Living with an inflation of 124%, prices that change every week and tickets that are worth almost nothing drives Argentinians crazy and turns them into expert managers. Forced, they study the best way to pay for any purchase and juggle to stretch increasingly impoverished salaries.
The banknotes are a reflection of the country. Those of 2,000 pesos, the largest denomination, are now sneaking into wallets months after their announcement. They do not arrive on the right foot because they are not enough to buy even a kilo of the typical Milanese (breaded meat) or two kilos of potatoes. Also because “they look like (fake) trout,” more than one repeats when seeing them for the first time. They appear discolored and the touch does not exude confidence. Argentina has commissioned China to print enormous shipments of this denomination. Before he did it to Spain, France or Brazil.
Inflation has been causing banknotes to grow and be renewed. The 100 peso, a decade ago the absolute king and with a similar aura to the 500 euro, is not even good for buying candy. Today, disparate series of banknotes are mixed in the wallet, released with increasingly less margin. Historical leaders, animals and, now, medical references coexist in the year 2000. Between deers and Evitas, an unusual result: there are two versions for most bills and three for the 100. The 1,000 has also been redesigned, which ATMs give when withdrawing money... but they do not accept them to enter many cases.
Any day-to-day operation can get complicated. Paying for a meal at a restaurant in cash tests patience. After receiving a bill that easily exceeds five figures, the diner has to start counting bills, because not even the largest ones can avoid forming a pile. The waiter repeats the scene to ensure that the amount is correct. The bundle is scary, but it translates into about 10 euros per person even if you opt for meat, usually the most expensive. For foreign visitors, meals are cheap, as long as they use cash and exchange their euros on the parallel market. If you pull the card, the rate applied may be worse.
The price dance and the increases are such that in recent weeks meat, key in the Argentine diet but which had become very expensive, has become cheaper because it is not bought. The ghost of hyperinflation is far away for now, but in the supermarket or a restaurant things are already worth thousands, in the cities rents cost hundreds of thousands of pesos a month and cars cost several million. With so much inflation, merchants keep changing prices. They buy from suppliers at a cost and add a margin to make the difference. But after selling and having to replace the goods, suppliers appear with higher prices that erase any profit. In reality, they just end up exchanging money. For the client, things are no less difficult, because he no longer has logical formulas to calculate how much things cost and they do not always have the price marked.
To avoid hassles and banknotes bulging in their pockets, with digitalization, Argentines are opening up to new forms of payment, such as mobile transfers or payment through QR codes via virtual platforms. Anyway, before deciding to pay this way, you have to do the math, because in most stores and establishments there are discounts for paying in cash – it is usually 10% – or, if you pay by card, you choose to divide it into installments, which with inflation ends up being a more comfortable future payment. Even the weekly shopping ends up being done in installments.
The October 22 elections add another footnote. If you pay for food with a debit card, you are eligible for a VAT refund, a Government measure with an eye on the elections. It has also given bonuses to retirees, the unemployed, public employees and beneficiaries of other aid. More money in circulation to fuel inflation. Along the way, the peso depreciates without stopping. If a year ago a dollar was equivalent to about 300 pesos in the free market, today it is almost 900. In exchange, salaries have been strongly devalued. And they fall behind inflation. For the favorite in the polls, the ultraliberal Javier Milei, the solution is to dollarize. Whether that is the way out or another, the 2,000 bill barely holds.
