micheleandtom.com

There is a shortage of coins in Baires, which can make life a bit difficult here since you can only use coins in the bus fare machines, and, coins are obviously needed for making change in general.

Even at the pharmacy, if you pay for something with 100 pesos that costs say 90.10 pesos, they will spot you the ten centavos and give you 10 pesos back rather than make exact change because they want to avoid giving out 90 centavos in coins. (Cab drivers have done the same thing. We had a 6.50 peso cab ride last night and Tom gave him 10 pesos. The cab driver gave Tom back 4 pesos rather than break a bill and give him 3.50 pesos in exact change.)

Everyone in the city avoids using their coins and stores hate to give change out.

In doing a minuscule amount of reading, it seems the government needs to mint more coins, but they haven’t, so the shortage continues.

We feel like native Porteños in that we are mimicking this behavior on our own quest to acquire and hoard our own coins! (It’s like quarters for the laundromat when you were in college.)