This week, toll booths on the Mexican side of some international bridges stopped accepting U.S. dollars.
For those Valley residents who mostly take just U.S. dollars to the border, they need to come prepared with pesos.
"It doesn't bother me a bit," said Joe Langham.
"You can convert your money to pesos, so it's no problem," said Nancy Langham.
The Langhams said they go to Nuevo Progresso about once a month to shop and eat, and since they heard the news Monday that toll booths were only accepting pesos, they came prepared today.
"We had some pesos that were left over, so we just dug them out and came on through," said Langham.
An administrator with a Mexican agency that oversees federal roads and bridges in Matamoros said there's an important reason for the change.
The Mexican government has prohibited banks from taking large deposits of U.S. dollars to fight drug traffickers and money laundering.
"It's a considerable amount of money that we can no longer deposit in bank accounts," said Carlos Alberto Reyes González, CAPUFE administrator. "This rule affects CAPUFE just like it does everybody else."
But Donna Hack said for those Valley residents that mostly take U.S. dollars to border towns, there should be more convenient ways of getting pesos.
"The merchants don't have pesos, and that would help if the merchants had pesos," said Hack.
Hack said she and her friend Rita Malm had to walk a block and a half to exchange their dollars to pesos before returning back to the bridge.
"It's out of our way to do that as you have to go quite a ways back," said Rita Malm.
But to make sure you aren't caught without enough pesos in your pocket, money exchange workers suggest not to rely on the merchants, they said to exchange enough money before you cross the border.
The Mexican agency of bridges and roads said they hope the pesos only at toll booths is temporary.
They said they are trying to set up an agreement with the Mexican government.
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