After nearly three years in this country, I've become the queen of cash. I like to keep a variety of bills in my wallet--from 2's and 5's to 10's and 20's. This gives me the most flexibility but I know where I can break a twenty without having anyone blink an eye (Onda) and I know where I need to pay in small bills (lunch line cafeteria).

For the record, sometimes even if you try to  pay with a 5 the lunch lady will demand smaller change in Bulgarian a few times, each time getting increasingly louder. This is embarrassing. Especially when there's a line. It's best to try to pay with exact change.

I know where my favorite ATM is and I know which ones to avoid because sometimes they spit out 50 leva notes. What's a girl to do with a 50 leva bill--even the girls in Onda raise their eyes at that one. I generally try to avoid being the girl who only has big bills--you know 20's--because it's harder to split bills in restaurants and pay for cabs among other things.

So it was interesting to see a piece recently about Bulgarians and debit/credit card use.

Apparently only 49% of Bulgarians have a debit card and something like 9% have a credit card. This is incredible to me.

That means that more than half don't have a debit card. I have a hard time imagining that. It seems as if it would be difficult to function even in Bulgaria without a debit card.

I am not surprised by this: <a href="http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=126261&amp;utm_source=twitterfeed&amp;utm_medium=twitter" target="_self">Those using bank cards more frequently have higher education and income, and live in the largest cities</a>.