How I Am Dealing With A Collapsing Currency

Fast and Odd Times In Anatolia

50 claps on my back
A 30 second head scratch
and a comment to help pay my way
thank you

I’m not a fan of research. If I don’t know it off the top of my head then I’m not the right guy to explain it to others. Research outside of your field of focus is just copy and paste on steroids with a little reference note at the end to show just how smart you are. I prefer to only talk about things I know. Those things are; Teaching Young People How To Communicate Effectively in English and My Life. Unfortunately, the Turkish Lira is part of my life.

I’m not going to saddle you with the whys and the whos of this ridiculous situation, rather I’m going to bring you down onto the vibrant streets of the city and the polished hallways of the fancy schools that scatter this wonderful land.

Getting Paid

I used to be a teacher here until recently. My contract was pretty good for an ESL teacher in a small city where rent is at most 300 USD unless you want to go large and live in a villa. In this case, it jumps to about 1400 USD a month. Traditionally, ESL teachers could expect to earn 1,500 USD a month, and in a land where beer is 2 dollars and milk is 40 cents, that’s pretty good. Well, it was.

Fluctuations

It was not until the lira went from 2.3 lira to 1 dollar in 2013 to 27 lira to 1 dollar in 2023 after the elections. Until then, businesses didn’t have much of a problem raising the minimum wage to meet the rising wave of the dollar. Take my contract at the school for example:

In September 2015, I was making 4,300 lira NET, which equated to 1,480 USD. Every January, the school would readjust our wages to match the dollar but normally we didn’t see the change in our account for a few months (Don’t ask me why.)

So by the end of the school year in June 2016, we would be making 1,430 USD. It wasn’t a huge loss, and we knew it would be adjusted soon. It wasn’t a big deal. It was part of life. This fluctuation also didn’t affect inflation too badly. The mini-bus was still 1,50 lira—at least I think it was, anyway—but it was still cheap.

The Unadjusted

Soon, the lira began to lose more value, and my school and other businesses began to find it more and more difficult to keep adjusting wages for the dollar. After all, the parents were paying the fees in Lira.

In August 2018, things got out of hand. The lira shot up from 3.5 to 6.9 to 1 dollar. It meant that my salary of $1500 a month was now worth 750 dollars. It was nuts. I remember not being able to withdraw my money from the bank.

For about a week, every day at the bank was like the scene from It’s ‘A Wonderful Life’ where everyone makes a run for their money and there’s some poor fool trying to talk them down.

The school reassured us at the beginning of the year meeting that our new salaries would be adjusted. They were, but we were no longer making $1500 a month.

It was now $1300.

They told us it was a new government tax, so our net had depreciated. This was the moment I started doing my private lessons. I wanted to make up the difference.

I didn’t leave Ireland to witness my lifestyle drop.

It was the best thing that ever happened to me, looking back, as I began to make more money from my private clients.

The Unadjustable

In September 2021, the lira was at 8.4 to the dollar, and I was making 10,000 lira, which was about 1200 dollars. Despite the pandemic and everything going on in the world, we were holding on.

I had become so tired of following Lira that I decided to let things play out Despite hating my job, I still needed the school's money to maintain my lifestyle.

The school had proven itself resilient and always managed to keep up with the fluctuations.

But not even the school could’ve foreseen what would happen in December 2021.

16.4 lira to the dollar.

Yes, you heard that right. One cold December morning, after payment, I checked the lira exchange rate and was aghast. I did the math in my head. It seemed I was now making 600 bucks a month.

I started planning my exit strategy.

Lost Wages

The dollar is king, and whoever says anything differently is a fool.

I was a fool. How much money have I lost playing the good little teacher waiting game while the currency used to pay me melted away? A lot. Lost wages and time. Such a stupid, goody-two-shoes teacher.

Always doing what I’m told. Not anymore.

Last June, I quit and swore that everything I earned would be in dollars.

If the tax man doesn’t like it, I’ll move back to Ireland, or better yet, I’ll go to Portugal, or how about my cousins in Tuscany?

It seems being hit in my pocket has woken me up, and a wide awake, sober Irish man only follows one thing: the money.

50 claps on my back. 
A 30 second head scratch
And a comment to pay my way

If you feel I didn’t explain the finer points of currency devaluation, inflation, and general economic jibber jabber, go off and read a newspaper. I’m tired of teaching people for pennies on the dollar.

I have been Peter Murphy, and you have just read my stuff