How many of us are still here?

[Redpossum]

Man, oh man, but this thread is depressing, and really discouraging.

But hey, at least the Blue went back up a little bit today, from 1150 to 1185. I have no idea why, but it did. Maybe it's just dead cat bounce.

 

[Quilombo]

Its utterly horrible, really unsettling and a constant stress feeling poorer every day, and not knowing if I will be able to afford my current lifestyle over the coming years, especially with how hard I’ve worked to achieve it.

Makes me even more angry that it’s all because of Milei’s lies. They’ve achieved nothing, the average Argentine is no better off, and all this “super peso” is nothing more than black magic and debt from the FMI.
But oh well, what did I expect living in Argentina

I sympathize, this has been our experience as well.

We walked away from a 0KM car, a lot, and now it increasingly looks like we'll be walking away from the country. We have lowered all our expectations, and our latest hope was to buy a meh house outside of GBA for 50K, but since mortgages are very difficult to get as monotributistas we'd have to buy it in cash, and we don't have that kind of money.

Sure, now we can buy dollars for saving easier/from home banking, but there are less pesos to buy said dollars because everything has gotten so expensive so it's basically a wash.

 

[chris]

I live on a farm, a half hour from town. No public transportation to speak of.
MY Sube card is useless.

But one son lives in NYC with no car, he takes subways and citibikes, but his daily expenses are high. studio apartments are 2 grand in NYC. and thats rare and hard to find.
The other lives in Seattle, and, no, you cant really live there without a car. He works 2 jobs, one he can take light rail to, the other you must drive.

If you lived on a farm in Argentina you would need a car. There are quite a few urban areas in the USA with good transport where you can live without a car -- and if you're a senior public transport is either free or half price. From what you say, Seattle's public transport is not as extensive as in big East Coast cities.

 

[LuckyLuke]

Man, oh man, but this thread is depressing, and really discouraging.

But hey, at least the Blue went back up a little bit today, from 1150 to 1185. I have no idea why, but it did. Maybe it's just dead cat bounce.

Not to kick you while you're down, but while oficial and blue are pegged it will be a lose-lose situation for expats regardless of the movements. If the combined peso/dollar rate goes up, it means you have a temporary relief on your current expenses by getting a more favorable dollar rate....that is until all domestic producers increase their prices to adjust to the new peso rate (erasing any favorable advantage you had).

As if this doesn't sound depressing enough...it will get even worse. You will stay ahead of the domestic price market ("maintaining" your COL) until the peso/dollar hits $1400. Once the peso/dollar hits $1400 you will no longer have any way to adjust to the peso inflation occurring. This means your COL will gradually rise more as it loses ground to domestic inflation.

We're about to enter a really miserable time for anyone (Argentines included) earning in USD.

I only see 3 ways out:

1) Increase your USD income to maintain your COL
2) Earn a sueldo in pesos that can increase with the IPC or some portion of it.
3) Live off of investments tied to UVA (plazo fijo), or passive income tied to the IPC or ICL (e.g. rents)
4) Move to another country where the dollar can appreciate freely.

 

[Ries]

If you lived on a farm in Argentina you would need a car. There are quite a few urban areas in the USA with good transport where you can live without a car -- and if you're a senior public transport is either free or half price. From what you say, Seattle's public transport is not as extensive as in big East Coast cities.

obvio. Thats why I dont live on a farm in Argentina.
But there is decent bus service in most of rural argentina. And you can buy scooters for a few hundred dollars. Or a horse.
Bus service in rural USA is horrible, expensive, and infrequent.
I have taken buses to Rosario, La Plata, Mar De Plata, Tandil, and other towns in the provincia, and they serve many small towns as well.
Public transport in the USA is usually 4 to 10 times the price of Argentina.
But my main point remains- for equivalent lifestyles in the US vs Argentina, if you live like I do, (no gated communities, no brand new 60,000 dollar cars, no rolex watches) Argentina is still significantly cheaper for day to day living.

 

[Redpossum]

Not to kick you while you're down, but while oficial and blue are pegged it will be a lose-lose situation for expats regardless of the movements. If the combined peso/dollar rate goes up, it means you have a temporary relief on your current expenses by getting a more favorable dollar rate....that is until all domestic producers increase their prices to adjust to the new peso rate (erasing any favorable advantage you had).

As if this doesn't sound depressing enough...it will get even worse. You will stay ahead of the domestic price market ("maintaining" your COL) until the peso/dollar hits $1400. Once the peso/dollar hits $1400 you will no longer have any way to adjust to the peso inflation occurring. This means your COL will gradually rise more as it loses ground to domestic inflation.

We're about to enter a really miserable time for anyone (Argentines included) earning in USD.

I only see 3 ways out:

1) Increase your USD income to maintain your COL
2) Earn a sueldo in pesos that can increase with the IPC or some portion of it.
3) Live off of investments tied to UVA (plazo fijo), or passive income tied to the IPC or ICL (e.g. rents)
4) Move to another country where the dollar can appreciate freely.

I hadn't heard about the BNA and the Blue being "pegged". By all means please tell us more.

 

[antipodean]

We're about to enter a really miserable time for anyone (Argentines included) earning in USD.

I only see 3 ways out:

1) Increase your USD income to maintain your COL
2) Earn a sueldo in pesos that can increase with the IPC or some portion of it.
3) Live off of investments tied to UVA (plazo fijo), or passive income tied to the IPC or ICL (e.g. rents)
4) Move to another country where the dollar can appreciate freely.

USD earners in Argentina should really not be that miserable after saving how many tens of thousands of dollars from an artificially cheap lifestyle for so many years. They are now essentially just repaying their "subsidies" in the form of economic karma. What goes around, comes around so enjoy it while it lasts or despair it while it lasts (and surely with this being Argentina, nothing stays the same forever except the corner verdulería).

Many of the complaints from expats about this situation and indeed these points remind me of a juvenile "yo mamma joke" from when I was a kid: "Yo mama so old that when I told her to act her age, she died" ... Some are simply coming to the grim realisation and going through the various stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression then finally acceptance in the form of tightening their belts or making financial change happen) that they were simply living beyond their means all these years at someone else's expense because their humble incomes just really were not that great to begin with.

As for point 2, I am glad that many more (albeit professional and thus more fortunate middle class) Argentines can now again enjoy things like travel and spending their money on what they want to rather than what they are allowed to with professional take-home pay far higher than those in Spain or many other parts of Europe.

Agree with Ries, that overall the COL in Buenos Aires is not that bad compared to most other developed big cities, even if buying a coffee in London last week felt ridiculously cheap for me (as while a coffee may cost more in Buenos Aires at least I ain't paying GBP 4.000+ for a shoebox apartment or GBP 8.90 to ride the public transport a short distrance on top of it). As everything anywhere in the world, it all depends on what you earn and what you need and want to spend that money on in that place as to if it is a good overall deal or not for you.

 

[chris]

obvio. Thats why I dont live on a farm in Argentina.
But there is decent bus service in most of rural argentina. And you can buy scooters for a few hundred dollars. Or a horse.
Bus service in rural USA is horrible, expensive, and infrequent.
I have taken buses to Rosario, La Plata, Mar De Plata, Tandil, and other towns in the provincia, and they serve many small towns as well.
Public transport in the USA is usually 4 to 10 times the price of Argentina.
But my main point remains- for equivalent lifestyles in the US vs Argentina, if you live like I do, (no gated communities, no brand new 60,000 dollar cars, no rolex watches) Argentina is still significantly cheaper for day to day living.

obvio. Thats why I dont live on a farm in Argentina.
But there is decent bus service in most of rural argentina. And you can buy scooters for a few hundred dollars. Or a horse.
Bus service in rural USA is horrible, expensive, and infrequent.
I have taken buses to Rosario, La Plata, Mar De Plata, Tandil, and other towns in the provincia, and they serve many small towns as well.
Public transport in the USA is usually 4 to 10 times the price of Argentina.
But my main point remains- for equivalent lifestyles in the US vs Argentina, if you live like I do, (no gated communities, no brand new 60,000 dollar cars, no rolex watches) Argentina is still significantly cheaper for day to day living.

What matters is that you are OK with the prices and can sustain your lifestyle. I kind of doubt that many here are worried about the price of a Rolex, however.

 

[Ries]

What matters is that you are OK with the prices and can sustain your lifestyle. I kind of doubt that many here are worried about the price of a Rolex, however.

people who have rolexs dont worry about the prices of rolexes.
People who want rolexes and dont have them do complain about the prices of rent and food, though.
There are a lot of people who read this forum, though, and I have no doubt that a few of them are wearing a rolex right now.
There are many classes of expats.
I have seen some with nothing, and some with everything.

 

[on the brink]

Aside from money matters, let's consider this about life in Argentina.

Yesterday I had to go to MetroGas to dispute an incorrect bill. I have trouble getting around, so the taxi driver took me under his wing, parked his car, went into the office with me and did battle in my stead. This took almost an hour of his time, but he did it without being asked, and without any kind or compensation. He was a guy in his late thirties, acting simply out of the goodness in his heart and the willingness to help someone in need.

Only in Argentina......