hey everybody I'm curup Paul according to the National Institute on retirement security approximately 40% of American retirees live solely on their social security income as inflation rates soar and the prices right along with it many of those retirees are looking South of the Border to make those limited funds go further that's right Mexico an estimated 1 million Americans live in Mexico currently and I mean why not great weather low cost of living and access to affordable health Healthcare make Mexico a very attractive retirement destination but if you are considering a move to Mexico chances are you probably have one or more of these common questions can I afford to live on Social Security in Mexico can I still receive Social Security living there if I can will that social security income be taxed by Mexico what will my standard of living be like in Mexico will I need to obtain Mexican residency or citizenship to live there legally if you have some of these same questions you should stick around for this video because I'm going to answer them all right here all right let's start with the big one can I afford to live on Social Security in Mexico and I mean solely Social Security the answer to that question is going to vary depending on your monthly income according to the Social Security Administration the average benefit for retired workers will be $197 in 2024 I know that not everybody makes that much some people make much less okay okay but for the purpose of this video I'm going to be using that figure when I'm comparing it you'll see what I mean so we're going to be using $1197 or $2 there and then compare your income to theirs anytime you're going to be doing a comparison like this it's important to keep it Apples to Apples right so we're going to have to convert those um salaries in Mexico from pesos over to Dollars and that amount can change depending on the exchange rate I decided to use the exchange rate that's the exchange rate today which is 17.55 pesos to the dollar all right so we're going to look at some average salaries of some professions all right we're going to start with a hospital nurse so the average salary for a hospital nurse in Mexico is $4,530 a year compare that to your Social Security payment next let's look at a lawyer now it's just like the US lawyers can make you know there's lawyers that average and some make a lot of money but the average salary in Mexico for a lawyer is going to be $2,997 again compare that to your Social Security payment now let's go to a doctor why because because people always ask me about a doctor doctors are like lawyers they can fall into different categories so what we're going to be using is a specialist in the public health care System particularly imss for folks who are familiar with Mexico and the average salary is going to be $3,765 I know that one surprised you didn't it it's important to note that many of the doctors who work in the public healthc care system also work in the private Health Care system and they do earn more there okay but this salary is what people make in the Public Health Care system while we're on the topic I just have to say the private Health Care system in Mexico is very impressive most people wouldn't figure that but it really is I'll do another video talking about that all right if you don't want to miss it you might want to subscribe to the channel I can keep showing you salary studies all day but I'm going to tell you right now that they're all going to fall into this range so there's really no purpose just looking at professions like this and seeing where they fall is going to tell you if your income is going to be enough to live there because these are professional positions they're already at the top tier of what people generally make and if they can afford to live in Mexico well you can afford to live in Mexico and if you're curious what nonprofessional workers make in Mexico I'll tell you that the average around the country is about $ 5,46 a year a year that really puts things in perspective doesn't it now that you have a general idea if you can afford to live there you might be thinking about the legalities can I let's hold off on that okay let's see if Mexico even the place you'd want to live apart from the finances we're still talking about you may have to learn another language the culture is going to be different and the next thing you have to ask yourself is like what kind of housing are you going to have because there is a lot of poverty in Mexico so is that what you're going to be looking at what will you be able to afford so let's go ahead and and jump into that all right now when it comes to budgeting for things like rent or housing A good rule of thumb is not to spend more than 30% of your income on on housing whether it's a mortgage or you know a lease for our estimate of $1,977 a month that would put us at $572 us so we want to keep our housing in that range let's go ahead and start with rentals because honestly if you're going to move to another country I don't recommend jumping in and buying something rent first you know and see hey is this place for me or not well this is where I'm going to ask you to do some research on your own now my recommendation is to go to a website that's directed to Mexican Nationals renting and buying in Mexico that's where you're going to find the deals that fit within your price range all right now these sites are obviously going to be in Spanish you can translate them using your browser or use your Spanish skills which you know if you're going to move to Mexico you got to develop those Spanish skills right you have a lot of different things you can look at you can look for houses you can look for apartments now houses are Casas and apartments are departamentos the most important thing here is to limit at your budget so what's our budget well if we're working with $572 or whatever you're working with all you have to do is multiply that by the exchange rate the exchange rate we're using for today is the one I just saw today which is 17.55 so to stay on budget we're going to be looking for something that's around 10,000 pesos or less all right we don't want to be house poor do we if you have a particular area in Mexico you're looking at you can also narrow your scope to that but if you don't and you just want to look at General housing in Mexico just hit enter and here come the options as you look through these you know kind of go through them there's your price click on them look through the photos and ask yourself can I see myself living in this type of place okay on my budget this is my lifestyle would I be happy here now for you folks who are looking to buy in Mexico you know maybe you sold your place in the state you had a little bit of savings and you just want to look at what options are available you can do that too through through these sites now as I said if you're in the tourist areas or you're on the coast you're going to find things that are super expensive you know hundreds and hundreds of thousands up to millions in some cases but if you're willing to get away from those areas you're going to find things that are much cheaper here's an example take a look at this house it has three bedrooms it's new and it's being sold for less than $990,000 now that number you see down there that's imp pesos right so we have to make sure we divide that number number buy whatever the exchange rate is the one we're using today is 17.55 I mean it's a cute house right can you see yourself living there if you say yes Mexico might be the place for you the next step is to look at the legalities and Logistics of making the move South of the Border so let's take a look at that number one question in this category is can I still collect my Social Security living in Mexico well according to the Social Security Administration if you are a US citizen you make continue to receive payments while outside the US as long as you're eligible for payment and you're in a country where they can send payments Mexico is one of those countries if you're not a US citizen you must meet some other additional requirements in order to receive your payment I'm going to show you a tool here in a second that you can use to figure out if you're eligible you know to take all the doubt out of your mind but one thing I want to point out because people ask me a lot about it is that this is for social security benefits okay this is different from SS I which is social security insurance benefits you cannot collect those outside the US all right they're just different things to see if you're eligible to receive Social Security benefits while living abroad you can use the SSA payment abroad screening tool it's available online I'll pin a link to it to the top of the comment section um you can also find it just by typing that in Google it should show up right about the top I've been reporting on Mexico for about eight years now first as a blogger and now as a YouTuber and anytime I tell someone yes you can collect your Social Security benefits while living in Mexico the next question they inevitably ask is will Mexico tax my social security income so let's go ahead and answer that now now it's important to keep in mind that tax codes are very complex so what I'm telling you here doesn't apply to all areas of income but it does specifically pertain to Social Security income and income that comes from other government pensions that income will not be taxable in Mexico thanks to a tax agreement between the two countries which is called the United States Mexico income tax convention and you're going to find that section that makes that exemption in Article 19 and basically what it says is wherever that social security or government pension originates from that is where it's taxed exclusively there okay so now that we have funding covered let's talk about whether Mexico will even allow you to live there I mean you want to live there but maybe they don't want you to live there all right if you would like to live in Mexico you can apply for residency which is legal permission to live in Mexico fulltime now the process to get residency generally starts at a consulate outside of Mexico so that's where you're going to go and ask for permission all right then once they Grant it you can go to Mexico to finish the process it's important to mention here that there are different paths to residency depending on your circumstances all right for example if you marry a Mexican citizen that's one of the paths you can go if that's not your circum an and you're just the average retiree who wants to live in Mexico then the route you're going to be taking is the one where you're going to have to show economic solvency which in a nutshell means that Mexico wants you to prove that you have the economic means to take care of yourself without draining their resources now at this point people are like okay I'll just show them your video Paul because obviously if I'm making about you know what a more than a nurse or I'm ballpark for a doctor I can live there right it's not as easy as that actually Mexico has a High ridiculously high threshold to prove economic solvency especially when you look at the salaries um that's a topic I I talk about in other videos so uh I won't get into it here the Mexican Government will want you to prove a monthly income of around $3,112 a month or be able to show investments in bank accounts with an average monthly balance of $ 51,8 60 or more and you're going to have to show multiple months of bank statements as proof now the numbers I just gave you came from the Mexican consulate out of San Diego if you go to different Mexican consulates you're going to get different numbers but that's about the range we're looking at all right but what happens if you don't make those limits and you're not about to marry a Mexican citizen what other options do you have well you could go the route that thousands of other Americans have gone and become a Perpetual tourist now already know that the comments section will explode with people condemning me for even talking about being a Perpetual tourist Paul how could you you know encourage people to do something that's illegal it's not illegal in fact it's 100% legal I'm I'll explain that all right just some people don't like it all right that's really what it comes down to they don't think you should go that route so when I say Perpetual tourist what am I talking about well Mexico allows tourists from certain countries to enter Mexico without a Visa and stay for up to 180 days and the US is one of those countries now before those 180 days are up you have to leave Mexico before they're up okay that's where you get in trouble but once you leave you can re-enter Mexico and it starts the clock again another 180 days this is where Mexico differs from many other countries that will set a certain amount you know that tourists can be in the country say 90 days that's a very common amount 90 days and then they may also say 90 Days Every 6 months or every year that's how they stop people from being Perpetual tourists well Mexico's never done that they don't have any law or regulation that prevents people from re-entering and starting that clock again and that's intentional that's so they don't hinder tourism and as I said before it's not illegal they're not entering under fake names they're coming back in and being put back into the system it's legal to do this now if you start watching YouTube videos about Mexico you're likely to come across several saying that this practice has been stopped and that the Mexican immigration folks also known as inm are now only granting tourists a certain number of days like say um if you're showing you're going to be at a hotel for 10 days they're giving you 10 days when you come in and that's it that is true Mexico was doing that a while back for about a year and a half or so they just started issuing only so many days to someone and this was not the result of a any type of a law change or formal regulation or any legislative guidance it wasn't even the result of a formal policy within inm immigration it was some informal policy some decision someone made and they just started doing it I'm going to tell you that in practice this procedure was a mess just imagine you have you know just line level folks not even supervisors just arbitrarily assigning numbers of days to people sometimes people in the F same family had different numbers of days on visa when they had to leave well obviously it led to a ton of complaints also complaints of corruption in some areas there were talks of people even taking payments to give people more days it just became a mess and it started to hinder tourism so because it was not due to any type of legislative change we saw the swing come back and what we saw and it started in the international airports in Mexico they said hey you're going to fly in we have kiosks um you can also go to the inm agent and you're going to be granted an automatic 180 days if you come from these particular countries the US is one of those countries so we've seen this practice go away um at the international airports and other areas just go away completely now I'm not saying there's not some Pockets where you're still going to find this you know overzealous inm agent who's like how many days are you going to be here you can stay nine days not saying that doesn't happen but if you are going to choose the route of being a Perpetual tourist then be sure to fly into one of those international airports where that's not going to be an issue right then life's easy having said all of that about Perpetual tourists I will tell you that it is not the ideal option okay so if you do qualify for residency definitely go that route it'll just make your life much easier well that's it for the video I hope you enjoyed it if you did just do me a favor and give it a thumbs up and if you're not already a subscriber you might want to subscribe because I don't post regularly but when I do Post it's pretty quality stuff you know well that's all I got so until next time take care and thanks for watching
