Mexico Living Costs

please enjoy my stories or whatever else I'd be on my mind today hey on my video about the prices of meat in Mexico I got a lot of comments that seems surprised at the prices a lot of preface this by saying that there are a lot of websites that talk about how cheap it is to live in Mexico and some of them have ulterior motives I'm not naming names but some of them lead you to a real estate listing some of them lead you to some medical service or cosmetic surgery and some of them are just people who have sold themselves on how wonderful it is here and I try not to let myself sell myself on that I do believe it's very wonderful here and I sit out here by the lake and promise myself that I will never take it for granted but I'd like to I'd like to say to you that I'm gonna tell you the truth I don't mind talking about the good and the bad in Mexico and it's not all good the price of meat I got several comments and that's why I started to talk about this today I got several comments that seemed very surprised that they were that we're paid here at Walmart about the same price as what you could get meat for in the United States and the fact is that I think I pay more for the same quality of meat here at Walmart and I would at Walmart or you know on sale at Safeco or us that's Safeways Safeway or you know Ralph's or whatever it is in the states that you go shopping - shopping at you can buy less expensive meat here and if it's your need or your minimalist desire to live cheaper here you can go to smaller meat markets frequented by local people and find lower prices the cow might be butchered in the back of a pickup out in the alley and I'm not I'm not just saying that I'll show you pictures so maybe you get what you pay for even in Mexico but there are other things that do make living in Mexico much more economical than some other places in the world so I wanna give you some examples of those for instance the property taxes on this property and if you've watched my videos you've seen some of the property I should make a tour of the whole property my property taxes here are less than 300 US dollars per year and it includes garbage service so compared to what I would pay in the States and I've owned places in the states that weren't nearly the property that this is and the property taxes were much much more if you go back to my video about Portland Oregon a couple of years ago and I showed you the 7,000 square foot house we used to live in I moved out of that in 1988 because the property taxes went to $9,000 per year and I didn't want to pay that anymore that was a very nice house and it was a very nice property I don't know if it was any better than this one I well I'm gonna edit that out so property tax is less than three hundred dollars a year my health insurance is less than four hundred dollars a year and that's a health insurance for the masses it's government health insurance it's called imss or aims and when you get an appointment it might take a month to get it it's definitely I guess you call a socialized medicine but that four hundred dollars per year includes everything they don't have a billing department in the system when I go to the clinic there's no cash register when you go to the hospital there's no there's no there's no billing department and the hospital that we are assigned to which is about 35 miles from it was built about four or five years ago pretty much state-of-the-art it's very nice now you can get more expensive health care but private clinics or private hospitals and there's very very good health care here Medicare doesn't pay outside of the United States so when we're in the States we have Medicare and a supplement so when we're traveling in the motor home were fully covered that way but here in Mexico who are covered by government health insurance less than $400 per year and that includes meds and there's no copay they don't have all the meds there's one that my wife uses that they just don't have it in the system speaking of that no it sounds very expensive to have the healthcare like that and it is some things are more expensive and some things are less expensive I started to say that one of the meds that my wife needs it costs many times more here than it does in the United States other meds I recently did a little research for a family member and she needs a topical cream for a skin condition and in Oklahoma she pays $100 for a small tube of it plus the cost of going to the doctor to get the prescription and I found the same medicine here over the counter a tube twice as big for fifty two pesos I calculated that at today's exchange rate it's two dollars and eighty eight cents two dollars and eighty-eight cents versus one hundred dollars plus a doctor's visit that's a big difference and there are many things like that again other things cost more money gas here now is about three dollars and fifty cents a gallon for regular I don't know a premium or diesel is I don't use in here what else oh I went to a restaurant two nights ago one of our favorite restaurants here at Lakeside and I had shrimp étouffée and it was very very good I don't think he could get it much better in New Orleans it was 160 pesos that's eight dollars and eighty-eight cents that was for the meal Oh shrimp étouffée also had some a loaf of corn bread and coca-cola so it was a little more than 888 but not much more why can restaurant prices be so much lower here the minimum federal wage in Mexico City and a lot of things in the country are based upon that yes I don't know what it is I'm giving you two three four year old information now and it changes last time I checked it was six dollars us and something per day not per hour per day so let's say it's less than ten dollars per day is the federal minimum wage in Mexico one of the things that's based upon that minimum wage is traffic infractions last time I got a ticket it was fifty two pesos and that was for not having a license plate all in front of my car and if you pay it within five days it's half price so it was 26 pesos and was that that's like a dollar or something anyway it's one it at the time so you can see it several years since I got a ticket at the time it was one minimum wage one minimum federal wage in Mexico City that's how they did and something some tickets are expensive to you like drunk driving is like 200 and some times the minimum daily wage so that can get expensive a seat belt is not wearing your seat belt is 600 to 1200 pesos I don't know why there's a range but that's why that's what I know it is remind me some time to tell you about the incidences of being stopped by the police after you've been here a while and the local police get to know that you're a local person and do you know speak a little bit of Spanish and you understand how the system works some of the police stops are just opportunities to get nice stories and I'll tell you some of those remind me please what was that talking about talking about the minimum daily wage in Mexico it's very very low compared to the United States and the reason I'm talking about that is because it explains why you can get a good meal here for 10 bucks in a restaurant a nice restaurant you can get you can get a good Mexican meal and I'm not talking about tex-mex I'm talking about food Mexican see and Crick's is very very good that for like you know five bucks you know in a little Mexican hole-in-the-wall restaurant that would be very very good the minimum wage being so low affects the cost of plumbers and electricians and all of the service industries that labor is a big part of the cost are less expensive in Mexico because the wages in Mexico are lower that's why it seems economical to live in Mexico compared to other places it's not because all of the prices like meat are cheaper or all of the medicine is cheaper it's because on on hope on the whole if you are a good shopper and you don't go to what we called it the gringo grocery store where a can of Campbell's soup in English Campbell's chicken noodle soup might be sixty pesos and a can of chicken Campbell's tell our Toyota lotteries chicken noodle soup it might be 25 pesos those are real numbers from another store that we have here at Lakeside for people who need to have things in English it's different used to be the same with thought what was it we stood mr. by Liv what was that salad dressing mixed we always bought Hidden Valley we used to get Hidden Valley and it was like six US dollars was back when the exchange rate was eleven to one but was six US dollars and if you bought the Mexican brand which is kind of the same thing it was like two dollars anyway yes you can live economically in Mexico I like to say and you may have heard me say this before sometimes it's not about living cheated sometimes it's about a better standard of living for the same amount of money that you would pay somewhere else another cost of living that's economical here compared to other places I've lived if you live in the northern United States you have a big heating bill in the wintertime if you live in the southern United States you have a big air-conditioning bill in the summertime we don't have those bills here nobody that I know here at Lakeside has central heat we have fireplaces but mostly they're ornamental and we don't have air-conditioning you just don't need it we're at a 50 200 feet and so the humidity is always relatively low never gets hot and sticky like it does at the beach and consequently even when it does get up to 85 or 90 it's still comfortable not that it does that very much you might do that for you weeks in May the rest of the time it's about 75 everyday that's why we could call it eternal spring so that's another thing about the economy of living here we don't have heating or cooling bills and that's a big one people always say well how much will it cost to live in Mexico how much is the electricity how much is the gas how much is this how much is that the things I've mentioned are the things that make it economically it's not that the cost the gas or the cost of electricity or the cost of food in the grocery store is considerably less it's that rents or property taxes if you own a house or medical services if I go to it I don't always go to the to the clinic that I'm assigned to for my federal health insurance here in Mexico I always go to a private clinic and the office calls I think it's 20 250 pesos now which is like what it's like 18 dollars or something for an office call and if I have to get a if I have to get a blood test or something or a urine test I just go down to the to the laboratory and I get the cup and take it back with the stuff in it and I think it was it's ten dollars for a urine well no it's a hundred pesos that's like six dollars for a urine test the last time in a couple years so those are the things that make living in Mexico economically not some of the things that people OFF times look upon as the cost of living property taxes or grant if you health care services those are the things that are considerably more affordable in Mexico I don't know anyone who lives on their social security in the United States that has maids and gardeners now there may be something I just said I don't know I know quite a few people here who are in that income bracket that will have a maid or a gardener or both once they own a property or live in one of the less expensive places to rent so anyway that's uh that's what I got to say about that today I'll probably think of more another time thanks for listening [Music] you

Channel: JC Travel Stories

Views: 155,795

Rating: 4.9024992 out of 5

Keywords: cost of living, Ajijic, Chapala, Guadalajara, rv living, rving, gorving, Mexico, retired life, retire in Mexico, retirement home, cheap living, full time RV life, motorhome, rv hacks, rv modifications

Id: 6_oVl33WHS4

Length: 18min 45sec (1125 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 13 2018