No Cambiar

One thing about Oaxaca is that you pretty much have to use cash everywhere. Our rent, our son's tuition, many places you buy food, and just in general it is hard to use credit cards. Yes, this makes me feel somewhat silly for going out of our way to get a new credit card with no foreign transaction fees, but thats no big deal. We just take a lot of money out of the ATM at a time.

Another thing about Oaxaca is that nobody has change. Ever. For one example, we took a cab a few weeks ago that cost 40 pesos. I had a 50 peso bill, and the driver could not make change for me, making me go from storefront to storefront until someone was willing to grudgingly break my 50 peso bill. Keep in mind that it is roughly 12 pesos to the dollar, so this would be like an American not being able to break a $5 bill for a $4 fare.

Another example is that today I had to pay my son's tuition bill. We owed $2030 pesos. I had four $500 peso bills and a $100 peso bill. And the school couldn't make change, despite the fact that lots of parents were needing to pay their tuition this week. As I watched the assistant principal go from classroom to classroom seeing if any of the teachers could break a $100 peso bill (which they couldn't do, for the record), I couldn't help but imagine the VP for Finance at my college going from classroom to classroom asking faculty if they had change for a ten dollar bill. It doesn't seem like that would happen.

I understand that there are cultural differences, and I shouldnt expect things to work here the way they work in the US. I really do. I just don't understand how everybody else manages to have the small bills they need to pay for things but not the small bills they need to make change for things. We are constantly trying to figure out ways to have small money, and while I normally like strategizing and game theory, this is one nut I have yet to crack.