A Cash-Based Society

Apparently, for the foreseeable future, we'll be spending every Tuesday at the doctors, having the wart on Ella's finger treated. Dennis and I have been messing around trying to cure her for most of the year with every over-the-counter drug available, and it's only getting worse. Short of performing enchantments in the full of the moon, we've run out of options.  But aside from the obvious inconvenience of lugging three kids to the doctor, there's also the issue of dealing with insurance companies. I have to fill out a little form each time we go, requesting reimbursement. 

Doctor and hospital visits are always charged up-front, and then it is left to the patient to deal with insurance to recover the charges. My doctor gave me two ways to pay: cash, or a bill in the mail, also to be paid in cash. No credit cards, and no checks: come to think of it, I haven't seen a check once this year. I don't think they exist here.

The charge for having a wart removed, it turns out, is precisely 23.70 CHF, although the doctor generously rounded it down. To my great amusement, today, when I handed him his twenty-three francs, he took out his own wallet and slipped my money right inside. I guess that what it means to be in private practice.

A bankomat in the back of a van: I've never seen these
before Switzerland, but they pop up all the time at
festivals.  Slightly shady?

When I told Dennis about this, he laughed and told me how, yesterday, he'd made a purchase at an electronics store.  When he handed the franc notes over to the cashier, the guy took a wallet out of his pocket and slipped the bills directly inside. "The wallet even had the dude's name written on it, printed right there on the front!" Dennis laughed; we decided it was probably a store wallet, and that they just didn't use cash registers there.  It was all the same to us: we got our merchandise and our receipt.

When Dennis's folks last visited Europe, several times they came to hotels who insisted they could only be paid in cash. "Our credit card machine is broken," they said, shrugging.  Uh huh. Dennis's parents were skeptical, but they're also well-traveled and used to needing to pay in cash, and luckily they were able.  

Other businesses are more upfront about not accepting credit: the Kinderhotels always request a money transfer, for example, and we've found many of the smaller restaurants are cash-only. Our rent and utilities need to be paid with a money-transfer as well. And what a incredible pain that was when we first moved here.

For a while we thought it would be a non-issue for us: we were in the process of refinancing our house and switching banks when we first got here, and we didn't even have a credit card. It was fine: we had enough cash. We'd use it. 

But there was a hiccup: every bit of our money was stuck in the United States, and all of Dennis's paychecks were being deposited in America, as well. And, unfortunately, we hadn't thought to fill out the forms to authorize wire transfers of money to Switzerland.  It took painful months to fix this: it was all of March before we were finally able to start paying rent on the apartment that we'd been living in since January.  Fortunately, our landlords were excessively understanding; however, it's put us in the position of never wanting to complain about anything to do with the building, ever. 

The bank account that we opened here (it still makes me giggle...we have a Swiss bank account!) gave us a "Maestro" debit (not credit) card linked to our account.  Dennis and I assumed at first that it would be interchangeable with a Mastercard, but when it came time to use it, for some things where we absolutely needed plastic (like reservations through Expedia and some purchases through AmazonUK), we discovered that the cards aren't the same at all: ours had too many numbers in the string, and it's missing that important pin number on the back.

As hard as it is to spend money here, they sure do charge a lot for things.  I suppose groceries are the easiest comparison point: they sell single, loose eggs at our chain grocery store for 0.75 CHF, or about 85 cents.  Or, if you don't care about organic food, you can buy ten of the cheapest, factory-farm eggs for about $3.50. My kids love food served on flour tortillas: they only have one brand available, anywhere, and when you do the math, it ends up costing about a dollar a tortilla.

So we're eating a lot of chocolate and cheese (poor us), instead, paid for with cash on the barrel.