“It’s Nothing This One”: Street Seller Refuses 1 Million Zimbabwe Dollars for Toilet Paper
- A British businessman filmed himself trying to buy toilet paper from a street vendor in Zimbabwe
- The video showed how Zimbabwe's dollar note couldn't buy a single roll of toilet paper
- Social media users were shocked by the video, with some asking how the currency got so bad
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Source: Instagram
A British businessman posted a video on 20 October 2025 that showed just how bad Zimbabwe's inflation really was. In the video, he was stuck in traffic in Zimbabwe when a street vendor came up to him selling a bag of toilet paper. The businessman thought he'd try something interesting by offering to pay with old Zimbabwean currency notes.
Content creator @samuelleeds pulled out a 1 million Zimbabwe dollar note and asked the seller if he could buy the toilet paper with it. The seller just looked at the note and started laughing, telling him:
"Ahh, no, 1 million?"
When the businessman asked if it was good money, the seller said that it wasn't. The businessman tried to push back, reminding him that people used to buy houses with those notes, and the seller just laughed again and said that it was not worth anything before starting to walk away. The businessman then jokingly asked, "What about a billion?" which made the seller laugh even harder.
The video was captioned with a longer explanation about how hyperinflation works. The businessman wrote that not long ago, a billion Zimbabwe dollars would have bought you a car or even a house, but now it's completely worthless. He remembered when people were taking wheelbarrows full of cash to the market, only to be refused.
He explained that this happens when a government prints so much money that the notes become worthless, and those who saved in cash lost everything overnight.
Source: Instagram
Instagram users react to the funny video
Netizens had questions and comments about content creator @samuelleeds' video, with many trying to understand why the money was worthless.
@jackson.ja11 asked:
"How much is 1 million of those in euros or dollars?"
@juan_king_london wanted to know:
"How and whose fault is it that the currency got so bad???"
@a.sherr_zw explained:
"Bro, we don't use that money anymore, that's why it doesn't buy."
@iamsimonjordan added:
"No, you can't offer them because it doesn't work anymore. We use USD."
@jennysardy worried:
"And that's what is going to happen in Tanzania 🇹🇿 😢😢 Tanzanian people, we need to raise our voices."
Zimbabwe's hyperinflation crisis
According to the Smithsonian, Zimbabwe issued a 100 trillion dollar note in 2008. This was because of hyperinflation when prices of goods went up quickly, and the government printed money like this to match market prices. This note is one of the world's largest denominations to exist.
According to Bank Note World, the one-million-dollar Zimbabwe note is now sold as a collector's item on websites. The bill may be worthless in its home country, but it is considered a novelty item to the outside world.
Watch the Instagram clip here.
3 Other stories about Zimbabwe
- Briefly News recently reported on Zimbabwean president Emmerson Mnangagwa taking responsibility to pay hospital bills for the Limpopo accident victims.
- A British woman living in Zimbabwe showed people how much she earns from TikTok each month.
- A South African woman also travelled all the way to Zimbabwe to visit her domestic worker's family and tried to learn Shona.
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Source: Briefly News
