When we first moved to Indonesia, it was difficult wrapping our minds around all the 000,000,000 on the money. One USD is approximately 13,000 Indonesia Rupiah. While there are many places that take cards, and online shopping is beginning to take root, Indonesia still operated mainly as a cash society. This means we often go to an ATM and pull out 1,000,000 Rupiah. (One million or in Bahasa Indonesia, SeJuta.) A million Rupiah is approximately $75 US.
The largest bill is 100,000. (around $7.36)
The rest of the bills are in denominations 50,000; 20,000; 10,000; 5,000; 2,000. This smallest paper bill is around $.15 USD.
BUT, then there are the coins. The 1000 and 500 coin are useful... but then there are smaller coins for exact change... the 200, 100, and occasionally there is a 50. These are so small that the 100s and 200s are often taped together, such as in this picture to make bundles of 1000, which is 7cents USD.
That means, ROUGHLY, that each of the bundles of coins above is like a nickel. Parking fees or the fee to pay the guy that watches your car while you shop is usually around 2,000 per store ($.15)
What is really crazy, when I think about the states where I remember pulling $20 at the lowest out of an ATM, Here, the largest bill that exists is a $7 USD bill. So what do you do when you want to pay for a refrigerator? or a stove?
Two things, those places are much more likely to accept credit cards... or you can do the very Indonesian thing, which is to do a bank transfer. I can transfer money directly from my bank account to anyone else account that I have the number for - even from my cell phone. People post their bank account numbers on paperwork, sign up sheets for classes, everywhere... because there are safeguards for withdrawing money... but depositing large amounts of money into someone's account? Super-easy here.