Finnish Q&A for the Kids: Currency
My little nieces are very cute and very curious about Finland. (Hi, girls!) We decided that they would give me assignments to go investigate, and then I would report back with the answers.
Today's topic is Finnish currency.
While the rest of Scandinavia is still hanging onto their various kronii (the Swedish kronor, the Norwegian kroner, and the Danish kroner), Finland's currency is the Euro, and has been since 2002.
Before that, their currency was called the Finnish Markka, and I actually found a few little finnmark coins here in my new apartment that I will be pocketing for my foreign currency collection. Finland was among the first European countries to adopt the new Euro currency when it was first introduced in 2002. Other countries using the Euro are Spain, France, Italy, Ireland, Germany and Greece...so if I decide to go visit any of those countries, I won't have to convert my cash to use it! Awesome! (Too bad I get paid in US dollars and the exchange rate is not very favorable right now. Not so awesome!)
The euro symbol looks like this: €. Wikipedia says: "Inspiration for the € symbol itself came from the Greek epsilon (Є) - a reference to the cradle of European civilisation - and the first letter of the word Europe, crossed by two parallel lines to 'certify' the stability of the euro."
I'm not sure why the author put 'certify' in quotes. I guess better 'certify' than 'stability'.
Anyway, it has been very weird because I've had to update all my Excel documents to be formatted in the Euro, and they usually put the currency symbol after the numbers, and not before like we do in America. For example: 1.389,25 €. Did you catch that other tricky thing there? They use commas for the decimal, and periods for the thousands comma. My Excel documents are all sorts of confused.
Paper money ranges from 5€ to 500€, all the same size but in varying and exciting colors:
Coins range from one Eurocent to 2€, and if you know me at all, you know that I have been crusading to kill the paper $1 bill in the US, and move to the $1 coin...so I LOVE having not only a 1€ coin, but a 2€ coin, too:
So having said all that, forget everything I just said. Because the real Finnish currency looks like this:
Because absolutely nobody uses cash for anything. No transaction is too small to just charge it. They don't use paper checks for anything, either. All transactions are electronic, and they laugh at me when I ask about checks and tell me they haven't been used here since the 70s.
Today's topic is Finnish currency.
While the rest of Scandinavia is still hanging onto their various kronii (the Swedish kronor, the Norwegian kroner, and the Danish kroner), Finland's currency is the Euro, and has been since 2002.
Before that, their currency was called the Finnish Markka, and I actually found a few little finnmark coins here in my new apartment that I will be pocketing for my foreign currency collection. Finland was among the first European countries to adopt the new Euro currency when it was first introduced in 2002. Other countries using the Euro are Spain, France, Italy, Ireland, Germany and Greece...so if I decide to go visit any of those countries, I won't have to convert my cash to use it! Awesome! (Too bad I get paid in US dollars and the exchange rate is not very favorable right now. Not so awesome!)
The euro symbol looks like this: €. Wikipedia says: "Inspiration for the € symbol itself came from the Greek epsilon (Є) - a reference to the cradle of European civilisation - and the first letter of the word Europe, crossed by two parallel lines to 'certify' the stability of the euro."
I'm not sure why the author put 'certify' in quotes. I guess better 'certify' than 'stability'.
Anyway, it has been very weird because I've had to update all my Excel documents to be formatted in the Euro, and they usually put the currency symbol after the numbers, and not before like we do in America. For example: 1.389,25 €. Did you catch that other tricky thing there? They use commas for the decimal, and periods for the thousands comma. My Excel documents are all sorts of confused.
Paper money ranges from 5€ to 500€, all the same size but in varying and exciting colors:
Coins range from one Eurocent to 2€, and if you know me at all, you know that I have been crusading to kill the paper $1 bill in the US, and move to the $1 coin...so I LOVE having not only a 1€ coin, but a 2€ coin, too:
So having said all that, forget everything I just said. Because the real Finnish currency looks like this:
Because absolutely nobody uses cash for anything. No transaction is too small to just charge it. They don't use paper checks for anything, either. All transactions are electronic, and they laugh at me when I ask about checks and tell me they haven't been used here since the 70s.
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