I stopped by the butcher to get menudos (giblets) and corazón (beef heart) for the dogs. To my surprise, prices had jumped significantly from the last time I looked at a receipt a couple weeks ago:
That’s a 25% and 10% increase respectively.
Same thing at Tienda Inglesa:
Mushrooms have gone up 22% in the last two weeks.
In our little local store, the price of eggs has gone up 8% in the last two weeks.
This is not a case of higher prices for tourist season. All of the price hikes have happened in the last week or two, as tourist season ends. And the USD exchange rate has been steady for the last several months (although the highest since we’ve lived here).
I don’t pay attention to too many prices, although I do recall when we first moved here, our son liked to order entrecot (boneless ribeye steak) at Don Vito. It cost 245 pesos, which seemed expensive – at least compared to what we ordered. Here’s where we are with that at the moment:
Granted, it’s been almost ten years, so that’s not entirely unexpected. I remember being appalled when red peppers hit 99 pesos/kilo. Now you’re lucky if the price gets that low. And of course produce varies with the season.
But all these significant price jumps in a very short time, given my expectation of 10-12% per year, have definitely got my attention.
It’s not that stuff’s expensive. It’s just that your money isn’t worth anything. Makes ya’ wonder just how long the whole world can just keep printing fiat backed by nothing. Well, I shouldn’t say backed by nothing. The banks issuing said fiat out of thin air, lent at interest, will be expecting some kind of assets…
“I’ll create $100 out of nothing that you can have. You’ll simply have to repay me $120 after a year.”
“Where’s the extra $20 going to come from?”
“Keep moving, citizen. Nothing to see here.”
This is an annual phenomenon. Merchants raise prices in January to recoup their costs for the annual aguinaldo (bonus) paid to their employees.
Interesting; I’ve never noticed that before. And of course the prices don’t go down again — ?