Unfortunate Similarity

Below is a picture of two Hong Kong 100 dollar bills. That is not the front and the back, that is two different bills. The top one is issued by The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited and the bottom one is issued by Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited. They are worth the same, just issued by different banks.

Both bills have a bridge on the back.

And then there is this bill.

The above bill is Taiwan money. It cannot be used in Hong Kong, of course, and I have not actually used a bill like this since we were last in Taiwan in 2007.

However, the picture below gives you an idea of how similar looking 100 HKD (Hong Kong Dollars) and 100 NTD (New Taiwan Dollars) are. And it is unfortunate.

Because you see, 100 HKD is worth about $12.85 USD.

And 100 NTD is worth about $3.30 USD.

Big difference.

In high school in Taiwan, I would buy pretty much anything for 100 NT. Buying a shirt I liked at the night market was a no brainer if it was only 100 NT. Done. I found pride in the things I was able to acquire for only 100 NT. Really, what can you buy in the States for $3?

The fact that the 100 HK bill looks very similar to the 100 NT bill has been problematic for me. It is still ingrained in my subconscious to think that buying something with that red 100 is a good deal. But 100 HK is equal to 390 NT. And while 390 NT was another common night market price, I would typically never pay that much, despite the fact that it is actually only $12.85 US.

Have I mentioned yet that I am cheap and hate spending money?

Yesterday, Josiah and I were killing some time between Bible studies. Since I did not know what the child care situation was going to be like at the second Bible study, I decided to buy him a new toy in case he needed to sit in the study with me. We wandered into the Thomas the Train store and he spotted a battery powered Thomas engine like his friend has. I new he would love it. It runs on it's own and I knew it would fit on his IKEA train tracks and pull his IKEA trains. So I bought it.

(And he loves it!)

It was only later that I realized that the two 100 dollar red bills I forked over for that little engine actually cost me about $26 US instead of $6 US.

Maybe this post should have been titled Unfortunate Stinginess.