Oz Life (XIII): Money (OJG)
Hey all,
A topic close to all of our hearts, and yet a million miles away from everyone's favourite "OZ Life" thus far: Rubbish!
Australia uses Dollars and Cents for their money, just like the good ol' USA. When converting prices back and fourth between the British Pound, this poses non problem. When doing those same conversions between the US dollar, it can get a little confusing.
As I write this, the conversion rate for 1 AUD is 0.42 GBP or 0.82 USD.
As many of you non-aussies already know, Australian notes are made of plastic, or more specifically a special polymer, developed by Australia. This not only makes the notes waterproof (great when you leave a few in your shorts whilst going into the surf) and almost indestructible (it is possible to tear, but it does take effort), but also makes them nearly impossible to counterfeit.
Another bonus is that the notes stay in circulation at least 5 times longer than paper notes. It also allows the printers to use much more vivid colours. This can make the money look a little monopoly-esque, but there you go (or not, do not collect $200, etc).
I suppose the downside with these polymer notes, as far as all you conspiracy people are concerned, is that they shove all sorts of micro electronic tags into the plastic without us even knowing. Conspiracists have been saying this happens in normal paper money, but I just don't see how that could be possible. With plastic it is very easy.
Another area where the Australian monetary system is very different to the UK is that the coinage only gets as small as 5c. However, items in shops are still priced to the closest single cent. This makes all Australians very quick at being able to round up or down numbers to the nearest 0 or 5. So you will often see the digits on the till end with a 96, and the cashier will ask for 95. This also means that when you want to fill up your car with 50 bucks of petrol, you can actually put in $50.02!!!
Again, I have heard some people complain that this system works against consumers, and makes the companies richer. How? Well, they argue that more totals get rounded up than rounded down. This is not true, as everyone with basic maths knows (I am not going to go into Statistical Maths explanations).
And that is pretty much Australian money!
A topic close to all of our hearts, and yet a million miles away from everyone's favourite "OZ Life" thus far: Rubbish!
Australia uses Dollars and Cents for their money, just like the good ol' USA. When converting prices back and fourth between the British Pound, this poses non problem. When doing those same conversions between the US dollar, it can get a little confusing.
As I write this, the conversion rate for 1 AUD is 0.42 GBP or 0.82 USD.
As many of you non-aussies already know, Australian notes are made of plastic, or more specifically a special polymer, developed by Australia. This not only makes the notes waterproof (great when you leave a few in your shorts whilst going into the surf) and almost indestructible (it is possible to tear, but it does take effort), but also makes them nearly impossible to counterfeit.Another bonus is that the notes stay in circulation at least 5 times longer than paper notes. It also allows the printers to use much more vivid colours. This can make the money look a little monopoly-esque, but there you go (or not, do not collect $200, etc).
I suppose the downside with these polymer notes, as far as all you conspiracy people are concerned, is that they shove all sorts of micro electronic tags into the plastic without us even knowing. Conspiracists have been saying this happens in normal paper money, but I just don't see how that could be possible. With plastic it is very easy.
Another area where the Australian monetary system is very different to the UK is that the coinage only gets as small as 5c. However, items in shops are still priced to the closest single cent. This makes all Australians very quick at being able to round up or down numbers to the nearest 0 or 5. So you will often see the digits on the till end with a 96, and the cashier will ask for 95. This also means that when you want to fill up your car with 50 bucks of petrol, you can actually put in $50.02!!!Again, I have heard some people complain that this system works against consumers, and makes the companies richer. How? Well, they argue that more totals get rounded up than rounded down. This is not true, as everyone with basic maths knows (I am not going to go into Statistical Maths explanations).
And that is pretty much Australian money!
2 comments:
Two weeks.....what have you been up to??
Love Sue & Mal x.
I am working on the blog now!
Honest!
Emelie
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