In the 10 years that Dennis and I have been married, we’ve never really had to think about money. It’s not to say that we have all sorts of money, it’s just that money was basically out of sight, out of mind. We were paid by direct deposit, paid most of our bills online and used credit cards for everything else. We rarely ever used cash.
Now every time we leave our apartment, I ask Dennis how much money he has. We haven’t opened a bank account nor have we exchanged money. Each time we asked about exchanging money, the principal designate kept on lending us money. The first time it was 1.1 million rupiah (Rp) to buy a cell phone and essentials for the apartment. Then it was another 5 million to cover expenses until we exchanged money.
I honestly have never felt poor until we got here. The sad thing is that we had money; it was just useless in dollars. I didn’t realize how difficult it would be to exchange money here—I just thought that it would be like the Philippines where you could exchange money at SM or with some lady in Santa Cruz. Dennis and I would walk around the mall and need to buy something completely mundane like towels or a blanket, and have to count how much money we brought (many times not enough as it’s more expensive here than we anticipated).
In the US, we’d buy hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars worth of stuff and not bat an eye. We certainly never carried more than $100—even $50 in our wallets—but we knew we had enough money when the credit card statement came. I cannot imagine having to deal with the stress of money on a permanent basis. It’s another one of those things that I never had to worry about, and I completely took that for granted.
At the time of our doctor appointment, we were advised that the appointment would cost around Rp 250,000. We brought 1 million just in case (I don’t even remember if we had more than that in rupiah). The appointment was about Rp 250,000, but the blood test was 1.4 million. I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life.
They wouldn’t take dollars but asked if I had a credit card. Yes, but they’re not Indonesian credit cards. Nope, US credit cards are no good either. We didn’t know what to do. I had to get the blood test done. What about money changers? Any money changers near by?
Lucky for us, a couple overheard our dilemma and offered to exchange money for us. The wife got on the phone to find out the exchange rate (frankly we didn’t care what it was), and the husband had to go to the ATM to get more rupiah. We exchanged $200 (Rp 1,700,000), which came in handy since we still had to get my prescriptions.
We still needed to exchange money and open a bank account, but everyone seemed too busy to show us. We certainly didn’t know how to go about it ourselves. At one point, I asked again. The principal designate’s response was to lend us another million to tie us over a weekend. When I went to see her, she came out with a stack of Rp 50,000 notes. She hands it over to me and says, “Okay—Rp 5,000,000—that should be enough for now. Is it okay?”
I take the stack of money and say, “Yes.” I didn’t even know what to do with it. I was still having a hard time with all of the zeros. Seriously—5 million? I know it’s not even $600, but it was weird having so much cash. How do I even carry it? That and all I could think about was how we now owed Rp 11,100,000.
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