Job Discussion Forums

[Phil_K]

Point taken, but that is all about personal choice.
Eating out is not a good investment, neither is taking vacations, but both are a pleasure. For me it is great to hop into my own car to go where I want, when I want. I don't like being treated like cattle in the metro or on a pesero. I don't like queueing for the pleasure of doing business with the national bus companies when I want to leave the city. I don't like being ripped off by taxistas when I need to return home at 2AM.
As long as I can afford it, the convenience of running a car, for me, by far out weighs the cost.

[thelmadatter]

Having a car here is definitely a personal choice. But at least here you HAVE a choice. In most places in the US and Canada, you simply cannot be without a car. No choice.

I choose not to have a car. I find public transportation quite adequate enough for me (in spite of totally agreeing with what Phil says about taxi drivers. Yesterday I taught the verb "to be ripped off" by referring to the taxis in front of the bus terminal here and everyone knew exactly what I was talking about)

[cangringo]

We had another reason for bringing our car, it was so we could bring our beautiful dog with us. We left in summer and she coudn't fly because of the heat and I didn't really want her on a a plane anyway. It ended up being far more expensive than we thought and we ended up with less money on arrival than we expected but we managed.

We don't have to make any payments on our piece of crap though. It is also our camper and we plan to travel to other places in Mexico and South America. So a car is necessary for us and we found that we really do need it here because the transit system is insane and even the locals have to take test runs to make sure they get places on time. We prefer to be able to get downtown in 20 mins rather than 2 hours. Hubby teaches at a private company as well so he needs reliable transportation there and the gas isn't so bad - probably a hundred pesos a week - maybe more, maybe less??

I have to admit I don't drive here because I"m not aggresive enough.

[Guy Courchesne]

Phil, I was being unnecessarily harsh...glad you took it without problems. I can be a very eco shade of green sometimes.

Taxis will rip you off only when you let them. If you can't negotiate with one or get the price you want, there's always another taxi right behind him.

[Patrocleides]

Before you set out something like a budget based on recommendations provided by others, please check the dates of the posts. If at the end of 2006 somebody says that $8,000 or so is good enough for most purposes, then $8,000 is what it cost that person from 2005 to 2006, not what it will likely cost you with the same life-style from 2007 through to 2008.

Thanks to inflation, price creep, and the depreciation of the Bush dollar, you may find that you have to budget in as much as a 10% increase over a year. That comfortable $8,000 might over a two year span have moved closer to $9,000 and a tad more. Five years ago I could have lived on $5,000 odd a month in Guadaljara; now it's closer to $8,500 for this coming year.

As Einstein remarked, "There's nothing more powerful in the universe than compound interest." And that's exactly what inflation, always under-reported and under-rated, does to the living standard you expected to have when you first arrived well-researched on the prices the year before.

[NinaNina]

This is a very informative discussion. I'd like to add that, for our family of four, we spend less that 35k (dollars) a year, and that's in the materialistic United States! Viva public schools! Perhaps that proves that cost of living is a very relative issue.
When I lived in the city of Oaxaca, I lived on 450 a month but I'm predicting that, with my whole family in tow, we'll need close to $2000 USD per month, including health care. A ver...