I can't say I don't know how to do the maths. I do. But if I have someone who can do it for me, then why not? So I handed it over to Copilot, and I hope that's not a terrible sin. 😄
Image by Nicky Pe en PixabayAnyway, that's the least important part of this post. What I'd really like to read is your opinion about a few things that happened.
Yesterday, on my way home after picking up my power station, which I had to send off for repairs... 😒 Oh dear, that's a whole different story... but let's stick to what I came here to tell you about... I stopped at a place that sells food. They offer different meal combinations, but they all have one thing in common: roast pork. Oh, the smell of that stuff... especially when I'm absolutely worn out from cycling and haven't eaten nearly enough. That's not me being dramatic, it's simply the truth. I have the feeling that I don't eat properly these days because prices keep going up and up, and they've become so excessive that it's getting harder and harder to afford a balanced and healthy diet.
In the end I didn't buy anything. I looked at the prices, I hadn't even done the two deliveries that I got called for shortly after arriving home, I had very little cash in my wallet, and on top of that I'd been thinking about how one of my priorities right now is buying a voltage protector for my power station. It costs twice what I earned yesterday afternoon. So I told my stomach:
"Hang in there. No unnecessary expenses."
I was already quite close to home, and at home I could heat up some rice and beans, make myself a smoothie, drink plenty of cold water... In other words, I filled my mind with those comforting images and managed to resist spending the little money I had on a plate of food. Anyway, I probably didn't have enough money with me either. I only had about 2,000 CUP in my wallet.
Then I noticed a faded sign, barely visible, almost as if it had been written in pencil. It said:
"Doctors eat for free."
And as that roast pork smell continued driving me mad, I looked away and noticed, right next to it, a produce stand selling fruit and vegetables. There I saw some oranges that were so... so orange, so tempting, that I walked straight over.
I knew they weren't Cuban oranges the moment I saw them. They were Chilean. I read it on a box sitting at the bottom of the display. I asked the price. The man told me they were 3,000 CUP per pound. I couldn't help laughing. I said, "but a pound of those oranges must be, what, two oranges?" He replied that it wasn't even quite two.
So, I left with a pleasant feeling about that sign aimed at doctors, although it had clearly been placed where hardly anyone would notice it. At the same time, I felt... honestly, I don't even know what I felt. All I could think about were the kilometres I ride every day, the stress I go through, the dangers I face just to earn 3,000 CUP.
Three thousand CUP. The equivalent of barely one and a half oranges. Or less.
But that's not really the point of this post.
We're getting there. Hold on.
That afternoon, one of the errands I had was to pick up some alum stones, a 100% natural deodorant, and deliver them to the people who wanted to buy them.
There were six of them.
I paid for them with my own money: 18,000 CUP.
Three thousand CUP each.
I don't know... there goes that number again. Three thousand. Maybe it's a sign or something.
Anyway... I bought them, delivered them, and did my job. When I make the delivery, I'm reimbursed for the money I spent on the products, plus the courier fee, which is charged according to the number of kilometres travelled from the place where the product is purchased to the delivery location. This is all agreed upon with the customer in advance.
But today I saw that the person I delivered those alum stones to is reselling them for 10,000 CUP each. 😶
And then, in a WhatsApp status, I came across this advert about Chilean oranges.
Minimum order: one pallet, priced at 58 USD per box.
Minimum order: one box, at 64 USD per box.
It's the wholesale warehouse that sells them, and that's the price whether you buy a single box or a full pallet of those orange crates.
Now let's get to the maths I asked Copilot to do for me.
I asked Copilot the following: "Could you do a quick calculation for me, please? If a 15 kg box of oranges costs 64 USD, and I sell them by the pound at 3,000 CUP, using an exchange rate of 850 CUP per USD, how much profit would I make?"
Let's do the maths:
Cost of the box
64 USD × 850 CUP/USD = 54,400 CUP
Quantity of oranges
15 kg = approximately 33.07 pounds (1 kg = 2.2046 lb)
Sales revenue
33.07 lb × 3,000 CUP = 99,210 CUP
Gross profit
99,210 CUP − 54,400 CUP = 44,810 CUP
✅ Approximate profit: 44,810 CUP per box
That is equivalent to roughly 52.7 USD in profit at an exchange rate of 850 CUP/USD.
Keep in mind that this is before deducting any potential transport costs, losses due to damaged fruit, or the time spent selling them. 🍊💰
😅 I asked for the calculations based on reselling a single box. The profit would be much higher if the entire pallet were resold instead, although I don't know how many boxes a pallet contains. In that case, the cost drops to 58 USD per box.
And as for the alum stone deodorants:
Cost of the six alum stones
6 × 3,000 CUP = 18,000 CUP
Sales revenue
6 × 10,000 CUP = 60,000 CUP
Gross profit
60,000 CUP − 18,000 CUP = 42,000 CUP
✅ Approximate profit: 42,000 CUP from the six alum stones
Profit per unit
10,000 CUP − 3,000 CUP = 7,000 CUP per stone
At an exchange rate of 850 CUP per USD, that profit is equivalent to approximately:
42,000 CUP ÷ 850 = 49.4 USD
✅ Approximate profit: 49.4 USD
Here's a link where I invite you to check the USD exchange rate against the CUP (Cuban peso). If you're curious, you can follow it daily and watch how it keeps rising day after day. As it goes up, so does the price of virtually every product sold here, with prices increasing almost every single day.
Yesterday I paid 40 USD for the repair of my power station at an exchange rate of 850 CUP to 1 USD, and today it's already at 860. None of this is normal. There seems to be no way to put the brakes on it.
😧
What's curious is that this is how things work everywhere, at least when it comes to reselling. People buy products, set up a small market stall, and resell them, and that's how prices keep creeping up day after day. When I say every day, I'm not speaking metaphorically. I mean it literally. Prices really do go up from one day to the next.
This informal exchange rate is the one that effectively governs all of Cuba. There's no real order to anything here anymore. It's chaos.
As I said at the beginning, I'd really like to hear your thoughts on all of this. It's not that I'm bitter about the fact that 3,000 CUP can mean very different things depending on whose hands they're in. What worries me is what's happening underneath it all. The way even the most basic necessities are becoming more and more difficult to afford, and increasingly unsustainable to keep up with.
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