In May 2008 I wrote an article about how inflation in Zimbabwe hit 100 000 per cent. Since then, almost 2 years have past and this is what has happened in the mean time.

In November 2008 inflation in Zimbabwe hit 89.7 sextillion percent – that is 89 700 000 000 000 000 000 000%.

To get a rough idea how much that is – a sextillion is a billion trillions.

In addition to the staggering hyperinflation, unemployment in Zimbabwe also went up to 85% and over the third of the people left the country. Check out the pictures below to get an idea how was life in Zimbabwe during the hyperinflation

Pictures of Inflation in Zimbabwe

A boy with 200 000 dollar notes…



At the time this picture was taken – 200 000 dollars of Zimbabwe were about 0.10 US cents.

On December 22nd 2007 a new 500 000 Zimbabwean dollar note was introduced

A few days later the 750 000 dollar note hit the market…

January 2008 – a ten million Zimbabwean dollar note

A man holding 60 million Zimbabwean dollars in January 2008 – about 40 US dollars at the time of taking this picture.

In May 2008 10 million Zimbabwean dollars are worth about 6 US dollars



A boy going to buy groceries

A case with 65 billion dollars… Too bad it is only 2000 US dollars.

A local citizen going to a supermarket. The exchange rate was about 25 million Zimbabwean dollars for $1 US.

See this huge pile of money? Well, it’s only worth about $100

Things keep getting better… well actually worse… A 50 million dollar bill is introduced to the people of Zimbabwe

And a few days later the 250 million dollars from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe… Or should we say the local print shop.

Want to but a T-shirt? No problem… 276.5 million dollars please! Compared to the 2.765 billion the trousers are going for, it’s a steal…

May 2008 – a 500 billion Zimbabwean dollar note is introduced. This was also the time where I wrote the blog post about inflation in Zimbabwe. For some reason it was listed under Fun

By this time the hyperinflation was at 100,000%.

I wrote:

With inflation at 100 000% it takes about 6 hours and 20 minutes for your 100 dollars to become $50.

With inflation this high it means that when you leave your shopping for the next day you have effectively lost 93,75% of your money.

June 2008 – 25 billion and 50 billion notes are printed. In the background you can see president of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe – the mastermind behind the hyperinflation. It all started in the beginning of the 2000s when he decided to confiscate all the land from people with white skin – effectively ending all farming in the country.

A quote from president Mugabe:

“The only white man you can trust is a dead white man”.

July 1st 2008 – a 100 billion dollar bank note is issued

What can you buy with it? Well… it’s not enough for 4 eggs but you can get 3…

I have an idea – lets have a fun evening in the restaurant! (better take the truck for all that money)

Restaurant bill for the evening: 1 billion 243 million 255 thousand dollars and 0 cents.

Too much money to stack under the mattress, too much to carry it all to the bank…

August 2008 – the government of Zimbabwe decided to take 10 zeroes away from each dollar bill.. You know – they just didn’t fit…

Not again??? Despite getting rid of the zeroes, the inflation kept going up… This was the amount just 1 month later you needed to buy 4 tomatoes!

Want some bread? No problem…

Late September – 1 month after losing 10 zeroes from each note of money… the new 20 000 Zimbabwean dollar bill is born!

A couple of weeks later… the new 50 000 dollar bill…

The largest bill in the history of money

As time went on the inflation became unbearable. The government of Zimbabwe had to issue the largest bank note ever in the history of mankind – the one hundred trillion dollar bill.

How the inflation in Zimbabwe ended?

In 2009 the government of Zimbabwe was tired of printing new money (and they were probably out of paper as well) and decided to get rid of the Zimbabwean dollar.

Instead they are currently using the South African rand and the US dollar.

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