You Can’t Always Get (the Change) You Want

Read a blog today about a traveling pair who went to Turkey. Below is their entry about Turkish money.

“Two sets of money – Turkey is undergoing a change in currency. The old Lira was in millions. So if I buy a juice using the old money it comes to 2 million lira. Using the new system it comes to 2 lira. However, both currencies are being used until the end of the year and it can be confusing looking at the paper money. You need to count the zeros on the old lira so you know you are not being ripped off (a 500,000 paper note looks a lot like a 5,000,000 paper note.

Also, some of the old money used to be in coins that have now been converted to paper and some old paper money is in coins using the new money. It is sort of mind boggling when you consider that every time you go to buy something you need to calculate the exchange rate in your head on top of the old/new currency conversion.

Change problem – There is also clearly a change shortage in the country. Everywhere we went it was difficult to pay for things unless you had exact change. Sometimes you couldn’t get the store owner to accept your money if you didn’t have exact change so you couldn’t buy the product. He/she would rather lose the sale, than have to give out coins. Another example…let’s say you went to a restaurant and your bill was 81 Turkish Lira. Instead of giving you 19 Lira back, you would always get 20 back. The shops and restaurants would rather lose the money than part with their change. Plus, they usually don’t have change and have to run down the street to another store to get it.”