Swiss bills

One of the more interesting cultural differences for us is the Swiss approach to paying bills.

Checks don't exist. Bills are paid in cash or through a bank transfer. If you don't have access to your bank account online, you can use bill payment machines at your bank, or just take a wad of cash to the post office and they'll handle the payments for you. I use online banking at home, so it didn't seem strange to me until I had to pay another parent for the down payment on our ski lessons. She didn't provide her bank routing information -- just a home address. I called to ask, "Do people really just put $300 in an envelope and drop it in the mail, trusting that it will get to you?" Apparently, they do.

Saving is a given. You're actually expected to be responsible with your money, save for your bills and pay them. Case in point -- we haven't received any household service bills. We were worried that they didn't get transferred properly, so we called our landlord. She said not to worry -- we'd get the water bill at the end of the year, the electricity bill would come every 2 or 3 months but be adjusted for actual usage once a year, and the oil bill would be whenever we filled the tank (every 1 to 2 years).

There is also no pressure about getting paid in a timely manner or before a product is delivered. I've placed an online order, and I just check the box "send invoice with product." Can you imagine an online retailer in the U.S. just including the invoice with your order? I think half the people would never pay. At least the online retailer has your name and address. I stopped at a local farm to get a pumpkin for Halloween. They had a price sticker on the pumpkin and a cash box to leave the money. You figure out how much you owe, and drop the money into a cash box. My biggest stress? Having the exact change. ATMs dispense your money in 100 CHF bills, so coming up with 22 CHF required digging through my change purse. As another example, we ordered a freezer, and I asked what form of payment they accepted. The salesperson explained that they would just send me an invoice in the mail -- a week after the product was delivered. I was there, I could have paid, but it was just as easy for them to send an invoice. Even in sports, this system works. The boys have been playing hockey for a few weeks now and I just today paid their team fees. One person told me to hold off paying until I was sure they liked the team/sport. They've been playing with no payment, and I hadn't even signed anything -- including a liability waiver. But, that's a topic for another post.