Zimbabwe - Life in 2008 - Money Matters

“Staggering gradations of worthlessness.” -Andrew Pocock, the British Ambassador to Zimbabwe, on the changing exchange rate of the Zimbabwe dollar.

People function in Zimbabwe primarily now with US dollars.
This is a recent development in the past couple of months. It makes functioning possible, because calculating the value of the Zim Dollar ($557,390 for a loaf of bread when I was there) is really quite exhausting! This year the Zimbabwe government has knocked 10 zeros off the face of the Zimbabwe dollar. This simplified things briefly, but quickly with inflation's hand, a million Zim dollars is only worth about $2 US.

People don’t put their cash in the bank in Zimbabwe. If you do, you can only get it out at an equivalent of $1 US per day for personal accounts or $2 US per day for business accounts. To access this money you are likely to spend upwards of an entire DAY waiting in line at the bank. (Unless you are priviliged enough to be invited to an elite bank where you pay a monthly membership fee to have access to what we consider a normal bank in the U.S.) With the recent switch to using US dollars, there is an enormous shortage of change. In fact, no US coins are used, only bills. $1 bills are scarce and any transaction requiring change is rather a lengthy and complicated interaction. It is quite the norm to receive “change” in bread rolls or candy!

Click here for more on Zimbabwe's "Funny Money"

One thousand Zimbabwe dollars
is worth 1/5 of a US penny.

One million Zimbabwe dollars
is worth about $2 US.