How much is a peso worth?

We all know the dollar hasn’t had the best record in net worth recently, especially when compared to the euro or pound. However, you’d be surprised how far one dollar will take you in Salta. I won’t say in Argentina overall, because Buenos Aires is a lot more expensive (although still cheaper than the U.S.).

Just to give you an idea of what things tend to cost…

The exchange rate varies between 3.4 pesos to 3.7 pesos for each U.S. dollar. The average tends to rest around 3.5, which I’ll use in my calculations (and I’ll round up).

This means 1 peso is the equivalent of about 29 cents.

At the parade I went to the other day, I got a sandwich for 2 pesos, which is 57 cents.

100 pesos=28 dollars

75 pesos= 21 dollars

Today, Laura and I drove to the mall. At a stoplight a man came up and starting cleaning the windshield, front and back. Laura told him she didn’t have any coins with her, but he didn’t listen. All she found was 75 cents (in pesos), and the man said that was sufficient. 75 peso cents is the same as 21 U.S. cents. If someone cleaned your windshield in the U.S. I’m sure they would expect at least 3 U.S. dollars if not more depending on what city you were in.

I went to the grocery store. I bought two different types of meat, mozzarella cheese, French bread, and two ears of corn. The total came to 29 pesos, which is $8.29. Another day I bought 5 apples for 2.90 pesos, which is 83 cents. Five apples for less than a dollar!

However, a few things are at the other end of scale (at least in the eyes of Argentineans). Laura bought a laptop computer for 1900 pesos, which is about $543. The same computer was being sold in Buenos Aires for 3000 pesos, which is $857. Of course, all of these prices would seem absurd in the U.S.—how would one make any profit?

It just gives you an idea of the level at which economies in other countries stand.