What can you buy in Cuba with 100 dollars? A Cuban woman decided to show this on TikTok and shared, product by product, all the food she was able to acquire in Mariel thanks to the money sent by a follower from abroad.
The protagonist is Yodaisy Álvarez, who posted a video on her TikTok account on October 17, showcasing her purchase, made with 79,000 Cuban pesos, an amount that, as she explained, she obtained by exchanging the 100 dollars she received.
With all the products placed in front of the camera, Yodaisy began to detail how much she had paid for each one, revealing the prices that Cubans face to supply their homes.
"Here are twenty pounds of chicken, eighteen thousand pesos; a packet of fish that cost me three thousand pesos; five pounds of loin, ten thousand pesos," he explained while showing the food.
But the shopping didn't end there. She also got three bottles of oil, two packs of sausages, five pounds of ground beef, red beans, lentils, chickpeas, spaghetti, snack pasta, mayonnaise, tomato puree, and sweetened condensed milk.
To the list, she added black beans at 500 pesos per pound; a bunch of bananas for 500 pesos; two pineapples at 500 pesos each; five pounds of cassava at 140 pesos per pound and 20 pounds of rice at 350 pesos each, which amounts to 7,000 pesos just for this last product.
One of the food items that caught her attention the most in terms of price was sugar. "Sugar that cost me a fortune... there are five pounds of sugar at four hundred ninety pesos each," the Cuban woman remarked.
She also displayed a package of grated cheese that cost her 3,000 pesos and a carton of eggs for which she paid another 3,600 pesos.
"It was what we bought with seventy-nine thousand pesos equivalent to one hundred dollars," Yodaisy summarized after showing all the products.
The amount spent is particularly significant when compared to the income of Cuban workers. According to official data from August 2026, the average monthly state salary was 7,354 pesos, which means that the 79,000 pesos used for this purchase is equivalent to more than ten average salaries.
Additionally, the value of the dollar in the informal market continues to fluctuate. On the same day, October 17, when Yodaisy published her video, the U.S. dollar surpassed the barrier of 800 Cuban pesos for the first time.
For this Monday, October 26, the dollar was trading around 840 pesos on the informal market, according to the exchange rates published by CiberCuba. At that exchange rate, 100 dollars would be approximately 84,000 pesos.
The contrast is also evident in the cost of living. An estimate released in June 2026 calculated that a person needed around 96,060 pesos per month to cover their basic needs, an amount that exceeded what Yodaisy allocated for her entire purchase.
Beyond the prices, the Cuban woman wanted to express her gratitude to the person who made it possible for her to acquire all those food items.
"To the follower who had this beautiful gesture, thank you very much; may life return to you in blessings all the good that you do," expressed Yodaisy, grateful for the help received.
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