In the first week I arrived in Ulaanbaatar I learned about the Mongolian economy. One of the things that came as a surprise was their currency.
In preparing for this trip, I had stripped my wallet of cards and Canadian cash that I thought would be of little or no use in Asia. I also decided, based on past travelling experiences, to bring a separate empty, rarely-used-at-home, change purse.
Ready for Mongolian coins of varying sizes and shapes. I remember proudly showing my vintage change purse to Nara (my new work colleague) and she laughed out loud. “There are no coins in Mongolia” she said with a smile, “only bills”. As a coin-carrying, penny-collecting Canadian, I was taken aback but at the same time I was accepting of a different currency system.
I have learned that Mongolia measures its money using the Mongolian tugrik (or tögrög, MNT for short) and only a few dollars are thousands of tugriks. At the moment, for example 1,960 MNT is the equivalent of 1 Canadian dollar. As another example, 2,400 MNT is the equivalent of 1 US dollar.
So when I exchanged $500 US dollars for tugriks I became an instant millionaire. Now I can scratch that off my bucket list, sort of. I wanted it to feel like a big accomplishment. However, without that feeling of truly earning it through hard work, perserverance, and experiencing the highs and lows of life, it wasn’t nearly as exciting or rewarding.
I’m slowly getting used to all the zeros. I wonder what influenced the country’s leaders at the time (when the Mongolian’s People Republic came to an end in 1992) to choose the note denominations in circulation now. Maybe they thought this would make everyone feel good about how much money they have, or maybe they wanted to differientiate themselves from other countries. In my short-lived google research, I could not find a quick answer to this question.
In any event, I’m starting to adapt to Mongolia’s tugriks. My short-hand to convert prices is to divide by 1000 and then divide by 2. I had thought the result roughly equaled the amount in US dollars. In fact, that calculation gives an amount that roughly equals Canadian dollars. All this time I’d been thinking that everything costs about 20% more if converting into Canadian dollars. I’m very satisfied with myself about this new discovery!
All along I’ve thought the prices for food, clothing, groceries,etc. is more or less the same as Canadian prices. Nope. I couldn’t be more wrong. I’ve been going out for lunch every other day and spending about $6-7 Canadian dollars. My groceries are about $20 per week. Dinner at a fancy restaurant the other night was $35. I could keep going with this list. Not to mention the sheer quantity of the food one gets for the price is a whole other topic of discussion.
I want to address the notes in circulation. They are peculiar. The highest denomination is 20,000 MNT. There other notes are 10,000, 5,000, 1,000, 500, 100, 50, 20, and 10. Apparently there’s also a 1 MNT note, but I have not seen one.
If you’ve been following along, you’ll have realized that the highest note is only $10 Canadian. This means a lot of bills are in my wallet at all times (I use cash to pay for things). At the beginning, I was very confused by it all and couldn’t tell the difference between a 20,000 note and a 100 note. Everyday I get a bit smarter with my pile of bills.
Last week I decided to start using my change purse for small notes (500 and below). It’s strange to not hear any metal clanging when I pull it out to pay for things, but it has helped my brain to process prices and payments. The separation of notes over $1 or not changes your life. But, frankly, it doesn’t really lighten my wallet, especially when you get back 10,000’s, 5,000’s, and 1,000’s after most transactions.
I’m just starting to get the hang of which coloured note represents what denomination. There was no lightbulb on for a long time, but suddenly things became brighter one day.
Now if only the Mongolian government could introduce 40,000 and 100,000 MNT notes into circulation, that could make all these bills so much easier to handle. The solution for Mongolians (living in the city) is a bank card.