Money, Moolah, Cash

Moedas (Coins)

R$ 0,50

The coins on the left are the old version, the one on the right is the new design that you are more likely to encounter.

  On the coroa side: Barão do Rio Branco (Baron of White River), who is responsible for defining Brazil's borders. Behind him is an allegory of his achievement.

Money, Moolah, Cash

Notas (Notes)

All bank notes have the statue representation of the Republic shown in the the front.

R$ 50 Onça pintada (Jaguar)

If you look at the two versions you'll note (ha ha) that the word fifty  is spelled a bit differently from one version to the other. That's because the umlaut accent (known in Portuguese as the "trema") was recently removed from the Portuguese language during the orthographic reform. So while the word is still pronounced the same, fifty is now spelled "cinquenta", not "cinqüenta".

The "old" version of the R$50 bill

The new R$ 50 bank note. 

Money, Moolah, Cash

Notas (Notes)

                           R$10

The "old" R$10

Like with all the bank notes, this is in an intermediate state of getting changed. Theis is the new R$10:

All bank notes have the statue representation of the Republic shown in the the front.The animal in the back side of the note is an arara (macaw).

Money, Moolah, Cash

Notas (Notes)

                                                                  R$1

Brazil used to have a R$ 1 bank note with a Hummingbird in the back but it was discontinued in 2005. You can still find it in circulation, but it's becoming rarer. The hummingbird is common through all of South America, and Brazil has over 100 native species.

Money, Moolah, Cash

Moedas (Coins)

In Brazil the sides of the coins are known as cara (face) and coroa (crown). They're equivalent to “heads” and “tails” in English.

In the late '90s the Real coins were given a revamp, and the new style/pictures were chosen by the general population in a contest made by Brazil's national bank (Banco Central do Brasil).

R$ 0,5 

On the coroa side: Tiradentes, with the flag from his revolt in the background. 

Tiradentes is considered to be a martyr for the independence of Brazil. He was a leader in a revolt to become independent from Portugal and when it failed he was publicly hanged.

 The flag from his revolt is now the flag of the state of Minas Gerais. 

His nickname, Tiradentes (Teeth Remover), is due to the fact that he was a dentist.

Money, Moolah, Cash

Brazil's current currency is the Real (plural: Reais), and its decimal form is centavo(s) - the Portuguese word for cents. It's symbol is R$.

In Portuguese "real" can mean both "royal" and "real", depending on the situation.

In Brazil the use of commas and decimals are the opposite of that in North America (but the same as in most of Europe, I believe).

So if a book costs costs five Reais and twenty five centavos it would look like this: R$ 5,25

Brazil has 6 bank note values and 5 coin values.

All coins (5, 10, 25, and 50 cents as well as a R$ 1 coin) are commonly used. 

The most commonly used bank notes are R$ 2, R$ 5, R$ 10, R$20, and R$ 50.

Just like English has its slang for money (moolah, cash, etc), Portuguese has it too. The most common are "grana" and "dim dim". Other slangs include "cobre" (copper), "prata" (silver), "Mango" (somewhat equivalent to the use of "bucks" or "quid"), and "bufunfa".

"Trocado" is slang for small change.

"Troco" is is the change you receive when you're buying something, so depending on what you're buying the change can very well be big.