Moving to Mexico

[mexico_bound]

I am wondering - could a person live on appx $1100 a month, somewhere in Mexico - preferably a smaller city, or town/

[ddavis]

Certainly one can live in Mexico on $1100. You need to be and remain healthy, but is it the life you wish to live? Do you speak Spanish or are you committed to learn? You can visit Mexico, and if you haven't already, take the bus or drive and you'll get a feel for the people and the territory, the food and the culture, the weather and seasons, and if you stay a while, you'll find out what you miss back home too.

[mexico_bound]

Thank you so much for your reply. I have been to Mexico a few times - I am willing to learn Spanish. It is a different life I understand, but one I wish to pursue. I can always return to Florida for a visit.

[pensionada]

Hi, Folks- Just joined this interesting site. Am considering Mexico for retirement by 2009. After I
complete my one-night class at local college 22 April(LIVING/RETIRING IN MEXICO), plan bus-travel
thruout Mexico. Can anyone please advise as to bus from Tijuana to various parts of Mexico: costs/
safety/comfort/time allotment, etc. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

pensionada from California
09 March 2008

[larpman]

Taking a bus from TJ may not be your best option. Discount airlines out of TJ are often as cheap or cheaper than long distance buses. If like me. you are in northern California, flying from here into Mexico may be more practical.

For info on bus travel, see my website: http://www.larpman.com/transportpages/b ... buswi.html
Search my site further and you'll find info on flying including a section on discount airlines.

Your request for info is very broad*, but let me tell you that a a bus from TJ to Guadalajara takes 36 hours (mostly very boring**), to Mexico City 42 hours.

* Mexico is a large country. What locations in Mexico are you interested in.

** For the most part, the north of Mexico is the least interesting part. Long distances, few worthwhile sights.
____________________________________________
larpman

[sparks]

$1100 a month is more than enough for most people but shy of the amout of $1250 required to get a retirement FM3. There are easy ways to get around showing the minimum income

[conklinwh]

I've certainly heard that can be done for $1KUSD/month but I wouldn't want to try as believe pretty restrictive.

[TJGringo]

I have lived in mexico for almost a year on considerbaly less than 1200 a month.. it can be done if you want to live in mexico, and not an american enclave with big walls and maids and servants, and eat grilled t-bone daily etc.. You can live GREAT on that amount..... lets just say its about 3 times what a mexican make sin a month... so youll be ok...

I do have a question about the FM# though... Someone mntioned ways to get around the retirement FM# requirement.. How do you do that? I need to get mine but I dont make enough...

[conklinwh]

I've held off responding because this is so individual sensitive.
You can spend a lot, but still less than the US, or as stated try to match the local living conditions and expect that could be well less than $1,000/month social security, tourist FM3 requirements not withstanding.
My view is that this requires a much better level of Spanish than I have and that there will need be a set of compromises on such things as housing, food, transportation and in some cases utilities.
I don't see this as a walled compound/steak discussion but rather one of personal objectives and comfort level. We have just built a modest, by US standards, adobe casita in a very small town with limited expat population. However, we do like to eat out with friends frequently and we do hire a cook/housekeeper since my wife is painter and not fair, in my mind, to impact her art as this costs less for a week than a 1.5hour house cleaner in NC. I am also not a great one for long distance public transportation and like to explore so I do have a 4 wheel drive car as paved roads end at the town entrances and hitching rides in the back of pick-up trucks not me either.
Even if we lived there full time, this is not a $1,000 a month lifestyle even with house for cash but is well under 1/2 of NC costs for similar.
I really think only answer is to try and see what level with which you are comfortable.

[larpman]

conklin,

Your note made me think of all the variables. A single person would have to spend more than half of what a couple would for the same life style.

Within a year, I hope to retire and move to Mexico. I'm single, but don't need some of the things you mentioned, but I want to have enough to travel within Mexico from time to time (by bus). I speak Spanish well enough to have a simple conversation and understand the grammar (which I use in teaching English to native Spanish speakers.) I plan on continually improving my Spanish (damn conjugations!) I will also need to have a high-speed internet connection, which will play a part on where I end up.

Costs vary for many reasons. What one person sees as a need, to another is unnecessary.

[MariaA]

We, a couple, are planning a move to Mexico within the next few years. We've lived in Spain previously, so speak passable, if rusty, Spanish. We seek a truly Mexican experience, not an expatriate enclave. We are thinking of taking a road trip to look for a spot that speaks to us. The year round spring like weather areas will be our target, as we do not like excessive humidity or heat, preferring moderation in climate. We are thinking either of a true city existence, or a reasonable sized town, even a very small town, as long as internet is available. We wonder if others have chosen spots this way or have ideas for us as to where to explore. Are Jalisco, Nayarit, Michoacan, good areas for that requirement? Does anyone have suggestions for us? We plan a trip to Mexico in February 2009.

[Dick Davis]

Dear Maria,

Let me make two suggestions:

1. Parras: Mexico's Magic Carpet
www.ourmexico.com/index.php?option=com_ ... &Itemid=81

Or go to Ourmexico Main page, click Stories and scroll down.

2. (Which is #1)

Where to Live in Mexico: Number One Choice:

I’ve told family and friends, “If I had to choose, right now, where to live in Mexico, I’d make it San Luis Potosi. It’s Mexico’s geographical center. It’s an historic, colonial, cultural, and university center. It’s a large city with the feel of a small town. But what I like most is how quickly from San Luis Potosi you can take side trips and show friends the variety of Mexico. Real de Catorce, the desert ghost-mining town is 3 hours north. Xilitla, Edward James’s surrealist garden is east, over the mountains in the Huasteca where you find a paradise of waterfalls, rivers, scuba diving in mineral springs and lush vegetation. You can make a day trip to Queretaro, or Zacatecas, or San Miguel de Allende, or Guanajuato or Dolores Hidalgo. Jarral de Berrios is a neglected hacienda that looks like a scene from a fairy tale with conical stone structures, columns and towers.”

“If you feel you must find a beach, join the bathers in the hot springs resort at Gogorrón. There is no beach, there is no sand, but you’ll have large pools, thermal baths, green grass and shade trees.”

I took my own advice. I rented a Townhouse in San Luis Potosi on Calle Nicolas Zapata.


San Luis Potosi and Side Trips:

From my Townhouse it’s a 20-minute walk to the center, and because San Luis Potosi is colonial, there are 6 major parks within walking distance and an abundance of elaborately carved, architecturally magnificent well-maintained colonial buildings and churches.

The locals say, “San Luis Potosi is the five hour city,” meaning it’s a 5-hour drive from SLP to the major commercial and industrial markets: Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey.

But for me SLP holds a special attraction. I drop the 5-hour nomenclature in favor of “The City of 3-hour side trips,” because within a 3-hour drive, often less, one can enjoy day trips with a sense of awe due to the extraordinary variety of enjoyable places to visit.

1.) Local excursions: A 20-mile drive south of San Luis Potosi will take you back a century, to haciendas, a rural life, with donkey drawn alfalfa carts and horse drawn venders of fresh water in barrels, cows and chickens running in the streets and pigs rooting in shallow streams.

You can soak and delight in the healing waters of the nearby hot springs at Gogorron.

Haciendas, (Jarral de Berrios, Bledos, Carranco, La Ventilla, Gogorron) are clustered for an easy visit and spectacular photography. Some haciendas are neglected and appear abandoned; others are maintained as vacation homes and used as movie sets. All add to a sense of history and the significance of a once imperial aristocracy.

2.) North: Real de Catorce is the well-preserved mining ghost town, which you enter through a one-way mile long tunnel at the 9000-foot level in the Sierra Madre Mountains. Here you can join a group on horseback bringing you to even more remote ghost towns and views of the Sierras. Or, you can walk the cobblestone streets, sit in the plaza, view the old stone buildings, hike the winding, terraced streets and gaze at the valleys beyond.

You can visit an ancient cockfight ring built like a small Roman coliseum, find calming serenity in the church of San Francisco, visit the local museum where silver coins were once struck, wander through an ancient cemetery adorned with bright plastic flowers and dine at La Abundancia, a converted mansion.

3.) East: You crest the Sierra Madre Mountains, and the brown desert high plateau switches to a lush green profusion, enhanced by rivers and waterfalls. Here you’ve entered La Huasteca, a paradise for picnickers, swimmers and hikers. And, if one is willing to make a circle trip and spend a night, you can follow the Corridor of Missions. There are 5 folk-Churrigueresque, polychromed, elaborate churches built by Junipero Serra, before he was called to found the missions in California.

You may reserve a night at Hotel El Castillo in Xilitla and visit the magical, surrealistic gardens built by Edward James. These are worthy of a special journey.

4.) South: Dolores Hidalgo is Mexico’s Cradle of Independence. It is also the revered site of the spectacular tomb that honors Mexico’s foremost Ranchero singer, Jose Alfredo Jimenez, and it is the home to multicolored Talavera pottery.

If you don’t spend all your time shopping in Dolores Hidalgo you can visit Mexico’s unique tunneled city, Guanajuato.

Here, the first battle of War of Independence was fought in 1810. Today, Guanajuato is famed for the annual cultural event, The Cervantino. Each October, Guanajuato hosts this International Music Festival that attracts dance and theater performers from all over the world.

5.) Further south, but less than 3 hours from San Luis Potosi: There is San Miguel de Allende the artistic, bohemian-inspired home to over 10,000 ex-pats. American and Canadians have developed an exceptional community of arts, theater, culture and splendid homes that are often opened to the public for tours and used for charitable fundraisers.

San Miguel de Allende shops carry the best handcrafts of Mexico. The size of your suitcase will limit your shopping.

6.) Also south: You will find Queretaro, filled with plazas, fine restaurants, a Sunday dance in the center plaza, colonial beauties, mansions and churches, a spectacular aqueduct, history around every corner, a fine museum, theater and an opera house.

If you stay in Queretaro, choose Hotel Mansion La Marquesa. Then take side trips to Bernal, which is so colorful you will think of a Hollywood musical set, and Tesquisquiapan with its enormous plaza and curative hot springs.

7.) Northwest: Zacatecas: Here is where Mexico begins. From the El Paso border, to Zacatecas, you cross 800 miles of desert, but when you arrive in Zacatecas, it’s like Dorothy landing in Oz. In the movie, The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy opens the door of her tornado-twisted house, and the movie changes from black and white to color. Zacatecas is living color, a city of colonial beauty, easy to visit, with world-class museums.

Take a taxi to La Bufa. This is where one should start. See the city from the La Bufa, the rose-colored outcropping shaped like the humped back of a prehistoric stegosaurus, ride the aerial tram that glides over Zacatecas and arrives near the entrance to El Eden, the mine that gushed silver and is now the best mining tour I’ve ever experienced.

Rose and green cantera stone enhance the beauty of Zacatecas’ buildings. Boutiques and restaurants now occupy the old central market, which was built of iron girders and columns that remind one of the Eiffel Tower. The cathedral is a baroque masterpiece.

A night walk is a must. Zacatecas is caressed, adorned and highlighted in a spectacle of light that accents the carved beauty of its buildings and glows with multicolored fountains.

[sparks]

I do have a question about the FM# though... Someone mntioned ways to get around the retirement FM# requirement.. How do you do that? I need to get mine but I dont make enough...

Simply transfer money from another account during the 3-4 months prior to applying - whatever it takes to fill the gap. Online transfers are free between your accounts. BTW - next year income requirement is $1300

[Dick Davis]

Here is one American's view of small town Mexico and living expenses.

http://www.ourmexico.com/index.php?opti ... &Itemid=81

[Guillermo]

My mother moved back to Mexico 4 yrs ago. She now lives in Aguascalientes, our hometown. She gets about 800 usd a month. She bought a samall 3 bd-1ba home in "fraccionamiento pozo bravo" for 25000 usd. She spent about 15000 to build a second story. The weather there is mild, so there's no heating or cooling costs. Her power bill runs about 10 usd a month, same for the water bill. Property taxes are insignificant and there's no home insurance. On top of that there are a lot of government sponsored trips and activities for "tercera edad" people.