My Money Situation Sucks

In light of the recent house changing, on top of many other 'start-up' costs at the beginning of the school year, plus the fact there was a two-month gap in my salary, among many other things, I'm in a rather crappy money situation and will be for the next 3 months.  Still, I don't regret the purchases for a second. 

 

Whenever large purchases, deposits, etc. happen in China, be prepared to carry around huge bricks of cash.  This isn't exactly the most comforting situation, but it's the reality.  Thankfully the German guy I sold my motorcycle to has gone back to his home country for another month and has re-lent the use of the bike for the time being.  That makes it relatively more comforting to be hauling around the brick of cash in the back of the bike, as opposed to clutching my bag on the subway.  Still, when the brick of cash was safely paid out, I felt better.

 

Of course there is the option of using a local bank account to do money transfers.  I use such an account for small transactions, given that I'm 'floating arond' a small percentage of my salary in local currency.  The majority of the cash is deposited at a bank I run in Canada using dollars.  It's expensive and super inconvenient to go directly from that bank account to pay for any business-related expenses or endeavors abroad, especially in china. 

 

The way around this is to use a credit card.  Then it's a relatively straightforward matter of dumping a massive bill payment on the credit card directly from my Canadian bank account.  Then I use the credit card to take out bricks of cash at a time from ATMs here in China or elsewhere.   Due to restrictions, the ATMs won't let me take out more than 2000 RMB daily at my Canadian bank, but it ramps up to 20,000 RMB daily from the credit card.  Maybe I lose out on the exchange rate or on interest charges, but these are peanuts compared to international bank service charges and other made-in-China inconveniences.  Calculations show that I'm coming up very close on the exchange and am not losing much at all.

 

The other option is to use a credit card at the bank and do a one-time cash advance but they will seriously hose you on the service charge (3%) and of course, being China, make up some inconveniences or troubles for why you can't do this.  In the end, it's just easier to hit the ATMs and take out 2500 RMB at a time (maximum per transaction) and just build up a huge brick from there.  Thank goodness the ATMs have locked door features

 

All told, the cash situation should get back to normal within a few months and surprisingly, will still be making a profit on my housing allowance.  Right now I'm over 20,000 RMB in the hole on this which is scary, but the computer spreadsheet tells me things will improve.  Unfortunately things are gonna be tight for awhile and I'll just have to deal with it.  Will also delay the purchase of a new bike even further now until well past May next year.  By then, the new Yamaha YBR250 models should be coming out, and besides, once winter hits there won't be much need for a motorcycle.