A Cuban resident abroad showed on TikTok everything she bought in Cuba for just 180 dollars, and the video became a stark portrayal of the economic crisis affecting the island.
@mily_pastel posted last Friday about her walk along Palomino Street in Camagüey, a corridor of informal trade where private vendors offer food items that are scarce in state shops.
"I'm in Cuba, and I'm going to show everything I bought with one hundred eighty dollars," she announces at the beginning of the 49-second clip.
The list is extensive: two boxes of soda —one orange and one lemon—, ten bottles of oil, a box with six family-sized malt bottles, six packets of peas, ten pounds of chicken, a pork loin, a gouda cheese, a spicy chorizo, a spicy ham, six packets of ground beef, three jars of mayonnaise, ten pounds of tomatoes, two bunches of burro bananas, and five pounds of flour.
"I bought all of this on Palomino Street. Those from Camagüey will know: that street is full of unique places that sell all of this," explained the creator.
What the video doesn’t say out loud, but shouts between the lines, is the magnitude of the economic gap that those 180 dollars represent for someone living on the island.
At the informal exchange rate in June 2026, that amount is equivalent to between 113,400 and 120,600 Cuban pesos —more than 16 times the official average salary in Cuba, set at 6,930 CUP per month, roughly 13 dollars at the informal exchange rate.
The dollar closed last Sunday at 670 CUP in the informal market, according to the currency exchange monitoring from elTOQUE, compared to the 500 CUP it was trading at in February, a depreciation of more than 30% in just four months.
For a Cuban living on the island, gathering those 180 dollars is practically impossible with government income: the minimum wage is 2,100 CUP per month, which is less than five dollars at the current exchange rate.
The situation is even more serious when considering that Cubans need at least 96,000 CUP per month to meet their basic needs, according to recent estimates — a figure 14 times higher than the official average salary.
The video by @mily_pastel is part of a well-established viral trend on TikTok in 2026, where Cubans in the diaspora document their shopping experiences on the island to highlight the crisis.
In recent weeks, other creators have shown what can be purchased with 30,000 pesos, with 10,500 pesos, or with just 10 dollars, all having the same effect: highlighting that the purchasing power of the dollar starkly contrasts with the reality of those who rely on the Cuban peso.
The clip from @mily_pastel garnered over 1.3 million views, 44,100 likes, and more than 1,500 comments, many from Cubans on the island who recognized Palomino Street and for whom that same purchase would represent the equivalent of more than a year of average state salary.
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