got back from our South African trip on Sunday.  On Monday, Mat was using the super glue to fix something and it squirted all over his only pair of khaki cargos--ruined!  Also, he didn't realize it but he superglued the scissors shut--ruined!  Oh, why couldn't this have happened before our trip so we could have bought some pants and scissors?
   Today, I went to fill up the car with fuel and to fi ... Read More »

     So my "get-rich-quick" scheme seems to be working!  I went to ebay and posted a full set of the last Zim currency: from the 1 cent note to the 100 billion note.  32 notes in all!  And it sold for $350!!!  I also have sold 4-100 billion dollar notes and they sold on average for $69!  So I banked in about $630 from these notes which cost me about $5 to get!  CRAZY!  I currently have another full set of notes on ebay and it is going for $100 so far.  I'm hoping to be able to put aside my ebay earnings into a college fund for Calvin!

   Mat and I have been looking forward to our South African get away for many weeks now!  We drove down to Pretoria today with another Australian couple from our church, Jodi and Andrew.  Though we left at 5am and got to the Beitbridge border at 8am, the line on the SA side was already super long--the longest I've ever seen it!  And there were even two lines!  The last time we were at the border, they let us to the front of the line since we had a newborn baby.  So I went up to an officer to ask him if I could get to the front with my newborn.  He said, "Is there anything wrong with the baby?"  "No," I replied.  "Then get to the back of the line."  So we joined the line that seemed the shortest.  And we waited and waited for hours in a line that was not moving. 
    At one point, I went out to the car with Calvin and ... Read More »

So, if you haven't already heard, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has once again devalued the currency, this time taking off 10 zeros.  So, what was 10,000,000,000 (10Bil) now becomes 1 Zimbabwe dollar.  The exchange rate to the US dollar just prior to revaluation was about 1 trillion to 1USD (using the RTGS or Bank Transfer rate).  If that sounds confusing it is because it is...  very confusing.  Because of the cash shortages, there have been two different rates on the parallel market (aka black market).  The higher rate (Bank Transfer) was in some cases 10 times higher than the cash rate (which ranged between 100Bil - 500Bil?).  "Why," you ask?  Well, checks take about 10 days to clear, bank transfers take over a week to be completed, sometimes as long as 2 weeks, and even if you had money in your account you were only allowed do withdraw 100Bil per day (that is 10 cents or 1 dollar, depending you which rate you use).&am ... Read More »