Understanding inflation on a day-to-day basis

Previously, in the first partof this series of publications that I brought with me to share, I spoke about the case of how this process has been taking place in Venezuela, but, in the same way, I told you that I currently live in Bogotá, the capital of Colombia, and in this country the inflationary process is constant, and this year has been worse than last year in economic terms, of course, the pandemic has affected this aspect very strongly.

I want to raise some truths (from my perspective) about what has happened in this country in terms of inflation since I arrived in July 2018.

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I have almost two years in Bogota, I will use the dollar as a reference currency to be able to talk about how the Colombian peso has been devaluing (COP).

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Before emigrating I sold everything I had, refrigerator, stove, washing machine, everything, which is why when I left the country I had some dollars, with 220 dollars to be exact, in Venezuela having that amount was a lot of money, to be able to gather that you would have to spend a few years gathering, without spending anything of what I earned, possibly? but when I arrived to this new country I realized something, that it was a strong blow that allowed me to finish understanding how bad my country was... the minimum wage in this country was more than what I had brought, and that it looked like a fortune in Venezuela, when I crossed the border, a small and ugly bridge that joins both countries the fortune it brought, in a matter of seconds it turned into nothing. But nevertheless, it was worth something.

As the days went by I had to change some dollars to be able to pay for some essential things, which is why I went to an exchange house and did it, I remember that the dollar when I arrived was worth 2734 COP. The minimum wage was close to $300.

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Well, I hope they're taking me through the story so far. Currently it is worth 3700 COP, yes, it went up approximately 30%, that is, the national currency was devalued... In December 2019 they made a 5% salary increase which was still diluted. Today the salary is 250 dollars on average. The prices of food, services, everything has increased in cost, and in addition the salary is now less in dollars... in spite of being more in COP... finally everything is summarized in CRISIS.

The underlying reasons for these devaluations are not clear to me, because as I said, I am not an expert in this area, but as an ordinary citizen I know that this directly affects the pockets of the majority.

Let's wait and see what happens after this whole Pandemic situation. I hope that in your countries these situations do not occur, which are very difficult to overlook, even though much can be learned.