Saturday, June 21, 2008

The Price of Milk


Recently we have had opportunity to see the affect of the falling dollar and the rise of inflation here in Uruguay. A loaf of bread American style costs over $2.00 and that's the cheap white bread. A gallon of diesel is $6.65. I think a good comparison to show how prices have changed since our arrival is in the price of milk.


In December 2007 a bag of milk cost us 10 pesos. At that time we were trading at 25 Uruguayan pesos to 1 US dollar. So a liter of milk was $.40 cents or $1.51 a gallon.


Compare that to now, June 2008, a bag of milk will cost us 16 pesos. Right now we are trading at about 19 pesos to 1 US dollar. So a liter of milk is $.84 cents. That's more than double in 18 months. And a gallon of milk will cost us $3.18.


Anticipating the need for more funds some of our churches have already raised our support. As a result we are "ok" financially. But if the dollar continues to plummet we likely will begin to feel the pinch.

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