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I spent 9 months in South America in 2012-2013, 5 of which I lived in Palermo Hollywood, Buenos Aires, aka the hipster ex-pat neighborhood. I loved it -- for th
by ABraidotti 5y ago
I spent 9 months in South America in 2012-2013, 5 of which I lived in Palermo Hollywood, Buenos Aires, aka the hipster ex-pat neighborhood. I loved it -- for the most part. I recall a few salient aspects of everyday life related to money:
- sometimes when I'd buy something at the chino (corner store run by Chinese immigrants), I'd get candy instead of my change back, due to the coin shortage. No arguing with them about that.
- I would get empanadas down the street at a bakery almost every day, and the woman who owned it would complain and almost start crying if I brought a bill that was too big (like a 100-peso note). I would occasionally buy fewer items than I wanted because I had smaller bills. I think she was happier that way.
- the best exchange rate for American dollars was the downtown grey market on Avenida Florida, where tourists would frequent. I would just walk down and guys would notice me as a tourist, and say "cambio allá" and point me around a corner, where I could trade American dollars for whatever the rate in pesos was that week. There was an official unofficial exchange rate, better than the official exchange rate.
- across the river, Uruguay just straight up abandoned their own peso and used American dollars instead. Same with Ecuador as I later found.
- when I got tired of wine, I'd get beer at this brewery in Palermo -- Orion, I think it was called. I can't remember. But I do remember in October 2012, beers cost about 24 pesos and were about 36 pesos by spring 2013. Cheaper for me since my wallet was backed by USD, but that just meant I drank more beer. :)
I really miss BA sometimes.
- msoad 5y agoI'm in Palermo right now. As FAANG engineer I'm making so much more money than average Argentine. Life is good! Beer in a bar is $200 peso now. Still less than $1!
- tenpies 5y ago> - across the river, Uruguay just straight up abandoned their own peso and used American dollars instead. Same with Ecuador as I later found. Uruguay is actually extremely clever in that it long ago realized that Argentina just isn't capable of handling a sovereign currency. Having a monetarily unstable neighbour means that millions of Argentines are underserved by national banks, so Uruguay has an entire industry tailored towards financial services for Argentines. You may have also noticed that almost all Argentinians of a certain economy class, have a USD account in Uruguay. The downside is that occasionally, Argentinians do something unexpected, and it can blow up the Uruguayan banking sector: happened in 2002 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Uruguay_banking_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Uruguay_banking_crisis).
- solids 5y agoBuenos Aires is the best place in the world to miss when you want to feel nostalgic. (Argentinian, moved to Valencia 1 year ago)
- forinti 5y agoThis is not accurate. Uruguay has not abandoned its Peso. You can use dollars and expensive things (cars, houses) usually are priced in dollars, but salaries are in pesos and so are everyday goods. Inflation in Uruguay is less than 10% yearly.
- totalZero 5y agoCorrect; 1 USD is worth about 44 Uruguayan pesos.