A Cuban woman living on the island showcased on TikTok everything she could buy with 30,000 Cuban pesos —equivalent to about 54 dollars at the informal exchange rate— to feed her family of four for approximately a month.
The video, posted this Thursday by the user @briana5254 (Brianita_vlog), details each product purchased and its price, highlighting the brutal loss of purchasing power faced by Cubans amid the economic crisis affecting the island.
"I live in Cuba, and I'm going to show you how much food I can buy with thirty thousand pesos, which is about fifty-four dollars," says the young woman at the beginning of the video.
The purchase consisted almost exclusively of meat products and bread. The first items acquired were five packs of sausages at 650 pesos each, equivalent to 1.20 dollars per unit.
The highest expense was a box of chicken weighing 40 pounds that cost 19,000 pesos—around 34 dollars—which represents 63% of the total budget. "The national bird, as the Cuban says, because it's what most Cubans eat, since this and picadillo are the cheapest meats," he explained.
Additionally, he bought four pounds of boneless loin for 5,130 pesos (ten dollars) at the Venus store, and a bag of ten rolls for 650 pesos, equivalent to 1.20 dollars.
"It was all I could buy with fifty-four dollars, basically just meat and bread," he summarized. "We are a family of four, and this purchase gives us enough for about a month."
The figure is striking when contrasted with state salaries in Cuba. According to data from the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI) released in April 2026, the average state salary at the end of 2025 was 6,930 pesos per month, roughly 13 dollars at the informal exchange rate. This means that the 30,000 pesos for this purchase equate to more than four average monthly salaries.
The informal exchange rate of the dollar in Cuba was around 568-570 pesos per dollar at the time of the video's publication, well above the official rate set by the Central Bank, which is 507 pesos.
This type of video has become common on social media, where Cubans both on and off the island document the decline in purchasing power. In April, a Cuban woman in Santiago de Cuba spent 45,700 pesos on food for a month, which is equivalent to 6.6 average state salaries.
In May, another Cuban demonstrated that with 10,500 pesos she could only buy nine basic products, without meat, rice, or beans.
The Food Monitor Program estimated that in 2025, the basic food basket for two adults would cost between 39,595 and 41,735 pesos per month in various provinces, a figure that is six times the average state salary.
At the end of the video, the young woman invited her followers to compare, saying, "Let me know in the comments how much food you can buy where you live with fifty-four dollars."
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