Moving money?

[doncoulter]

As jesm says, everybody has a different solution. Personally, in eighteen years of living here full-time, I've never seen a need to open a Mexican bank account. I simply use ATMs here to withdraw as necessary from one of my U.S. accounts. It helps that both my bank (USAA) and my investment company (Fidelity) reimburse me for all ATM usage fees charged by the local banks. Thus my only cost is the minimum 1% exchange rate charged on "interbank" (bank to bank) transactions.

If you ask enough people, some will insist that they somehow manage to get funds from U.S. banks without paying any exchange rate at all. They are mistaken, but don't try to tell them that.