Now We're Laundering Money!

I never thought anyone could say of us that we laundered any money, but now they can. Steph started the process of ironing some of our money, and then I worked on it for another 45 min. or so.

The deal is that some foreign countries are very big on having new, crisp and clean dollar bills. This is due to the large amount of counterfeiting that takes place.

While we are being extra cautious by making sure our small bills even look good, it is really important with the large bills. You aren't allowed to have any marks or creases in the bills and then need to be crisp.

So what do you do if you have a bill with no marks, but is all wrinkly? You iron it of course. I knew this from previous trips to China, but didn't actually know why this worked so well. Turns out that the green paper you tote around in your wallet and purse has a significant fabric content.

That being the case, if you have a clean looking bill and need to bring it back to an acceptable looking state, just pull out the iron and treat it like your favourite shirt. It really does the trick.

So how do you even get clean bills in the first place? You can go to the bank and ask for them. We just told them we were involved in an adoption and explained what China's regulations were. Some of the bank officers are familiar with the process and know exactly what you need.

In our case we went to several banks in Portland and asked for help. They were very helpful in sorting through money to try and find what we needed. We didn't realize that one bank was going to do this for us, but they put in an order for our money to come directly from the reserve. We were able to get all of what we needed in clean, off the presses dough. So much so, that even all the serial numbers are in successive order. Pretty cool huh?