You pay for the taptap in gourdes. Rent is often set in dollars. At the market, the vendor says "50 dola" when she means gourdes. And the money your family sends from Miami or Montreal arrives in US or Canadian dollars.
With that many currencies at once, it's no surprise so many people feel like their money just "disappears." It doesn't disappear: it's simply impossible to add up at the end of the month.
Here's a method that works, even if you've never kept a budget.
The "dola" trap
Let's start with the most expensive misunderstanding.
When Haitians say "dola" in everyday life, they very often mean the Haitian dollar. It isn't a real currency: it's a way of counting gourdes. One Haitian dollar is worth 5 gourdes. So "20 dola" at the market means 100 gourdes.
The US dollar, on the other hand, is worth more than a hundred gourdes. Mixing the two up means being off by a factor of twenty-six on a single expense. If you write down "20 dola" without saying which one, a week later you won't know whether you spent 100 gourdes or 2,600.
The rule: always spell out the currency. "20 dola ayisyen," "20 dola ameriken," or simply "100 goud."
Pick a reference currency
You can pay in five different currencies, but you can only keep your books in one. That's your reference currency.
For most people living in Haiti, it's the gourde: the everyday currency, the one for the market, transportation and phone top-ups.
For someone in the diaspora who supports family back home, it's more likely the US or Canadian dollar: the currency they earn in and think in.
There's no wrong choice. What matters is picking just one and converting everything to it when you review your spending.
Write down the rate the same day
The exchange rate between the gourde and the dollar moves. If you buy something in dollars today and only do your math a month from now, the rate will have changed and your total will be wrong.
The fix is simple: record the conversion when you spend, using that day's rate. Here's an example at a rate of 132 gourdes to the dollar:
| Expense | Amount paid | In gourdes |
|---|---|---|
| Digicel top-up | 250 goud | 250 gourdes |
| Food at the market | 40 dola ayisyen | 200 gourdes |
| Internet plan | 25 dola ameriken | 3,300 gourdes |
Without the last column, those three lines don't add up. With it, you know you spent 3,750 gourdes, and that the internet plan makes up almost 90% of it.
If you exchange your dollars with a street money changer at a rate different from the official one, write down your rate: it's the one that reflects what the expense actually cost you.
Group your expenses into a few categories
Writing down every expense is pointless if you never group them. You don't need thirty categories: seven or eight are enough to see clearly.
- Food: market, supermarket, groceries
- Transportation: taptap, moto taxi, gas
- Phone and internet: top-ups, data plans
- Housing: rent, water, electricity, generator
- Education: school fees, books, uniforms
- Health: medicine, doctor visits
- Family and gifts: what you give or send
- Other: everything else
After a month, look at which category weighs the most. It's almost always a surprise, and that's where to act first.
The real secret: log it right away
All of these rules fail for the same reason: people forget to write things down. You tell yourself you'll do it tonight, then this weekend, then never.
An expense gets logged the moment you make it, or it doesn't get logged at all. That's why notebooks so often fail: you have to pull it out, find a pen, write. You need something that takes three seconds, with a tool already in your hand.
That's exactly what Ekono does: you send "manje 40 dola ayisyen" on Telegram, the way you'd text a friend, and the expense is categorized, converted at the day's rate and added up. But the method matters more than the tool. A simple message you send to yourself beats a perfect spreadsheet you never open.
In short
- Always spell out the currency, especially when you say "dola."
- Pick a single reference currency to keep your books.
- Convert at the day's rate, when you spend.
- Group your expenses into seven or eight categories.
- Log it right away, never "later."
Stick with this method for a month, and you'll finally know where your money goes.