Zholdosh's Letter

Dollars in the cupboard

Many families in Irad keep a few hundred dollars in a cupboard, in a book, or in a sock. Is it sensible?

It was started because dollars keep their value when the som is shaky, and because a bride's dowry, a car, or a house is priced in dollars anyway. That makes sense. It is kept, however, because "dollars are safe", and the dollar has a dull enemy: it doesn't earn anything. In ten years the notes in the cupboard have bought the same flour and a worse apartment.

Two rules: keep in dollars only what you will spend in dollars (a car, a house, a university abroad). Keep the monthly money in som, and spend it. And never keep more cash at home than you can stand to lose to a fire, a thief, or a nosy nephew.