Job Discussion Forums

[tamiii]

Hello
I have searched the internet and I know it's such a broad question, but what is the cost of living in Mexico? I know it will differ according to what area you live, but I mean for a city that is not huge. That includes what would I expect to pay for different items I might need, food, and especially I'd like to know about rent. What can I expect to pay for rent in a medium-ish town, just a decent place not in the ghetto, one bedroom?

[geaaronson]

If you are looking for an efficiency in the DF (mexico city) and want to live in a middle class or upple middle class colonia, a cuatro will cost you approximately $3,000 to $4,500 pesos a month, depending on amenities. If you are willing to travel extensively to your work and want to live in Iztapalapa in the southeast, you can get a 2 bedroom, living room apartment for less than $2,000 a month.

[Tretyakovskii]

Cost of living is mainly dependent on just how much living you require, it seems to me. Mexico is a place you can live cheaply, but you will be doing less living, if you do. Some people have said you need 10,000 pesos/month to live reasonably well: I consider it takes more than that by the time you include travel, and health care/health insurance. (I've got a short-fall, by some margin!, at this point, but I'm working on it.)

A furnished studio in Cancun Centro costs about 3,500 pesos/month. Cancun Centro is not the hotel zone, where the hotels and luxury condos are: it is a fairly scruffy looking, modern Mexican City, with little charm- there is no historic center, for example. But, it does have a Walmart, and it is where I live.

[Tretyakovskii]

Tamii, here's some further details of the cost of living, based on my experience in Cancun Centro, as of 22 October, 2009.

These costs are for a couple.

We pay 8,000 pesos per month rent, for a two bedroom, completely furnished apartment (right down to the sheets, silverware, and all appliances, including washer and dryer), with a swimming pool in the complex. It is centrally located, convenient to public transportation, and safe. Get the same place unfurnished, and it would go for 7,000 per month; another place, without a pool, but in a similar part of town, might cost 6,000.

We pay less than an annual average of about 400 pesos per month for electricity, and gas and water are included in our rent. We use air conditioning much of the time, and run a washer and dryer.

We pay about 3,000 pesos per month for everything we buy in the grocery store. We eat at home a lot, eating a lot of fruit and vegetables, and some meat- always the top quality of what's on offer in the supermarket. We like fresh shrimp, exotic cheeses and some processed foods, like peanut butter. Anything we want to eat at home, we buy. We eat little of what people would call "junk food", which can add a lot to your grocery bill, as well as not being very good for your health.

When we go out, typically to middle class, Mexican restaurants, we spend an average of 350 pesos, including drinks and tips. We try to avoid eating in restaurants of poor quality, as well as avoiding those known to be expensive.

Our cable TV, internet service, and telephone cost 500 pesos per month, combined.

We both have cell phones, and they cost us a total of 350 pesos per month to operate, with a moderate level of use.

We don't have a car, so we go everywhere by taxi, which costs 20 pesos per ride within the city center. Go further out, and the fares can reach 22 to 25 pesos. Taking a taxi from a taxi stand can cost more, and we do this when we go shopping and buy a lot; then, we pay 35 pesos.

To have a maid come to thoroughly clean the apt in Cancun you have to pay 200 pesos per visit.

Of course there are a great many more things that people routinely pay for, living here, and I won't try to enumerate them all; but, we also go to the movies on Wednesdays, paying 36 pesos, each, for tickets.

I have intentionally omitted expenses for other forms of entertainment, alcoholic beverages, clothing, medical/medical insurance and travel as these will vary greatly, according to your requirements, and can add significantly to the cost of living, here, or anywhere else.
_______________________

Our own experience bears out the concept that it takes about 10,000 pesos per person to live reasonably well in Mexico, excluding medical care/medical insurance and travel. Being a couple, we spend just about 2x that amount, each month, in out of pocket expenses and rent. Some of the regular posters to this forum may have adopted a more economical lifestyle, which is fulfilling to them, and can tell us something more about how they do it.

[Writer]

My husband and I live in the city of Oaxaca. Our rent for a furnished apartment is $4,000 pesos/month and that includes the water. If our electricity bill goes over $250 pesos/month, we pay the extra. No air-conditioning but we have a fan. We also pay for our own gas. Place is safe and clean, albeit a bit shabby. It's a big apartment, kitchen, living room and a bedroom that is twice the size of the living room. We're about a ten-minute walk from the Zocalo, buses and taxis available right outside the gate to our small complex. We pay $339 pesos/month for high-speed Internet in our apartment (no Cable TV, no phone land line). We average about $300 pesos/month for our cell phones. Taxi ride within the city is usually 35 pesos (short distance). However, we have taken collectivos to outlying areas for the same amount, anywhere from a 15 - 30 minute drive. Buses are much cheaper.

Our expenses average about $12,000 pesos/month for the two of us. That includes our share of the utilities, using the laundrymat, cell phone minutes, eating out, food. That doesn't include any trips to see the country, border runs or medical insurance. We don't drink and we eat at home most of the time. We do eat well - no complaints at all about the fresh fruits and veggies. Chicken is sometimes a bit tough unless you get it pounded, fish is very reasonable. We do eat a lot of junk food and yes, that does increase our food bill a lot. Since we don't drink, our average bill at a nice (not expensive) restaurant is about $200-$250 pesos for the two of us.

Good luck!

[geaaronson]

I live in a small city in the Yucatan.
I live in a brand new efficiency. tile floors, showers, brand new sink. No stove but a double burner gas hot plate. My bed is queen sized, and I have a huge closet with an overhead ceiling fan.
There is no cable nor internet hookup. My rent is 1,500 a month. The electrical company has neglected to put in meters so I don�t have to pay for electricity...as of yet.
My peers are paying a thousand more for hookups and stove.

[norwalkesl]

Hermosillo.

Furnished corporate apartment 2.5 months up front required (5750)
2300 rent
500 monthly elec for fulltime a/c in summer
water paid
2200 food, laundry
1000 petrol
600 Internet

450 to 800 USD

You can spend as much or as little as you like. Share with local, 750 month rent. Live like the rich, 10,000 month rent house, plus nanny, gardener, maid, etc.

Students live on 2000 to 3000 MXN per month total.

[Phil_K]

1000 Petrol - you race in F1 every week?
200 pesos lasts me about 3 weeks here in D.F.! (2005 Chevy C2 - 1600 engine)

[norwalkesl]

[Tretyakovskii]

Speaking generally about the cost of living here, I don't think of Mexico as being a particularly cheap place to live. But, what living here does do is allow the option of living more cheaply for those who choose to exercise it. In my opinion, it does this mainly by reducing the social pressure to conform to standards common elsewhere. For an example, I live here without a car, as many have chosen to do. In the states, people would think it odd that I didn't have a car, but regularly took the public buses which ran a few blocks from my suburban home, took taxis, or walked- for something other than exercise. Back home, if I had regularly walked, arms laden with groceries, the three blocks home, as I do here, I'd have been greeted with stares and become a subject of conversation. Here, these behaviors attract no attention at all that I'm aware of, and I enjoy the freedom that comes with not having to take care of a car. For another example, many expats live in housing that would not attract admiring glances back home, but happens to fit their budget nicely- and, it makes them happy that, perhaps as a result, they can easily live within their budget. But, Mexico is not cheap, and a life style comparable to back home will probably be comparable in cost, for most people.

[Spector]

[Oreen Scott]

I live in Oaxaca about a half hour walk from the Zocalo. My rent for a fully furnished 2 bedroom bungalow is $4,000 pesos per month.

I don't pay any utilities and the $4,000 includes high speed internet, about 100 cable TV stations, and once a week maid service.

I'm spending about $400 pesos a week for groceries.

My laundry and ironing is betwwn $75 and $95 pesos a week.

If I take a taxi, which is seldom, the cost is $20 pesos.

I'm Canadian, and rent, food and transportation is at least half of what I'd pay in Canada.

When I go to the hair sylist I spend $500 pesos. If we were $10 pesos for the dollar, which we aren't, it converts to $50 Canadian dollars. I'd spend $100 dollars in Canada. (Don't ask what I have done 'cause I'm not telling)

A meal in a fine restaurant including 2 glasses of wine costs $200 pesos, I'd expect to pay at least $40 Canadian dollars in Canada.

Some things are a lot more or the same - furniture, electronics, cosmetics. In general I buy clothes once a year when I return home. The one exception is sandals, blouses and skirts made by local crafts women, and those articles of clothing are very inexpensive.

[Tretyakovskii]

I'm glad Queen Scott and Writer have put up a lot of good detail, because it really makes clear how difficult the question, "What is the cost of living," is to answer. In Cancun, the further out of the center you get, the cheaper are rents. A place like ours could go for as little as 4,000 pesos, further out. But, in a smaller city in the U.S. you could find accommodations as cheaply as what we're talking about, here, too.

We also mustn't forget the impact that the pesos devaluation that has occurred in the last year has had on the "apparent" cost of living here (I say apparent, because for those whose earnings are in pesos, it has been no improvement). My rent, which is only about $675/month U.S., at today's exchange rates, will not seem so cheap when the peso has recovered more of it's former value.

The only thing in my budget that is positively cheaper in Mexico than what I have encountered in small town U.S.A., is taxi fare. I pay more for a number of other things, just as Queen Scott has pointed out; or, like them, buy those items abroad, when I travel in the U.S.

As with any country, there is also tremendous variability in the cost of things based on location- which city/town you're talking about, and even which part of that particular town you're talking about. For example, if we're comparing "apples to apples" (always a hard thing to know, for sure), then Oaxaca appears to be cheaper than Cancun. But, is that any surprise to anyone? (Oaxaca is probably far more beautiful, but we have the Western Caribbean. Cancun is damned hot, much of the year, Oaxaca is not. So, it's about tastes. But, Cancun is a tourist mecca and that drives up prices, without driving up teacher's salaries!)

Perceptions are shaped by expectations and to a person from Boston, Mexico will seem cheaper than to a person from Waxahatchie; likewise, cheaper to a person from the U.K., than from the U.S.

Within a range, with a floor to it of absolute necessity, you can live "cheaply" in Mexico, if you choose, just as you could anywhere, relatively speaking.

I'm making less/hour in Mexico, at present, than in any place I've ever worked. So, how cheap is it to live in Mexico? For me, not very....

[Oreen Scott]

The Queen has been throned. You may simply call her Oreen :lol:

[Tretyakovskii]

In spite of my misread, Oreen, and for which I make my humble apologies, now, your info was still quality stuff.

I didn't want to guess, but I'll risk it, since you mentioned the hairdresser: "Queen" could fit, no?; and, I prefer it, unless you have objections!

"Queen Scott"!

Hmm, on the otherhand, "Queen Oreen" also has a nice ring, you could even say a "lilt" to it. How to choose....