Money money money

I made a very good financial decision at the start of this school year. I chose to get paid in US dollars and not Chinese RMB. They would have let me get paid in either USD, RMB, or a 50-50 split. The Chinese economy continues to dive deeper into the crapper because president Xi refuses to back out of the zero tolerance Covid response.

Cities here continue to get locked down and it's killing manufacturering and shipping. Fortunately Hangzhou seems to keep avoiding the Covid waves. I considered taking a job in Guangzhou last year. They had 500+ new Covid cases this past week. Glad I'm not there.

The Chinese economy struggling means the RMB keeps dropping in value compared to the USD. Simple math means every month the RMB drops I keep getting a raise. When I get paid it immediately gets converted to RMB. When I first arrived the RMB was about 6:1 compared to the USD. Right now it's about 7.22:1. It's headed towards 8:1. My friend Jeremy here thinks it could get far worse for China, but I think he's just pessimistic. Really, I don't know.

There is a "however" at play here. I have to transfer money back to the states to pay my mortgage and car payment each month. It gets converted from RMB back to USD. If the exchange rate continues to get worse that's what I'm stuck with. If I transfer money back within days of being paid it's not a big deal. Either way the RMB moves I don't have to worry about it too much, but for now the money that I'm keeping here in China is worth more because I'm getting paid in USD. Now, let's just hope inflation doesn't hit China...