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Economic Index

    In this article we are going to analyze the prices of a traditional food truck in Buenos Aires. We’ll make a comparison between the current prices (November 2020) and the prices of October 2018. There are different indexes we may consider but we decided to create our own index comparing prices of… sandwiches in a food truck!

    Typical "Carrito" at Costanera Sur Promenade
    We'll use this traditional food truck prices to analyze economy.

    Table of Contents

    Food Truck Index

    Popular Food Truck in BA
    These food trucks are really popular among locals.

    This food truck is an authentic place visited by middle class families from Buenos Aires.

    So we’re going to compare the prices there in October 2018 and the actual prices of November 2020.

    This comparison will help us get an idea of how cheap or how expensive Buenos Aires can be, depending on the inflation and devaluation.

    We’ll just compare how expensive 2 meals could be.

    Having said that, we’ll need to make clear that this won’t represent what these prices mean for local families.

    In order to do that we should actually include a comparison in the prices.

    We only mean to offer travellers an idea of Argentina’s cost of living when traveling here, depending on the moment.

    Besides, as we’ll be comparing food, it is important to make a comment about portion sizes.

    Any of these sandwiches are large enough to feel satisfied, after eating only one of them.

    You can order a serving of french fries to add to the sandwich, but be aware that it is already abundant.

    The best for 2 people is maybe 2 sandwiches and 1 serving of French fries to share.

    Delicious Bondiola Sandwich
    Traditional Bondiola Sandwich (pork meat).

    "Carrito de Costanera"​ Prices Comparison

    So let’s get to business, let’s compare these prices! Again, we’ll be using the “dolar blue” exchange rate to convert prices in Argentinean Pesos (ARS). This way you’ll get an idea about how cheap Buenos Aires is these days, in comparison to 2018.

    Prices at the Food Truck

    As we can see, Buenos Aires has become a super cheap city for travelers. If you wanted to check this by yourself, you could check out the price lists we’ve used to calculate our Food Truck Index.

    2020 Prices

    2020 Food Truck Price List
    2020 Price List

    2018 Prices

    2018 Food Truck Price List
    2018 Price List

    A never ending economic crisis

    Argentina became a very cheap country for foreign tourists after the last economic crisis that began in 2018 and that still continues during the COVID19 pandemic.

    Truth is we do not know when will it end …

    We already mentioned in our previous post that the Argentine economy is very very complex.

    There are many very unstable factors to take into account in order to understand our economy. The most importan ones, the ones that caught most attention, are inflation and devaluation.

    Inflation

    Inflation is the increase in prices of all goods and services. In recent years, inflation was between 30% per year and 50% per year. Yes, that means that all prices raise year after year that much!

    Devaluation

    Devaluation is the increase in the price of foreign currency regarding the argentine peso. Unfortunately, this also impacts in the prices scale.

    This is more complex to explain, since in Argentina, as we posted in our previous article, there are several exchange rates. So, for this analysis, we are going to use the price of the “dolar blue” which is the most convenient exchange rate for a tourist. We’ll use this rate for our examples because it’s the one anyone can access, as we also explained in our other article. So, in this article, we’ll consider that for each dollar you’ll get AR$159 (Nov 4th).
    Traditional Food Truck in Buenos Aires

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