The value of a buck:
Being the multi-thousandaire
that I am, I was more than just pleasantly surprised to learn that the Egyptian
Pound (L.E.) was one-sixth the value of the US dollar. Aside from the ego boost
that came from looking at my available balance in L.E. for the first time, the
strength of the USD against the L.E. has truly fantastic implications for
someone with a budget as small as mine.
I have spent time
in counties with currency values that have laughed so hard at the value of my
dollars that I was forced to make a hasty exit with my tail between my legs. During
those brief visits I would make an effort to spend as little as possible,
attempting to keep my spending to under fifty dollars a day. Although fifty
dollars a day sounds like a generous stipend and reasonably easy target budget
to hit, if you factor in the cost of transit to and the transportation within
the country as well as lodging, it is an extremely meager amount. I have spent
countless hours wondering the aisles of European supermarkets looking for the
cheapest bread, cheese, and sardines available to eat for consecutive meals. And
instead of enjoying the cultural attractions the country has to offer, i.e.
museums or shows or shopping or anything with a price tag for that matter, I have
been force to find or create my own amusement, most often spending the day in a
park reading and people watching or wandering around the city trying to find
some obscure and quiet corner café/bar to have a cup of coffee/beer.
The
feeling of helplessness and shame that often accompanies spending
exorbitant amounts of the monopoly
money of Europe just to scrape by is absent from life in Cairo. For the first
time I feel as if I can fully participate in the cultural attractions, and eat
a hearty meal in the same week! I can, if I want, walk into almost any store
and afford anything! I no longer have to weight he financial pros and cons of
taking a taxi, ‘well it will probably cost me around fifteen Euros to get
there, so I wont be able to spend anymore for the rest of the day, but I have
enough cheese to last till tomorrow… but I will have to walk back to the
hostel… how far away is it? How long will that take me? Will I regret it more
if I go or if I don’t.’ I have to admit that I am proud to have a bank account
filled[1]
with dead presidents. I now understand the American dream as described by the millionaires
of the world! If you work hard and save… and move to Egypt…you too can change
your class status. Just by coming to Cairo I have truly transformed my
financial situation, I am no longer a mulit-thousandaire, but a proud couple
ten-thousandaire! However, as we know too well, with great buying power comes
great fiscal responsibility. I have tried to be careful with my new found buying
power, and not over reach my means, especially now that I am a student in a
foreign country and have no way to refill depleted coffers.
When living in any
foreign country it is very important for your sanity to put yourself into the
monetary mindset of the host country. It will drive you crazy to continually
convert the local prices into USD. Depending on where you are, repeatedly calculating
the conversion rate will either cripple you with worry, or cause you to blown
through all of your money while thinking you are richer than you are. It is
best to understand what things should cost, what they do cost, how much money
you need to spend each day (or week) to survive, how much money you can spend a
day (or week), and understand what these value means in regards to your budget in
both USD and the foreign currency. Once you have a basic understanding of your survival
price tag, begin to tailor all of your habits to fit that amount.
By looking at my
daily routines, I have concluded that I can live well on a ten-dollar a day
budget. Though I have budgeted for ten dollars, my goal is to only spend about
five or six, but I understand that some days of the week are more expensive
than other. Additionally, I know that if I were to spend at a rate that exceeded
one hundred dollars a week I would have to end my trip early.
After performing
some complex math, I have concluded that one could survive on the streets of
Cairo spending about two USD[2]
a day, and an Egyptian could survive on half of that. Achieving this would mean
eating only street Ful[3]
or Falafel and buying, at most, three liter of water a day, totaling about
eleven pounds. Thankfully I am not in a position where I have to survive on the
streets of Cairo. I am, however, a student, and as such I have unique necessities
that often carry inflated price tags, i.e. tuition, text books, registration
fees, supplies, bus passes, and coffee.
In order to make
my 8:30 A.M. class I am required to wake up at 5:45 A.M. every day, and I
cannot function at that time without a cup of coffee. Even if I settled for the
cheapest coffee option, which is nearly undrinkable and costs a whopping four
pounds, it would be nearly impossible to achieve the daily budget of two
dollars. However, with my ten-dollar budget I can fuel my coffee addiction and,
as a kindness to both my taste buds and intestinal tract, I am frequently able
to forgo the rotgut coffee for a slightly more palatable Americano, to the tune
of twelve pounds, all the while knowing that in a lean week I may have to settle
for Nescafe in order to afford lunch. In a similar way I have examined my daily
caloric intake and calculated a price tag for those items that are absolutely
necessary for my survival and those I can do without if I am feeling poor.
Pro Tip: Things aren’t always what
they seem.
The Price fluidity
of products in Cairo is real and a total pain in the ass. It is especially
frustrating when you have fixed daily budget. In my experience it is quite
common to pay completely different prices for the same item at the same
establishment from the same employee in the same day. There is no rhyme or
reason to the price fluctuations, other than I look foreign and can’t haggle or
argue because of the language barrier. Not knowing the language makes it very
hard understand the explanations of why a liter of water is now four pounds
when it was one pound eight hours ago, and harder to argue with shop keepers
about their dynamic pricing system. This is not to say that one cannot question
the change in price, I myself have done so on various occasions! only to be
silently laughed at by the dazed look that accompanies willful ignorance of
English when it is convenient or means higher prices. I have come to the
conclusion that the price scale is controlled by a very sophisticated and
sensitive algorithm, which dictates the fluctuations of prices for common and
necessary commodities in real-time for each district of Cairo. I just wish I
had a broker who could help me navigate this complex market.
[1] HA! And by
filled I mean an extremely modest sum.
[2] This number is
only for food and water. I have not included the cost of clothing or housing.
[3] Pronounced fool.
Ful is a seasoned bean paste served in pita bread and a staple of the Egyptian
diet. It is both fairly tasty and nutritious a recipe can be found
at midEATS. Other fantastic Middle
Eastern recipes can be found at Sugar Street Review's Top 5 Middle
Eastern Food Blogs.
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