Thinking of moving to GTO in December, expat family from Atlanta

[DonJuane]

And a few notes on settling in. One may not ever totally "settle in" in Mexico. For example a latch broke on a closet door recently and finding a new one has turned into a 3 year project. While in the US you watch your once fruitful world of "unlimited items for sale" diminish as Wall Street and the demand for profits cull out every "odd thing" that your big box hardware stores used to sell in the past but no longer do so, to the point they currently have only the most hot selling items - well in Mexico the problem is worse and your choices end up being what Wall Street approves and add to that the real restrictor, what Mexico allows retailers to import from the US. Mexico's Home Depot is a slap in the face the first time you walk in because they have maybe 30 percent of the specialty or odd items you find in the US. So you are left with the benefit or oddity, depending on how you look at it of finding a source of hardware that is not backed by a team of venture capitalists whose investors are not demanding that each store produce dividends high enough to keep their dow scores up. This translates to every time you need something more unique than a saw or hammer, you basically have to visit every hardware store in town until you find one with the item tucked under a counter somewhere and someone on that day who's been working there long enough to know where it is.

Vegetables are another thing. If you are used to shopping at Walmart for vegetables you will find the Walmart's here (or Walmarts in disguise cleverly named Bodega Aurrera) have vegetables but you are likely to find fresher and better looking ones by dumpster diving. That's because people who live here know not to shop for vegetables at Walmart, or the big commercial grocery stores actually if you are talking about any day but delivery day and that unless you are a Gringo, you know to go to the local fruit stand to buy your vegetables and not the big-box store. Now if you like the standard fare here then this is great. But if you are looking for odd fresh spices or unique fruits or veggies then you are back emulating your battles with Wall Street - you may spend days or have to delay a special meal because you can't find something and you may have to walk all over town to find it. Or if you are lucky, you can just bite the bullet and walk halfway across town to the Hidalgo Mkt.

So you soon find in Mexico that shopping turns into a full time job and actually occupies most of your daylight hours. And if you live up the hill in any of GTO's non-taxi or non-auto accessible drop off points it' s going to be even worse because here you'll also be adding your body's hourly complaints dictating the route you will take and suggesting that you delay your shopping until the next day. In your new home your familiarity with different ways to make eggs will expand to new levels or your stock of sardines or tuna fish will grow just so you don't have to go the the store today. Or maybe you'll just drive a nail into the wall, bend it over and twist it to keep the cabinet door closed while you wait for a sunny or warmer day or for the rainy season to end to go shopping for that hardware thingy you've decided you don't really need.

[jesm]

Eight year full time residents here, but Atlanta was home for many years, so a double welcome.
The town is very safe. Murders are rare. Petty theft is on the rise. Overall much much safer than ATL.
Use all the recommended internet real estate venues. We found that best results come from focusing on a few favored areas or neighborhoods - then going on foot and asking. Ask store owners, ask folks working on their home or just standing around. With decent Spanish and some time you will see plenty. Most not suitable but then comes the right one.
Leon is a huge city 1.5+ million and comes with everything good and bad that you find in large cities everywhere. The southern part of Guanajuato state (Salamanca/Irapuato/Apaseo) is struggling with a wave of violent crime. Murders, kidnapping too frequent. Army has moved in recently. We shall see?
My experience says middle class life is tight with $1000, good with $1500 and near luxurious with $2000.
Things we miss? Sure some, but the supply has greatly improved in last few years. Plus in Leon is a huge US owned supermarket HEB that fills in most gaps. We visit every couple of months.
Subject to lively debate but I say we have 500 or so full time expats. There are social hookups and gathering spots when inclined. Cultural and university events daily, and nightly.
For a variety of reasons GTO has not gentrified like SMA. Not even close. If regulations, economics and demographics remain as they are now I don’t see that changing. SMA however is literally exploding with residential construction targeted to expats. Building codes make that difficult here. That keeps the ambiance but minimizes housing supply. So suitable places are hard to secure and more expensive than many places in Mexico.
Mexico grabbed our hearts on a long ago vacation. She refuses to let go. Our 13 years of full time life here succinctly answers that final question.
Bienvenidos.

[jesm]

Oh, missed your settling in question.
The single greatest challenge many new expats encounter here is finding suitable housing. Not price problems, but supply. It can be difficult. You may need to settle first for a foothold location while looking for something more suitable. Centro is for kids and tourists. Look at colonias within 15-20 minute walk. Quieter and less hectic.

[Kalanisters]

@jesm, thank you for your input and wonderful feedback about life there. It is comforting to hear about expats living life there pretty normal and in some cases better than back in the States. I have this small feeling of guilt for wanting to leave the States, I wonder if we are making a mistake sometimes. I work for a great company here in Atlanta (The Home Depot), but I look to what life could be and I look at the things that make me unhappy and it always comes down to my family. My son. I never get to see him much, a couple of hours before his bedtime and then the weekends. Which by then I'm completely exhausted. This constant race to be out of debt just to acquire more, it's exhausting.

@DonJuane. Your response literally had me laughing out loud. It is so relieving to hear that I'm not the only that sees American life like the way you described it!

[jesm]

Glad to be of help. Any such move will be a hugely significant change in your lives. Many positives, some perhaps not. I want to share two important aspects of living here in Mexico.
First, your ability to earn money in Mexico is dramatically reduced from US standards. Assuming you can legally earn income such money may only be 25% of the comparable US income, or less!
Second, the importance of family and the opportunity to fully participate in family life is far more elemental in Mexican cultures and society. We admire the intense loyalty and bonding among generations we see among our Mexican friends.
Priorities are shifted a bit here more toward the personal, less toward the material. That’s a reality every expat confronts and handles, or not. The dropout rate among expats is high, maybe 50%+ within five years return.

[Kalanisters]

@jesm that is actually another question I had about living in Mexico. The income. My husband receives a retirement pension from the army every month. It’s enough to pay our home here in Atlanta and his car and maybe a couple of small bills. In Mexico we are hoping it will provide a comfortable lifestyle. We want to get away from the materialistic view society here has taught us. We want to live with more quality. We do worry about adjusting to the lack of some luxuries like air conditioning, having a washer & dryer as I have read, or even having a car. We plan on selling our cars and buying one down there when we feel like it’s absolutely needed. However I did want to know how banking works down there? Should we open up an account with a Mexican bank? Will his deposits be converted into the peso amount? Will we lose value? Should we keep our military credit union?
My plan if everything turns out okay. Is that we don’t return to working, if we want, until our son is in school full time. We both have college degrees and decent experience. I speak Spanish fluently. I’ve seen jobs on LinkedIn for similar roles I had here in HR. I wonder what the pay is like for those? I don’t need much, it would just be a supplement. What are some of the reasons expats move back? Thanks again for your help?

[DonJuane]

I just ran a Google on "san miguel attencion cost of san miguel vs us" as there have been several articles in the Attencion newspaper there on this topic. I think you can maybe cut $200 - $500 off San Miguel rent and the rest of their comparisons to GTO should be the same. The main reason living in any Mexican city will cost you as much as the US is if you utilize the Gringo sales outlets like Costco, Walmart, and high dollar items at the various super markets. In Mexico you actually pay a premium for some Gringo-incited items. For example today you can buy US Prime beef at Costco but it costs about 30% more. If you buy a big box of cashews, maybe 15% more in Mexico. Items considered luxury items cost more in Mexico, and staples tend to run a little less. Maybe Internet costs you 30% less - so how many prime steaks do you plan to eat vs Internet service you plan to use. It's not always that much cheaper except in the area of labor they say. Goods are about the same and unless you want to eat the lower quality of meats and always vegetables from a seller that doesn't add a "Gringo tax".

And drying clothes outside becomes a way of life. You simply hang them out and they quickly dry. There's not really but a few more minutes involved snapping the clothespins on and off than time required using a dryer. And a dryer will heat up the house and go out and produce lint all over everything and require repairs. When you actually realize that you are using as much electricity with a dryer single run that a lot of families use in a year - it's more easy to give it up. To me, running to pull the clothes all off and then putting them back on, maybe several times during the rainy season is the only time I ever think about a drier. Otherwise I am happy that I cheated the electric company out of another dollar.

With Amazon now in Mexico, as well as Costco and all the gourmet shops now opening here - you can spend the same or more than you do in the US, only paying a few hundred less per month in rent maybe. In GTO you'll have to also pay for parking and even if you have a car you'll soon tire of going to retrieve it and all the effort you'll have to make to get your items from the house into the car and things you purchase into your house, that's unless you are lucky enough to have a parking space by your dwelling.

I will share a secret and that is the only way you will save money in Mexico is to change your US lifestyle which likely involves cutting down on luxury items and in particular luxury imported foods and beverages. The next was is always living in the mountains and at least south of MX City to where you never need an AC and become willing to wear heavy clothes in the winter instead of gulping down propane - there you have it - significant amount of money saved.

And GTO in general. to be as crass as possible - once you get over believing you are in some quaint European city or in fact if you are also considering moving to some quaint European city - once you discover that just about all the shopping that happens has to be toted back and forth to your home either via bus or toting it up and down hundreds of stairs, some of that French accordion music you used to hear in your mind while traversing the cajahones begins to fade away and you start to discover that while life here is certainly charming, still it is slightly harder than anywhere else hopping in the car and loading the trunk with stuff from a big-box, hauling it home and having it unloaded and stored in a matter of minutes. All of a sudden simply shopping is an all day affair, or so is clothes washing or hanging out to dry. Maybe you will like that or maybe you won't and maybe you will save money or maybe you will spend more. It will depend exclusively on you.

[jesm]

I take total exception to the comments of DonJuane about comparative costs of living between GTO and USA.
First look at his posting history on a multitude of subjects. He seems to have way too much time and hatred for life here. Do not allow his harsh take on his apparently miserable life to influence you about coming to Mexico.
Second, eight years full time life in GTO, 13 years total in Mexico. No employment. You can live OK here on $1000US per month, add in extras like frequent dining out ,larger living spaces and in country travel and $1500 works. Have $2000 and you approach all those horrible luxuries he rails against. My figures apply to a couple without costs for children, education etc.
Only one proof: try it. You can always go back.

[DonJuane]

And don't let Jesum's uppity attitude and large lodged stick influence you as well LOL.

*** And also check the even wider variety of subjects and also with (implied) too much time as well, spoken by pot to kettle.

Otherwise read what I write and think it over, then don't say I didn't warn you. I live in Mexico, I travel, I write and I'm hungry for more! (3)


3 Tony Bourdain quote

[DonJuane]

Let me throw out another question and that would be why would one choose GTO to move based only on Internet research and pick it over all other Mexico cities? My guess is that the GTO colored home backdrop is used on every travel show and travel brochure that has been published in at least the last decade or longer. For that I would say if one is "all up" for the adventure to moving to Mexico, don't make GTO the final destination before first giving the city a serious look. Instead one should only think about making GTO the final destination after enough experience has been undertaken with several popular cities because any one of them can speak to someone in a way more than another one. To me the concept of picking a city to make a new home without knowing the city inside and out would be a relatively serious mistake. If I were thinking about moving and establishing myself, I'd get an RV or a big truck or something that would haul around my base needs or if not that, then rent furnished and have a plan to spend about 3 months in each of a list of cities I came up with after a good bit of research. And everyone (not just me) says to rent and get a good image of a place before you dial up the movers and buy a home sight unseen.

One will find that after learning the base routine in one city, it's relatively the same everywhere (asking where is the city market, super market, meat market, recharging your cell chip, paying your tele, water and electric, where are drug stores, where do the buses stop and where do they go, etc and all of these things are the same type of things that are done everywhere. This way the exact right city becomes more clear to one without the influence of others who may have investments pushing the general populace toward a particular city, or from those who have rose-colored blinders yet to be struck with the realities of life, or from those who have been jaded to the point of taking what appears either a realist's view of things and accepting and enjoying them for what they are or otherwise, someone strapped with pain and misery. and all of this being derived according to the way you personally interpret it.

There are about 20 cities I'd consider living full time (and making a home) in Mexico. And in contrast one of the first things I believe is a key of finding a place that is destined for gentrification or one that you'll soon lose to tourism is when you have the location advertised with a hundred percent positive descriptions of it. In situations where you have all positive reviews and never anyone permitted to point out a repercussion of living there because such comments are either deleted from the fora or those reporting multiple perspectives are chastised via personal derogatory remarks every time someone points out a shortcoming - to me this indication that the city in question is not an optimum place to live. You don't want to live in a place that is "the best place in the world to live" (aka San Miguel de Allende, via CNN & Conde Nast) because that starts to bring in all the undesirables looking for people who are looking for the best.

So in closing I believe there are multiple ways to look at things and I always tend to present a dissimilar one, meaning when someone writes a full positive review, I feel compelled to write an alternate to point out the shortcomings. When someone writes a full negative review, I try to point out the positive aspects. I am not enjoying being contrary but simply enjoy seeing things from many different sides which means in general that something is alive and thriving. Call it a hobby or habit or short-coming, but at least call. ;-)