Dinero

A friend who just got back into the country was showing me some foreign money she had acquired abroad from Brazil and Argentina.  I realized right then that I was completely wrong when I first came here.  I found Mexican money so confusing.  So many colors and shapes and I constantly felt like an idiot when paying for anything as I tried to find the right amount of money.  I now realize that Mexican, Argentinian and Brazilian money are SO much easier.  They're all different. 

Mexican money, especially the bills, are easy to spot and know which is which... once you get used to it.  They usually always have the amounts in numbers instead of written out.  Obviously all the bills are colored, so you don't even have to see the number to know what you have in your pocket.  The only thing that annoys me about the bills is that they're different sizes.  This drives me nuts when I have them in a stack... I'm apparently more OCD than I thought.
As far as coins go, the 10 peso coin is by far the easiest to differentiate with it's thick and golden rim.  The 5 peso coin is still big but has a silver rim.  Very easy to spot in your purse as well.  The 2 and 1 peso are the ones that still get me confused.  You can't tell right away from just looking at the thickness of the coin.  The only way to know is to flip it over and see the 2 or 1 or compare them side by side as the 2 is slightly larger than the 1.  Either way, easily the most confusing coins.  As far as the cents go, the 50 cent and 20 cent are similar, but the 50 cent is bigger.  There's also a version of the 20 cent that very similar to the 10 cent, but the 20 cent has ridges on it's ridge instead of a clean cut on the 10 cent that looks similar to a calculator battery.  I'm not sure I've ever seen the 5 cent.  Either way, cents are very rarely used.  Most monetary amounts are rounded up to the nearest peso.  Only in bigger stores such as Wal-Mart do they give you EXACT change.

Now, let's compare that to the American money.  All the bills are exactly the same size (thank you America for encouraging my OCD!).  They're all green.  So, if you have a bundle in your pocket?  You have to sort it out enough to be able to see the numbers in order to know how much you have... instead of a quick glance at colors.  Granted, ever since the change in the bills a while back, the numbers are easier to spot as they are now pretty well over-sized.

Now, as far as coins go, they're pretty different, but having the majority all in silver just makes it a bit harder to spot.  Also, I dare you to try and find a number that denotes how much it is.  I mean seriously, we make it impossible for foreigners to figure out how much money they have.  For exmple... one dime.  If you didn't know what dime meant... you'd be lost right?  And what about the quarter dollar?  Let's hope you know your math.  Everything else is written out forcing you to READ in order to know how much money you have.  Now, I'm all for encouraging people to read... but it certainly doesn't make differentiation easy.

Nevertheless, American coin differentiation is fairly easy if you ignore all the silver and pay attention to thickness.  For example, the 5 cent is much thicker than the other coins with exception of the one dollar coin... but they aren't that common anyway.  The 10 cent or "dime" is much thinner than all the rest.  The 25 cent coin or "quarter" is the biggest of the mainstream coins (ignoring the half dollar and dollar coins which are uncommon).  And then of course you have the penny which is copper in color.  The easiest of all to differentiate.

Even though it's not that difficult, I still think that Mexican money wins as far as ease goes.  It's quickly apparent through big numbers and colors what you've got when compared to written out numbers and similar color throughout American money.  So, sorry my home country, you lose when it comes to ease of foreigner integration... though that's probably not a shock to anyone.