Preparation – Pat the Expat

Currency Speculations

In discussing the cost of living for expats here in Mexico, I have at times mentioned the exchange rate. I’ve never spent much time discussing it, because I have always felt it’s an environmental condition, or as the saying goes, “it is what it is.” Over the six years we have been expats, I have noticed many expats who are fixated on the exchange rate. It obviously does have some implications, but perhaps not for the reasons many expats think.

Here’s a handy chart showing how the Peso had varied with the dollar over the period we have been visiting/living in Mexico. We bought our first home here in 2012 (just off-chart), but the Peso had been steady at around 12 MXP – 1 USD for several years. We finally retired and moved here in February, 2017, and the Peso had depreciated to 18 MXP to the dollar.

US Dollar to Mexican Peso conversion rate, 2013-Present (from Xe )

Now we had done our research and knew that the cost of living in Mexico was already less expensive than in the United States. But by the time we arrived to live as expats, Mexico was on a half-price sale. And with a few perturbations (more on those later), it stayed there until the pandemic hit.

Those were very good days to be an expat, especially if your income, pension, or investments were denominated in dollars. The only exception to the rule was for American products. For example, what if you wanted to buy a jar of Skippy’s Extra-Chunk Peanut Butter, labelled in English and imported from el Norte? If the domestic price there was $8.00 USD, you would incur a mark-up and tax leading to $10.00 USD total price, but you were buying it in Mexico, which meant the price also had to be converted to Pesos. At a 12:1 rate, your cost would have been $120 MXP, but at an 18:1 rate, your price was now $180 MXP! Basically, the stronger your dollar was, the more expensive any US products you wanted. But in general, buying local products and services, expats with dollars benefited from a strong dollar.

What causes those spikes and drops in the chart? It’s a complex process, which leads most investment advisors to caution against currency speculation: there are just too many variables which are entirely out of one’s control. For example, if a country undergoes political disruption, that causes investors to pull money out of that country, weakening the currency. The same goes for if a national leader starts doing things like nationalizing industries, or decides to devalue a currency overnight to fight rampant inflation. While there are warning signs of such events, they are hard to read, and can be disastrous to currency traders or investors.

There are also some pretty consistent factors affecting the relative strength of a currency. In addition to monetary and political stability, there is remittance flows, foreign direct investment, the overall state of the nation’s economy, and foreign demand. These combine in the case of the US dollar to keep it the world’s (unofficial but real) reserve currency. Everybody wants dollars when exchanging goods and services, because they know the value of the dollar is strong, stable and universally respected. That’s also why that factor is unlikely to change in the near future, and certainly not quickly.

In the case of Mexico, remittances from Mexican migrants (legal and otherwise) in the US are at a record high. Jobs are plentiful, pay is increasing, and they are sending more money back to their families than ever before. Large chunks of foreign direct investment (FDI) are moving to Mexico as part of the move towards friend-shoring, that is, moving manufacturing to closer, more friendly countries rather than places like China. Mexico’s inflation rate is slightly less than in the US, and Mexican banks are offering high interest rates on savings/investments. Which makes the Peso stronger against the dollar.

Those with dollar reserves notice they don’t go as far, but they don’t notice that US products are a little cheaper, too. It all depends on what you spend your money on. Some expats live on fixed incomes and can really feel 10-20% price swings. Others try to buy extra Pesos (by exchanging at an ATM) when the rate is favorable. Nothing wrong with that, as long as you have a secure place to store them and you take into account the fees you might incur with the bank. The thing is, even if you’re exchanging $500 USD at a time, the difference remains small. At 20:1, you received 10,000 MXP; at 16:1 you get 8000 MXP. Most people are exchanging far less.

Some expats try to get around the currency changes by having their income/pension/social security deposited directly into Mexican accounts as Pesos. Of course, the bank is either charging a fee or determining your exchange rate, and they’re making money either (or both) ways. Not to mention for American expats, there is the issue of FATCA and FBAR compliance if you have foreign accounts. Never heard of it? You should!

FATCA is the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. Essentially, it requires banks to submit data on any foreign accounts held by Americans. It’s why some American banks discharge expat accounts or refuse to permit expats to open accounts, because the banks don’t want the headache of the reporting requirement to the IRS. FATCA also requires expats holding more than $50,000 USD in foreign accounts to file a report to the IRS and pay taxes on those accounts.

FBAR is the Report on Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, a form American expats are required to file annually (with their taxes) but this report goes to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), not the IRS. This report is mandatory if you have a total of $10,000 USD in any number of foreign accounts (bank, mutual fund, bonds, etc.) at any time during the year. Since this is a tool to combat financial crimes (not for tax purposes), the US regards failure to file as a very serious offense (likewise, conscious attempts to avoid filing, like manipulating transactions to stay below the $10,000 USD limit). The US also does not recognize ignorance as an excuse for failing to file the FBAR, although there are ways to avoid criminal penalties through voluntary make-up reporting. Needless to say, all this is a lot of work to go through.

Post-pandemic Peso-Dollar exchange rates settled in around 20:1, which was really great as it was easy to mentally calculate (drop one digit from the Peso price and divide by 2= Dollar price). Lately the Peso has strengthened to under 17:1 to the Dollar. To me the biggest change is mental (dividing by 17? Fuggedabouit!). Mexico is still inexpensive at this exchange rate. So I have to make my Skippy Extra-Chunk last a little longer? No problema!

The Smiling Retiree, Part Four: Getting to the Smile

Many of you might have felt Part Three sounded pretty good, so what are we doing in Part Four? I’m going to argue that Parts One through Three are necessary but insufficient for Smiling Retirement. Part One is essential, because if you don’t understand the concept, you’ll get it wrong for sure. Part Two removes the greatest friction: resources. Part Three puts you in the right position, but just. By Part Three, you’re existing (as a retiree), but you’re not living. You can’t get to the smile until you’re living.

So what’s the next step? It’s the hardest one, I’m sorry to say.

Many people go through their whole lives just existing, not living. They work to provide shelter, food, and some degree of comfort. They rest to recharge and resume work. They recreate for the same reason. They procreate (or not) because, well, that’s what we do. This is consistent with all animal life on the planet. Whether you think what differentiates us from other animals is a soul or higher intellect (or both), there is a difference. What’s the purpose of the difference? It gives us the opportunity to consider the big questions that the higher intellect inevitably raises.

Who are you in particular? We often answer that question in terms of relationships (“I’m a father, a husband, a son”) or associations (“. . . a former official, a Catholic, a fan of . . . “). But who are you essentially?

Why are you? Not in contingent terms of “when your dad met your mother” but why you, why now? For what purpose?

These are tough questions, easily avoided while working to live (i.e., existing). But you understand the concept of retirement. You have prepared financially. You have vacay-ed and experimented to a place of comfort. You can ask those questions, and better yet, you can start to find answers!

What are those answers? Yours might be different from the ones I would share. Mine are based–as you no doubt have guessed–in the Gospels and my Catholic Faith. I believe in Truth (the capitalization is important here), and truths. The latter is contingent and personal, but must in the end lead to the former, if they are indeed “true.” So there is no reason to fear them. The search itself is satisfying.

Is it possible to just continue existing, and never address the hard questions? Sure. Birds do it, bees do it, even dogs do it. And billions of people do it too. Retirement as I have described it is a rare blessing, an opportunity not to be missed. And what an opportunity! Because seeking those answers (whether you find them or not) leads to a certain satisfaction. And that satisfaction generates a smile.

What’s with the emphasis on the smile? It’s a simple gesture, universally recognized. It’s a moderate emotion, not a belly-laugh. It’s pleasant. There is a degree of amiability, knowledge, and just plain old friendliness in a smile. And it’s genuine. It makes life easier, for the one smiling and for everyone who sees it.

Here’s hoping you not only retire, but you get to be a smiling retiree!

The Smiling Retiree, Part Three: Retiring

You “get” the concept that retirement means not working, and you’ve arranged a pension or nest egg which should cover your costs till you head for the great beyond. So now you just retire and start smiling, right? Wrong. The transition may be jarring, and if not done well, can lead to many outcomes other than Smiling Retirement.

That video I mentioned in Part One talked about the Vacation Phase of retirement: the few weeks or months where the lack of structure provided by work gives the new retiree the sensation of being on vacation. Days become irrelevant, or as retirees joke, a week consists of “six Saturdays and a Sunday.” Things like school calendars, holidays, and long weekends can creep up on you since they no longer seem relevant. Most everybody enjoys this at first, but eventually the sameness of the lack of structure begins to grind on you. We generally limit our tours and cruises to ten-to-twelve days for the same reason; otherwise, it all begins to blend together.

Turns out, humans need routines. If work doesn’t provide one, you have to come up with your own. The beauty of retirement is you’re free to develop your own. Perhaps you’re a night owl who had a career which required an early morning start; now your day can start at 10:00 am and end at 3:00 am, if you like. Never had time to fit in exercise? You do now. When do you eat, and what’s your big meal? All up to you. And you can change it, to see what works.

I started eating a huge breakfast (bacon or sausage, eggs, avocados, tomatoes, hash browns or a bagel) every morning, after a career of having only a banana and a cup of coffee. It was heaven, and I didn’t need to eat again until dinner. But while I enjoyed this schedule, my digestive tract didn’t, and it made its objections known. I switched to some fruit or yogurt and coffee in the morning, and a large lunch in the mid afternoon, which my body ratified. I moved exercise to the late morning after only exercising after lunch for decades. I found starting my day with prayers meant I didn’t skip them later, and I was in a better mood regardless of how I slept. You get to experiment with things you always did one way, because now you can.

Bill Murray Ice Sculpture GIF by Groundhog Day

If you don’t establish a routine, you’ll get bored. Then you’ll feel a powerful pull to go back to work, if only for the routine. Or you might substitute some other thing (volunteering, for example) for work to provide your routine. But that is putting the cart before the horse, so to speak. Find the routine that works for you, makes you comfortable, then fill in your hobbies and activities around it.

Experimentation is just as important when developing your new (or rediscovering your old) interests. Take up the guitar? Why not! Learn to cook Welsh Rarebit? Sure! Join a charity or service organization? Of course. But whatever you do, never, never, never impose a “success” filter on it. It’s ok to consider whether you can afford a hobby (financially or in terms of time), but don’t start evaluating “am I any good at this?” or “is this doing any good for that?” Those are business/work concepts, and you don’t do that anymore, right? If you like it and can afford it, keep doing it. If not, don’t.

It is easy to fall back into workday notions of success, competition, and merit. But you’re living, not working. Perhaps we can learn something from the way children behave. When a child finds something they really enjoy, they’ll get lost in it. They don’t start asking “how good am I?” “or “what’s the purpose of this?”, they just enjoy themselves. They haven’t met the work world yet, but they have mastered one key to retirement!

The vacation and experimentation periods of retirement are incredibly rewarding. Getting to try out new things without any pressure to “do well” or “succeed” is liberating, once you understand it. How long do they last? How long do you last? To some extent, the two timelines are the same. As time goes by, you’ll find a daily routine that fits. You’ll find hobbies and interests that fit, and people who also fit. But all that may change. Friends asked me why I stopped attending a group, and I said (truthfully) “it seemed too much like work.” You may get too tired for pickleball, or too old for globetrotting, too bored for politics. It happens.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that this phase is just a transition. You may enjoy the transition, but you haven’t reached Smiling Retirement yet!

The Smiling Retiree, Part Two: Finances, or “it’s always about the money”

St. Paul’s first letter to Timothy (chapter six, verse ten) tells us “the love of money is the root of all evil.” Hard to improve on that. Mark Twain allegedly did so, quipping “the lack of money is the root of all evil.” When it comes to retirement, both maxims apply. As with working life, more money means more opportunities. Worker or retiree, you can be a happy, poor person, or a miserable rich person. The differences appear in the many ways you get there.

The key point is this: since you’re not working (remember our definition from Part One), your ability to generate resources may become limited. If you have a pension indexed to inflation, consider yourself greatly blessed. If not, there’s social security as a safety net (if you’re an American). If you have invested in a retirement account, it may continue growing, but you’ll be tapping it as you go, which limits the overall growth and total available. The inputs side of the equation, less a winning lottery ticket or a rich uncle’s will, is a fairly constant constraint.

Meanwhile, you do have great control over your expenses. Your spending for commuting, maintaining a wardrobe, and business expenses all drop dramatically. You can live where you want, which could be much less expensive. You can take time to comparison shop, and seize opportunities for deals and discounts which were out of reach during the workday. But you’ll also want to do things previously postponed (like travel or a hobby) which might be expensive. And you’ve got to place a bet which most of us avoid: how long am I going to be doing this? Most importantly, you control this variable (expenses, not when you check-out).

Since financing retirement is mostly a math problem, it is actually the easiest part to master. When should you start saving for retirement? Yesterday. Money set aside early compounds (remember the magic of compound interest?), turning the few dollars you saved in 1978 into thousands today. The amount is much less important than the fact of investing and not tapping it early. By the way, this is my biggest complaint with Millennials and Zoomers today who are living the digital nomad lifestyle, in effect moving retirement forward so they can enjoy it while they’re young. Your traditional work years (ages 20-50) are your peak earning years. By reducing your income in this period, you reduce what you can invest, and thus surrender significant compounding of your investments. I hope they are doing the math, too, while trekking across the globe!

How about those other young folk buying into the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) concept. Basically, the idea here is to restrict your spending while young, invest wisely, then retire very early and live off the wealth you created. Some challenges here are: (1) actually restraining your spending while young (hard, not impossible), (2) investing smartly to maximize your wealth (hard, not impossible), (3) guessing how long you’re going to be retired if you do so very early (damn near impossible, but essential to solving the FIRE calculation). It’s a simple math problem for a 65 year-old retiree to project they’ll live approximately fifteen more years, and a small error is easily covered. But a 40 year-old retiree planning to live another forty years? This is double jeopardy, where the “scores can really change!”

Would you like to go for "Double Jeopardy" where the scores can really change? — Great Christmas Movie!

What if you don’t have a pension, didn’t save much (or anything) for retirement? Well, you have a lot of company: 45% of baby boomers in the US have zero retirement savings. If you’re planning on retiring under these conditions, you’ll need to seriously consider how to drive your cost-of-living down to meet your social security level means. Folks who through no fault of their own found themselves retirement age but with no other resources were a major source of expats in Mexico once upon a time. That is becoming more difficult to pull off, as the Mexican government keeps raising the income requirements for residency (temporary or permanent) while tightening up enforcement of tourist visa overstays.

I’m not going to get into all the ways one can amass wealth, as that is a path well-trod by many financial planning experts (which reminds me, retaining one of these experts, especially one who gets paid by the size of your holdings and not by the amount of trading, is a great idea!). Suffice it to say: live within your means, invest and diversify, avoid keeping up with the Joneses, and don’t get divorced. Maybe I will write a blog on how to amass wealth.

Just a fly in the ointment, Hans. A monkey in the wrench. — more life lessons from Die Hard

To finish with one more Die Hard reference, the “fly in the ointment, the monkey in the wrench” of retiree financing is your health. Health care costs, whether routine or traumatic, can bankrupt even the frugal, life-long saver. Having good health insurance is critical, but hard to do. You can’t really save your way past the risk of long-term care expenses. You will get old, you will get sick. Maybe you’ve won the genetic lottery. Maybe you exercise and eat a healthy diet. We all do what we can. I prefer to think of it this way: if you face life-or-death health issues, retirement financing is the least of your worries.

In Part Three, we’ll consider how to transition to retiree, smiling or not.

The Smiling Retiree, Part One: Definitions, or “I don’t think that word means what you think it means.”

I recently saw a Tedx talk (link) which did a good job of discussing the phases of retirement. Still, some things bothered me, since some of the language (e.g., “squeezing all the juice out of retirement”) seemed to convey the exactly wrong sentiment in my opinion. So I decided to gather my own thoughts and write about it, as that’s what bloggers do. I’m not exactly an expert on retirement, but I do have some credentials, which I’ll cover as we go. So far we (important change of subject pronoun there!) have faced none of the financial or existential challenges which are so common among retirees. So we got that going for us. . . which is nice.

Before we dig in, may I take a moment to point out just how weird the concept of retirement is? For all of human history, people worked and raised families until they were too old or infirm to do so, then they died. The rich never needed to work, so they found ways to spend their leisure, and eventually they died, too. But nobody “retired.” Rome gave its soldiers a pension, but that was because having poor-men-with-combat-experience-lying-about is bad public policy. Otto von Bismark introduced the modern concept of retirement in the 19th century by forcing Germans over the age of seventy to quit and accept a government payment. Even as late as FDR’s successful enactment of social security in the States, many people of retirement age were opposed to the idea of having to stop working! Population growth, the industrial revolution, and the rise of the middle class all combined to popularize what we now call retirement. So it’s fairly recent and not at all surprising humanity hasn’t quite mastered the concept!

So what is retirement? In its simplest form, it is a period of life in the absence of work. To differentiate it from other times without work (i.e., unemployment), I would add “the need to” before work. Pretty simple, but you would be amazed at the number of people who fail to get this definition. I think here of friends who talk about their “retirement job,” “part-time retirement,” “semi-retired,” or “retired except for. . .”. Nope, not retired, that’s all. Not that there’s anything wrong with continuing to work, or working less hours, or working with less stress: all great concepts, and rightly to be praised. Just not retirement.

Notice that in the definition I have proposed (a period of life in the absence of the need to work) need does not necessarily denote resources. Need can be financial (e.g., I have to keep working to pay off my mortgage) but it can also be purposeful (I have to keep working because I’m the boss, that’s who I am), or evasive (I have to keep working because I don’t know what I would do with myself), or well anything. Need just represents the “what” which comes after “I have to keep working because . . .”

So the person who takes on huge responsibilities in volunteer positions during their retirement? Are they truly retired? Perhaps, since only they can answer “why?” they do so. The point here is not to judge what options anyone chooses, but rather to clearly identify what we are talking about when we say “retirement” so we can then move on to how to be a smiling retiree.

Next up, Finances, or the way we go about retiring!

Six Years an Expat

Facebook just reminded us we passed our sixth anniversary of moving to Mexico. Time to take a look around and see what’s changed here, and what remains the same.

First and foremost, there are more people around here. Not just expats, but also chilangos and tapatios looking to live the good life. Now that we are post-pandemic, there is a steady stream of NOB social media posts about “moving to Mexico,” and the snowbird season is especially noticeable for the crowds and traffic. But weekends year-round can be overcrowded, too. Now, to keep things in perspective, lakeside remains a string of small villages nestled ‘tween the lake and the mountains, and most of the time it still feels that way. But at times and seasons, one starts to feel the “where did all these people/cars come from?” vibe.

Several of the grand development projects intended for lakeside have flopped. The eyesore along the libramiento, on the hill overlooking WalMart, is in suspended animation: no building, maybe not even any advertising. Just an ugly road zigzagging up the mountain. May it always be only so. The seven story apartment complex on the lake near La Floresta got cut down to three or four stories, which was all it was originally approved to be. The assisted living facility west of town seems to be financially stuck, not completely finished. It’s still hard to do big things in Mexico; that hasn’t changed.

Which is not to say there is no development. Lakeside has been a beehive of what is known as “in-fill,” where small parcels or lots are transformed into little complexes of homes or apartments. This is happening in the village of Ajijic and westbound towards the county line with Jocotepec. There are some larger developments intended along the libramiento, and perhaps in and east of Chapala. There is also a continued gentrification challenge, as cash-heavy gringos buy traditional casas in Mexican neighborhoods, then gut-and-remodel them into much larger, more expensive properties.

Despite all this development, there is still no serious government plan to improve infrastructure. There are condominios with problems accessing water, others areas face sewage run-off. Internet access went from poor to good (not by NOB standards), but it is spotty by location, with the usual problems of intermittence. Still, it is generally good enough for streaming and perhaps working online. And the roads. . .well, they merit some paragraphs all their own.

First, we have mostly cobble-stone streets. They are the local tradition, quaint, difficult to walk on, and easily damaged. And when I say cobble-stone, I do not mean pavers, or bricks, or anything else other than STONES which are cobbled (placed) together to make a surface. During our rainy season, when some streets become streams, the stones get dislodged, and gradually grow into wheel-eating baches. Eventually the government hires someone to carefully replace the stones, usually after the rainy season ends. Rain-n-Repeat.

Given the lakeside villages lie between a lake-and-a-mountain range, there is only one major road crossing the area, with no space for another. The government occasionally adds traffic lights, which don’t help, since they are neither timed nor use sensors. All these lights do is spread the traffic jams smoothly across the area. Everyone notices that when the lights go out during the rainy season, traffic flow actually improves. Add in numerous gringos whose licenses NOB would have been suspended decades ago, young tapatios who think any straight road is a potential drag-strip, trash-trucks, gas-trucks, vegetable-trucks, families on scooters, pizza-deliverers, and people tripping on cobblestones and you can see why some folks find the traffic maddening.

The most obvious and nakedly terrible change was the redesign of the intersection of the libramiento (the main bypass leading in to Ajijic) with the carretera (main street) in front of WalMart. Months of work and apparently minutes of planning resulted in a concentrated series of lights, right turn lanes, no left turns, topes (speed bumps), bus stops, an access road (with dividers which can be driven over) that safely brings all traffic to a standstill, except late at night, when everybody just drives through regardless of the lights. There is literally no legal way for drivers coming from the east to turn into WalMart. It is a spectacle that must be seen to be believed.

The government did complete a cyclopista, a bike lane running the length of lakeside. It was widely derided by expats as a white elephant project, and even locals objected because it ate a parking lane on the carretera. But it turned into a field-of-dreams moment; they built it, and now it’s full of cyclists and pedestrians! Of course, gringos flying down the bike lane in electrified bikes are a new menace to left turns. But that’s Mexico, two steps forward, two steps left, three steps right, one step back, and what were we doing, anyway?

One thing unchanged is lakeside remains dining-out heaven. There are more, more diverse, inexpensive but good quality restaurants than any comparable town on the planet. The restaurants constantly come and go, or just change locations. The staffs move around, too. We often find we are re-introducing ourselves to a waiter by saying, “weren’t you at X and then Y restaurant?” Prices have been hit by inflation and a small appreciation by the Mexican Peso. But here’s a telling example. We went out for German food yesterday. Yes, German food in a tiny Mexican village. We had two suppen as vorspeisen, a bottle of German bier, two glasses of Mexican wine, and two servings of German-style goulash (beef) with red cabbage and spaeztle. Delicious, and quite authentic (we used to live in Germany). Total with tip? $1000 MXP, or roughly $50 USD at current rates. Of course one can eat much more frugally, but you get the point. I can cite German, French, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Middle-Eastern, Thai, Indian, Vegetarian/Vegan, Russian, Jewish Deli, Venezuelan, Chinese, Japanese/Sushi, Vietnamese, Argentine, Tex-Mex, diners, pubs, and maybe even a few Mexican places, doncha’know?

We’re seeing more, younger expats. The pandemic sent several million baby-boomers into early retirement, and that’s something (I can attest to being) much more affordable in Mexico. We also see more young families, who are looking for a quality-of-life improvement. The weather, the cost of living, and the cultural emphasis on family over financial success all play parts. We don’t see as many of the young, single, digital nomads. They tend to head toward bigger cities, as the night-life at lakeside can be limited.

The increase in migration from the United States to Mexico has led the Mexican federal government to be more rigorous about immigration status. The financial requirements keep increasing (they don’t want indigent visitors any more than any other country does), as do the enforcement of things like tourist visas, property ownership, car buying, et cetera. On the plus side, they are streamlining the actual process of crossing the border at airports, so it’s much smoother and faster.

The weather remains near perfect in this expat’s opinion. Long-time expats assure me it was warmer in winter way back when (twenty years ago), but I remind them they were much younger way back when, too. We still don’t have and don’t need heating or cooling. I have yet to start my gas fireplace for any reason beyond cosmetic. I admit the climate here has greatly reduced my tolerance for extremes. I used to run daily in Washington, DC, whether in 100° F “black flag” heat-warnings or two feet of snow and ice, always in just a t-shirt (sometimes long sleeve) and shorts. Our recent visit to Panama left me seeking shelter from the tropical Sun, and our December visit to northern Italy had me shivering uncontrollably. I guess my blood has officially thinned.

Commercial development has started to spread along the carretera west of Ajijic, much like it once did east through Riberas and San Antonio Tlayacapan. There are more restaurants, shops, and services, although again they come and go without any sense of a development plan. Nothing captures this better than the sad tale of the dog shelter, which gringos requested and the local government funded the purchase of a property. Which ended up being next to several developments. Which meant 24 hour-a-day barking. Which led to petitions to move or close it. And another government effort to find a place, which apparently fell through and, well, you get the picture. One thing that has not changed is the absolute necessity of visiting a neighborhood before living here, and also looking at the land around it. Your small set of homes amidst groves could later have an auto-body shop, a dog run, and an evento (party palace) next door.

Some expats tell me the locals are starting to resent the expats for driving up prices. WalMart’s prices don’t change due to the expats, and the locals shop the tiendas, where they never pay “gringo taxes.” Expats do run up real estate prices–the gentrification problem I mentioned earlier–but that happens regardless of who is buying: Mexicans from Mexico City (Chilangos), Guadalajara (Tapatios), or expats (Gringos). The problem exists anywhere there is a desirable place to live. Regardless, everybody seems as friendly as ever, and this remains a great reason to visit or move here.

What about crime? Well, one becomes accustomed to waking to the sound of automatic weapons fire, and cordite-in-the-morning? It smells like victory! I kid of course, the only consistent noises we hear are cohetes (fireworks) and roof dogs. Nothing tells you you’re dealing with a newbie expat more than if they ask “what’s with the fireworks?” or “why are there dogs barking from rooftops?” Seriously, lakeside remains a Mexican Mayberry. We have predictable crime patterns: before Christmas, there are a raft of petty thefts and purse-snatchings, as some desperate people try to eke out some extra cash. After an election, the police are hesitant to make arrests because they don’t know how the new administration will respond. Sometimes a few new crooks come into the area and we have a string of car thefts or mustard-bandits, until they get caught. The degree of violent crime is such that no one thinks twice about walking around at night in the village. Can you do that where you live?

What do we have more of? More hospitals, clinics, doctors and dentists than you would imagine, especially since we are a short drive from Guadalajara, which is Mexico’s medical centro. We have two hospitals and a hospital-like clinic just around Ajijic. A couple more private international schools have opened, along with the existing public schools and the technology training center. More real estate firms (‘natch!). A dozen or more thrift/resale/antique shops. More Costco re-sale shops, who travel up to Guadalajara, purchase from Costco, then stock shelves locally.

Living among an aging retired expat cohort, one change is constant: good-byes. We’ve lost amigos to death, family emergencies NOB, and health issues. More newbie expats arrive than depart, and while this discomforts some old-timers, life here would be less if it was otherwise. Like the steady flow of people into the United States (I’ll write more on that in the near future), the steady flow to lakeside attests to one thing: life really is better here, if this lifestyle fits you. It sure fits us!

Domestic changes

One of the surprising aspects of expat life is the reality of having a maid, gardener, or both. North of the Border (NOB), such attendants are part of the Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous. Some others may have an occasional cleaning service, or somebody who mows the yard or cleans the pool. But full-time domestic service? No, that’s out of most people’s reach.

Down here, it’s as common as huevos con gusto. There have always been domestic services available here, as the movie Roma (2018) highlighted. Like so much else in Mexico, there was a huge, unregulated market in such work (I used the past tense purposefully there, as it’s changing, slowly). Why so many maids and gardeners? Labor is cheap in Mexico; the Mexican federal minimum wage* this year was 173 pesos per day. Yes, that’s less than $9.00 US dollars a day. Which means it is very affordable to pay someone to clean your house or tend your garden. And most expats can afford to pay much more than that minimum wage, making domestic work very lucrative for people who’s other work opportunities may be quite limited. Which in turn affects the local economy: there are maids (mainly women) who make more money than their bread-winning husbands. And gardeners (mostly men) who make as much as professional employees.

The work varies greatly. I know expats who have workers visiting two (or more) times a week, cleaning, cooking meals, doing laundry and ironing. Others simply have basic cleaning chores done. Some have live-in help, which also extends to home care for older/infirm expats (care which is much more humane and affordable than NOB). Gardeners’ work varies between seasonal plantings and topiary sculpting down to just cutting back the vines and pulling the weeds.

The relationship between the expats and their domestic workers also varies. I know of expats who become more like abuelos (grandparents) to their workers, giving them gifts and integrating into their families. I know of others who don’t make inflation adjustments or skip some mandatory payments because they know there isn’t an enforcement system. There can be trouble brewing both ways: treating employees like family or not even as fellow human beings. It’s a delicate balance and one which most expats have never faced before.

While there are management services which can do all the work of hiring and coordinating workers for expats who so desire, most manage the workers themselves. Until recently, this sector was totally neglected by the government, but now laws are pending which make it a recognized economic component and require certain workers’ rights and owners’ obligations. Such as? Workers are guaranteed vacation time/pay, a Christmas bonus, pregnancy leave of twelve weeks with full pay, and separation payment reflecting years of service. The law will require a signed contract specifying the nature, hours, and type of work, and the worker/employer will need to register with the government. The owner will submit payments to the Institute Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS) to cover eventual social security for the worker.

All of this new regulation is part of Mexico’s continuing effort to become a civil society of laws which are actually followed. Some of the rules I cited have been technically on the books, but unenforced, leaving workers no option but the largesse of their bosses. One reason why so many Mexicans work “off the books” or run small, unlicensed tiendas (shops) is that they cannot afford to pay taxes and social security and health insurance on such meager income. Of course, that also leaves the worker/owner very vulnerable to market changes, illness, old age, or even quarantine. And the Mexican government idea of a social safety net is called “la familia.”

Even if the pending changes take root and are enforced, many expats will still have maids and gardeners. They may continue to work off books, or go with those intermediate managing services which take care of all the bureaucracy. The latter will cost more, if only to keep wages the same while paying for social security and management. I would call it a classic “First World Problem,” except we’re in a developing economy. I think it’s all for the best, for the workers, for the expats, and for Mexico.

*The Mexican federal minimum wage changes annually, and there is a slightly higher wage rate for those Mexican states adjacent to the US.

She had a knee

Sports is often the location where good grammar and vocabulary go to die. I am almost certain the devolution of regardless into irregardless happened there, as well as the execrable “pro-active” (as if active is not, what, active enough?). It happens when managers, athletes (or announcers) seek to make an intelligent comment. They want to sound more refined, and it leads to atrocities against the English language. Sometimes the malaprops are humorous additions: “GI-normous” probably got started this way, as did the tendency to add the prefix “Super” to anything and everything (note, the first Super Bowl wasn’t even called that!).

When an athlete got injured, people would say “she broke a leg” or “he pulled his hamstring.” Somehow using an action verb got to be too difficult, so today they say “he has a groin” or “she had a knee” meaning not that they are in possession of such things (usually two), but that they have an injury to said part. But I’m not here to further dissect sports English (I know you’re relieved).

My dear wife Judy “had a knee.” Friends will remember (back in February) I blogged about our experience with her knee pain, visits to the doctor, MRI, Ultrasound, ultimate diagnosis (and this is a direct quote, “she’s weird” but “there is nothing wrong with her knee that we can see”) and recovery through rest and anti-inflammatory medications. Given the doctors could find nothing to operate on, she went about life as before, but any attempt at exercise met with quick pain and swelling, relieved only by rest and medication. Rinse & repeat. For weeks. We finally settled on her doing nothing but stretching and mobility exercises.

In March, while visiting our daughter in Cincinnati, Judy heard a loud “pop” in her knee (followed by a sharp pain) as she walked up the stairs. She was down for the count for several days, and only barely recovered enough to avoid a wheelchair for the return trip to Mexico. But we were facing (oft-delayed) trips to Europe, Indiana, and Oaxaca, so what to do? Judy decided to gut it out, walking as much as she could, resting when she could, and hoping to make it to July when she could go back to the doctor with the possibility of a new diagnosis.

And gut it out she did. Complaining in our family is part of the usual conversation. One is not only allowed to kvetch, one is encouraged to do so. As I learned in the Army, an officer really worries only when the troops stop complaining. But pain is entirely a different matter. We have a legendary disdain for pain. It’s not that we don’t feel it; oh, we do. It’s that we choose not to acknowledge it. My dad once fixed a dental problem at home with a rasp. My daughter once swept the floors with two broken arms (hairline fractures, but the story grows taller on down the line). I rejected twilight anesthesia for shoulder surgery as a teen so I could watch it. When I went to the emergency room for a ceramic shard stuck in the top of my foot (Safety tip: no ceramic items in the shower!), I complained that the ER doctor was “fishing around in there!” He handed me the forceps and said “then you do it.” I did. So with a lot of wincing, Judy made it to July.

Now she had swelling and pain, and the new MRI confirmed a tear in the knee meniscus. Was it always there? Probably not. Was it so small it was missed? Maybe. Most likely, it was something less than a tear that was just waiting for the right kind of motion to rip. Presto, we had a surgery date for Hospital Américas in Guadalajara.

Hospital Américas is what we would call an outpatient surgery clinic. It’s a small facility stuck between malls, hotels, and some large hospitals near the Colón glorieta in midtown. We had a 7:00 am appointment, so we stayed at the nearby Hilton Midtown the night before. We even did the day before up right by going to brunch at Porfirio’s, one of Guadalajara’s best restaurants.

Judy went in at 8:30 and was out a little after 10:00 am. Surgery went well. A stitch in the meniscus, a little shave for a ligament, a nip-n-tuck in some “clicky” tissue. We owed the hospital $11000 MXP (aapprox $550 USD) at departure, but we didn’t pay the surgeon until a few days later. His bill ran $35000 MXP or about $1750 USD. Judy is home and resting comfortably, already walking some with the help of a walker. It will take several more days for all the effects of surgery to wear off.

As the person accompanying the patient, and therefore completing all the necessary paperwork, I admit it was a bit daunting. Mexican medical bureaucracy is no different from bureaucracy anywhere: there are forms to fill out, disclaimers to sign, bills with “medicalese” to decipher, rules to comply with, and everything is in written or spoken Spanish. For example, the Hospital Américas computer system insisted Judy must have four names (as is common in Mexico), but she has only three. So they substituted my first name for her third name in the system. Does it matter? No. Was it a cause of momentary confusion? Yes. The woman in billing wasn’t sure what to do with an American credit card, so they charged me an extra 5% fee. Could I have argued about it? Yes. Was it worth it, when the alternative meant finding an ATM and taking out a wad of cash? No. In the end, we got good, friendly, and competent medical service at what I thought was a bargain price.

And Judy may be ready for the Chivas season; the way they’re scoring goals, she couldn’t hurt their chances.

Travel Tsunami

Lessons learned from our three-week excursion to France & Italy:

The days of pandemic-limited travel are over. There are a few hold-outs: China is acting like the authoritarian bully it always was, Japan is “inviting” a few tourists, and New Zealand has officially announced it is seceding from planet Earth and no longer welcomes humans. I was only kidding about that last one . . . I think.
The US administration which touted “following the science” continued to insist on masks when almost no one else did (is the EU anti-science? the WHO?). Now they have given in and removed the mask mandate for airlines and airports. But you still need to carry a mask, and sometimes wear it, although the general trend is no masks and no tests if you are vaccinated. If not vaccinated, countries either refuse entry (to tourists, mostly) or demand negative tests, which are becoming increasingly difficult to find.
The bad news is people have the itch to get out, some money and/or vacation saved from all that work-from-home, and they want to travel. Remember how the lack of available goods (supply chain disruption) sparks shortages and inflation? In the travel sector, the airlines and cruise ships and hotels and theme parks and museums and restaurants and everything else are short staffed. And they can’t surge to keep up with demand. So prices are sky-rocketing while service is dropping. Examples:
1. KLM airlines cancelled European (local) flights into its Schipol (Amersterdam) hub one weekend because it only had enough staff on hand to service international (i.e., intercontinental) arrivals! No problem for US arrivals, but your connection may have been cancelled too, since it was a local departure and there were no local arrivals!
2. Paris airport workers conducted a surprise mini-strike (due to overwork) the day we were leaving Charles DeGaulle airport (CDG), bringing it to a standstill just after we got out.
3. Museums and exhibits have limited hours and tours. Most nicer restaurants insisted on dinner reservations.

All this will get rapidly worse starting this week. There were many Americans who were afraid to travel because they were concerned they might (1) get sick somewhere else, (2) test positive before leaving and forfeit a planned vacation, or (3) test positive overseas and get stuck in a perhaps costly quarantine. This was a sizable group that was planning domestic trips in lieu of international travel, and now with $5.00 a gallon gas and no testing requirement, they will spring for the airports.
Delays and missed connections are rampant. Mexico City Benito Juarex (MEX) international airport has two seperate terminals, but they closed their luggage re-check desk for international arrivals, which meant we had to leave security, pick up our luggage and drag it to another terminal then re-check as if we just departing. We would have missed our flight, but of course, it was delayed ninety minutes too! Lines are long everywhere; Amsterdam Schipol had a six hour regular security line! For this reason, I strongly recommend availing yourself of every shortcut you can. Examples:
1. We have Global Entry (GE), which allows us to line cut both US Immigration and Customs when entering the US. One stop at a kiosk and go. GE also gives us TSA Pre-check at US airports gratis. GE costs $100 (per person) and is good for five years. It does require a short questionnaire and an interview, but unless you’re a felon or smuggled something illegally before and got caught, you will probably get approved. TSA pre-check costs $85 (per person) for five years and covers children under twelve, but does NOT get you Global Entry. Some airline loyalty programs and credit cards will reimburse you for TSA Pre-check, GE, or Clear.
2. Speaking of which, we also signed up for Clear, which is a private security program for airports, concerts, sporting events, etc. in the US. Again, it is a line-cutting program that speeds you through based on biometric data. It takes about ten minutes to sign up at the airport, costs $179 per year, and you can add three family members for $50 each (per year). These programs (GE, TSA Pre-check, Clear) work in combination. At the airport, they may have four different security lines: Regular, Clear, TSA Precheck, and TSA PreCheck with Clear. We have used the latter at O’hare (Chicago) and Hartsfield-Jackson (Atlanta), two of the world’s busiest, during peak hours. The result: no line whatsoever. We were escorted past crowds of hundreds to the front of the line and put through the “minimum security” (belt/shoes on, liquids & electronics stay in bag) lane in seconds.
3. At the very least, download the free Customs & Border Protection (CBP) Mobile Passport Control (MPC) App, which automates part of your re-entry to the US. While there were multiple options earlier, CBP now only accepts this one. It will work well and quickly, IF your arrival airport uses it and the CBP personnel are staffing it. GE costs more, but has always worked for us, and the MPC app does nothing for clearing Customs. Sometimes there are no Customs checks (honor system) when you arrive in the US, but if there are, there is no avoiding the lines without GE.
4. SIgn up for airline loyalty programs with any airline you fly. Sometimes it will get you an improved security line status. Also, ask your airline about upgrades at check in or purchasing access to priority security lines. Sometimes there are cheap upgrades or only a few dollars cost for priority security check in. It never hurts to ask!
5. Get airline lounge access. This is tricky, because lounge access can be available based on your ticket status, frequent flyer status, credit card status, or simply purchased. However, due to rising demand, airlines are starting to turn away some forms of access or limit it by number of hours or type of flight (arrival/departure). So you have to figure out what works for your travel style and price. But outside the lounges, the airport waiting areas are packed: it’s noisy, uncomfortable, and there may be nowhere to sit down. Inside the lounges, there are food and drinks, plenty of seats, showers and bathrooms and spa treatments. It’s an expensive-but-worthwhile oasis in a travel tsunami!
Book early for hotels, flights, and rental cars. Not only are prices rising well above inflation throught the peak summer months, but next Thanksgiving & Christmas will probably be the first major holidays AFTER pandemic restrictions are lifted, and everybody will be out on the move. Not only will you save money, but by waiting you risk being told nothing is available at any price!
Plan on unexpected challenges during travel days. What if your flight is cancelled (restaurants or hotels in the airport? What if anything does the airline owe you?), delayed (purchase lounge access?), or re-routed (our Air France flight MEX-CDG decided to make a refuel in Cancun!). Luggage is getting lost, flights missed, and itineraries ruined in record numbers. Just be prepared!

Patience is the order of the day. Travel was difficult-but-possible during the pandemic. If you prepare and plan ahead, you can weather the travel storm now, too.

Advice for new or aspiring lakeside expats

The gradual ebbing of the Covid pandemic, the continued retirement of the baby boomer generation, and the abiding allure of lakeside all conspire to one end: more expats are showing up once again in Chapala, Ajijic, and other communities lakeside. I realize my blog may not be the easiest to search for what I have written in the past, so I decided to recount and update my thoughts for those who are recently arrived. And here they are, in no particular order:

Expats have been coming here for decades. The first ones were real pioneers: no internet, one long-distance phone in the plaza, as many horses as cars on the streets, few imported American products, no real pizza (the horror!). So they came to a sleepy Mexican fishing village which got overrun sometimes on weekends and holidays with Tapatios (people from Guadalajara). Now it’s crowded (to them) all the time, there are Gringos everywhere, and even US-style politics intrudes. The old-timers don’t like it. Try to be understanding of them, because in many cases they can’t–or don’t want to–just pick up and move. But here and now is not what it once was, and they miss it.
Which leads to online boards and FaceBook groups. People here are friendly. People online are not. It’s a phenomenon the world over; my wife calls it “the angry guy in his underwear sitting alone at home and yelling at his computer.” Only it’s not just guys. Just like ordinary people, when alone in their cars, act outrageously because they feel anonymous, people online get snippy in ways they never would in person. So ignore them. But do learn how to search for things on whatever online source you choose before you ask the same question three-thousand gringos have asked.
Like anywhere, the cultural and political and ethnic mix at lakeside is changing. There have been past waves of arrivals: originally many artistic types, then Viet Nam vets and hippies, then baby boomer retirees and now even young families. Mexico’s middle class, a relatively recent development, is also discovering both lakeside and retirement, leading to more permanent Tapatios and Chilangos (Mexico City folks). They come for a variety of reasons, and stay for the clima (weather), cultura (friendly culture), and comida (food). All really are welcome here. Some folks still think everybody here is just like them, but that’s just because they don’t socialize widely enough. Whatever your background/interest/politics, you’ll find like-minded friends here.
All those arrivals highlight a glaring lack of infrastructure. Things like banks and hospitals and restaurants and internet service providers have grown amazingly, but water and power and roads have not kept up. Mexico is not known for its infrastructure planning, and lakeside is still peripheral enough (to government) and growing so fast as to have problems. None of these problems are catastrophic, and eventually enough Mexicans-with-connections will live here to force change. But in the meantime, your community well may run dry, or the power may be intermittent, the internet abysmally slow in the afternoon, the traffic lights un-timed. It’s Mexico’s way of telling you to slow down and enjoy the view. If that really bothers you, oh well, but don’t think you can change Mexico.
The price of things is a source of constant argument here. Not the actual price, but whether that price is cheap or expensive. If you come from an expensive city (like we did), everything is cheaper. If you come from a small town, house prices may shock you. If you insist on buying only American-branded products specially imported to lakeside, you might blanch after doing the math (as a quick rule, it’s twenty Mexican pesos to the dollar, or drop a digit and divide by two: 100 pesos becomes 10, divide by two equals five dollars). Remember, the Mexican brand may be identical, or may not, but it will always be less expensive. Expats get into endless (and in my opinion needless) arguments about whether to tip like NOB (North of the Border), or whether to support WalMart or the neighborhood tienda, or visiting the tianguis or the Gringo market. Here’s a clue: do as the Mexicans do. They don’t argue about such things. You do you. Life is hard enough that one should not waste one’s time arguing about its flavors.
Which is easy to do because the weather here is so amazing. Now those old-timers will swear it was better before, but they are getting older and more temperature sensitive. I used to run in the sleet and freezing rain NOB. After five years here, I shiver when I encounter anything below sixty degrees Fahrenheit. It happens. The average monthly temperature has not gone above a high of 87° or below a low of 41°. The rain falls mostly at night and mostly during a rainy season from June to October. We are at mile-high elevation (think Denver) and the latitude of Hawaii. This area should be a high desert plateau (like Phoenix), but the mix of the tropical latitude and lake-effect create a lush, mild, constant micro-climate. Even nearby Guadalajara is more extreme (hotter in summer, colder in winter, rainier in the season). Is it perfect? Not if you like hot humid beach weather, or Fall, or cold clean air. But it is ideal to be outside as much as you like. I tell friends that we just don’t have WEATHER here: I never think about the temperature or precipitation before leaving the casa. And even when it does get hot (never humid), it yields every night. Here’s the data:

And you can see why some expats go on vacation in May; it’s nice many other places, and it’s the only time it ever gets “hot” here

Lakeside is neither Florida, nor Arizona nor Texas. Some new expats may be fooled into thinking–by the sizable expat population–that here is much like those other places. That thinking will leave you surprised and annoyed. Mexico is a very different place: give it a chance and you may fall in love with it. But if you expect The Villages with tacos, you’ll be disappointed.
Mexicans lakeside are friendly in a small-town Mexican way. They greet strangers on the street and when entering a store or restaurant. Learn the proper use of “buenos dias, buenos tardes, buenos noches” and use it. And of course gracias and por favor. It’s not much, but it’s an attempt to accommodate yourself to the culture, and the Mexican people will welcome it.
To learn or not to learn Spanish? Another frequent expat point of debate. The old-timers didn’t have a choice: learn Spanish or be very lonely. Now there are many vendors who are bilingual, and specialists who will escort you through anything from a hospital visit to the dreaded encounter with the Mexican government bureaucracy. Mastering a new language is hard for everyone over the age of five, with the exception of a few people who have a knack. It’s especially hard for those of us getting on in years. But you should make an attempt. There are resources to help you whatever your learning style. You may never be fluent, but if you practice, you will be able to communicate, and the Mexicans you talk to will help you, and appreciate your effort.
Unlike the States and Canada, Mexico’s laws and style of regulation descend from a Spanish inheritance. I like to describe Mexican law as “the pirate code” as in, “more of a guideline than a rule.” Bureaucracy is a fine art here, and petty bureaucrats seem to enjoy being exacting. And there are ways around everything if money or connections are involved.
I think the concept of time is the single biggest difference between Mexico and cultures NOB. Life moves slower in Mexico. It’s not efficient, it’s not cost effective, but it is pleasant if you move with it. Work hours are variable. There are breaks (siestas) for naps or chores or visits with the family during the work-day. Reservations are approximate; parties start about two hours after they start, and last forever. It’s not that Mexicans are never in a hurry: watch out for Tapatios on the carretera during the weekend: driving in non-existent lanes or even on the bike path to pass traffic! It is more like if you’re NOT in a hurry, don’t BE in a hurry. You will get there when you get there; the work will get done when it gets done. This can be frustrating to type-A, can-do, “time is a-wasting,” time-is-money gringos. Learn the concept of mañana. It literally means both tomorrow and morning, but figuratively means everything from “just after midnight” to someday or even never. And that’s ok.
About that traffic. Another quick start to an expat argument is the traffic around these parts. Mention it, and old-timers will remind you when there were no traffic lights. City folk (like me) will chuckle: you call this traffic? Others lament the twenty or forty or sixty minutes to get across town . . . in a small fishing village. Here’s the thing: We have too few roads and too many cars, especially when the tourists come in for holidays and the snowbirds visit. There are no good places to put more roads. Traffic lights only work to facilitate traffic flow if (1) they are timed and coordinated and (2) people obey traffic laws. Neither happens in Mexico. So for example in San Antonio Tlayacapan, people complain and lights go in, causing back-ups, so the lights go intermittent or get taken down: rinse and repeat. Timing and Coordinating the lights? See my comment about infrastructure. Obeying traffic laws? See my comment about the pirate code. Your best bet is to slow down (unless you’re really in a hurry, and ask yourself “why?”), and either turn up your air conditioning, or roll down your windows and people watch.
Mexico is as diverse a country and culture as the States or Canada: go and visit it! There are excellent low-cost airlines and terrific interstate and intercity, cheap-but-luxurious bus lines. Drive the autopistas (toll roads called cuotas by the gringos, but that just means “tolls”), which are somewhat expensive (remembering the relativity therein) but safe and fast. Most people know the Atlantic and Pacific resorts, but there are natural wonders (Copper Canyons, Barrancas del Cobre, rivaling the Grand Canyon or Morelia for the Monarch butterflies), Colonial cities (Guanajuato, Querrétaro, Puebla), arts centers (San Miguel de Allende) and of course, the big enchilada: Ciudad de Mexico (just México to the Mexicans, which leads to all those confusing road signs and airport monitor listings). There are guided tours, or just find a gringo with more experience and travel with them. Lakeside is great, but it is even better as a base to explore everywhere else in Mexico.
Travel around Mexico? What about all the crime, the cartels, Narcos? Let’s get real. I wrote here and again here about the criminal threat to gringo expats and tourists. The gist of it is: if you don’t use, buy or sell drugs, if you don’t stay out all night partying and drinking, if you don’t flash cash or I-phones or jewelry, if you don’t get drunk in public, the chances of falling prey to the cartels is minimal. Not zero, but unlikely. Do you do those things at home? Probably not, because they are unsafe; same here. The data show Mexico is no more dangerous than Japan for American expats and visitors. If you want to be extra safe, consult the US State Department travel advisory page here. Pay no attention to the general warning (“Reconsider travel”), it is boilerplate language intended for newbie travelers who think a US passport is some kind of international travel protection. Go to the state or region page for where you want to travel, and read the section on restrictions for US governmental personnel. This highlights the specific places (like towns or roads or neighborhoods) which the US government wants its employees to avoid because there is evidence of recent violence there. They are more cautious than most visitors need to be, but it’s an excellent resource. The most common crime problems locally are petty thefts and purse snatchings. Which doesn’t make for much of a TV series.
Speaking of governments, Mexico has one, and you are not welcome to engage in its politics. The language is right there in Article 33 of the Mexican constitution. Now you would have to be a pretty big, public nuisance to warrant deportation, but Mexico is especially sensitive to foreign pressure or influence (invaded six times), so leave your political opinions about Mexico to yourself or your immediate gringo buddies. It’s only polite (educado) and Mexicans are always educado. “But wait, I’m a Mexican citizen” some old-timer will object! Ok, technically (and legally) you can vote and engage in politics, but here’s the larger point. Even if you’re a dual citizen, or here legally as a residente permanante or temporal, you’re still not a Mexican (unless you or your family was originally from Mexico, and you’re a returnee). Residente is a legal status, and remember my comment about Mexican law (it could change any old time). I’m not engaging in the favorite expat argument about whether we’re “visitors” or “residents” or “guests.” Whatever you want to call expats here, we can enjoy the culture and be welcomed into it, but we are not “of” it and never will be. It is a fact worth keeping in mind.
Some people claim to have come to Mexico to escape NOB politics; this may be true in a general sense, but I have yet to meet anyone who specifically said “if so-and-so is President, I will move to Mexico” and then done it. There is normally something else involved, and the political part is making a virtue signal out of necessity. That said, it used to be (I am told) that NOB politics rarely raised its ugly head here, but now it is much more common. Not overwhelmingly like it is NOB, but still enough to make things uncomfortable at times. Based on nothing more than opinions I have heard, expats lakeside used to be very liberal and/or libertarian, but now there is a growing number of more traditional and conservative types (I’m in the latter groups: forgive me for I have sinned). One liberal friend told me she didn’t know any conservatives locally; I re-introduced myself (much to her chagrin). My wife likes to say “you never notice us because we’re just quieter.” It’s a good thing to be politically active, to defend your ideas and support your candidate, party, or ideology back home. Just don’t be a bore. I guess I agree with the old-timers who say “if you want to be like that, stay NOB; you’ll have lots of company.”
One thing you’ll notice a lot of here at lakeside, especially during snowbird season (November-April) is Canadians/Canadiennes. Most Americans only occasionally run into people from Canada (my daughter, when young, insisted it should be called Canadia), unless you are from a border state. Down here, a significant portion of the seasonal expats are from Canada; I would estimate about forty percent. So you’ll get a chance to mingle with two different groups/cultures: Mexican and Canadian!
The reason so many Canadian expats are snowbirds is due to the peculiarities of Canada’s Health Care System, which is Provincial, and which I’m told requires some time in Canada every year. For the rest of us, it is good to know that lakeside has a surfeit of clinics, labs, and even hospitals, while Guadalajara (under an hour away) is Mexico’s center for medical training. It is easy to find a well-trained and credentialed English-speaking doctor, with a full range of services in support. Prices are much less than in the States (almost anywhere is cheaper than the States), but costs are rising as local Mexican health providers determine what price gringos will pay for health care. There is nothing unethical or sinister about that: you’re getting an excellent service customized (language, etc.) to your needs, and you can afford to pay more for it. Free Mexican health care is available and is worth the price you pay (read that twice). Take care with groups offering to bill Medicare or US health care providers back in the States: while there is some interest in the US Congress to authorize a pilot project to permit such coverage, it remains illegal as of now. There are big differences in how Mexican health care functions: what nurses do and how they are trained (more basic in my opinion), who can share health care data (my wife and I do all our visits jointly, and we own our records), and the need to pay before you leave the hospital (or you don’t get to leave). Continuing health problems remain the number one reason expats eventually return NOB.
Property and liability insurance are available just like NOB. All insurance decisions are matters of personal risk, but be aware that what is covered and how it is covered may be different here. Some expat home owners do not have property or liability insurance. Why not? For one a casa of brick and concrete is not going to burn down, and we haven’t had a significant earthquake since the nineteenth century. Another reason is Mexicans don’t rush to sue (remember the legal system?), which is also why property owners who have claims denied by insurance companies have a difficult time taking it to the courts. Yes, you must have automobile insurance, but after that it’s up to you and your personal views on risk. If you choose to get insurance, have a long talk with your agent about what is covered, what it takes to file a claim, and what are all the exceptions.
That property you may/may not insure is a key factor in whether you stay as an expat or return home. Everyone agrees that renting to experience different neighborhoods and home styles is the right way to go. We and some of our friends bought right away, but I provide this warning: trained professional on a closed course; do not try this on your own! There are simple choices you have to make about indoor/outdoor living, numbers of visitors/bedrooms, whether to walk or have a car/where to park it, whether it feels too hot or too cold TO YOU, western-exposed windows, garden/pet space, even colors vs. heat retention. You’re unlikely to get it all correct in the first try, so take your time.
Choosing a neighborhood is a fine art. Some expats head directly for gated communities called condominios. They offer better security, some rules (quiet hours, tree heights) and amenities (club houses, pools, gardening of common areas, parking), some cost-sharing and dues. Other expats, especially old-timers, deride condominios as NOB living, shorn of any contact with real Mexicans. Yet the two condominos we have lived in had as many Mexican owners as gringos. Living in the villages is an authentic expat experience, complete with cohetes, dogs, roosters, cattle, and the family next door who decides to open an evento (party-place) on weekends. Living in the village is less expensive and still nice, the condominios more comfortable to newcomers. The important thing is to know what you like before you settle in.
Some lakeside expats appear to treat trips to Guadalajara like adventures to a distant, confusing place, and try to avoid it. Or they just go to the Costco, Home Depot, or a mall (yes, they have many). I suggest visiting regularly, as Mexico’s Second City has so much to offer: museums, sports (futbol, beisbol, and baloncesto), a very nice zoo, theaters and opera and plays and restaurants! Ask friends for suggestions, get a place to stay and investigate the city; it will be rewarding.
What goes for Guadalajara goes for all of Jalisco. It’s the home of Tequila in the eponymous village, mariachi music, guachimontones (conical pyramids) and Charrería (Mexican rodeo). Jalisco is to Mexico as Texas is the United States. Jalisco is the more conservative, more Catholic heart of Mexico, with more liberal, more cosmopolitan Guadalajara as its urban center (think Austin). The things people think of as quintessentially Mexican are de Jalisco. Heck, the state’s tourism motto is “Jalisco es Mexico!”
One major difference from NOB is the police (Policia). Like up north, there are several types: municipal police, traffic police, state police, federal police, and the new Guardia Nacional. Again like up north, they have different authorities and jurisdictions. Pay is a major impediment to professionalism: the average monthly salary for a police officer in Mexico is $20,000 MXP, or about $500 USD! Some make half that. Equipment and training are spotty. There is the constant threat of drug traffickers and other criminals corrupting police either through graft or threats: “plato o plomo“, that is silver (graft) or lead (a bullet). Is it any wonder police look to petty corruption by requesting bribes for minor traffic violations? Some locals and expats swear by refusing to give a bribe, arguing it prolongs the corruption and the police will generally give in in the end. Others relate tales of cars being towed or a few hundred pesos “solving” the problem. How you choose to deal with it is up to you. For starters, don’t drive a car with foreign plates, do get a Mexican driver’s license, and learn the unique rules of the road. Many of the stories of these run-ins with police begin with not wearing a seat-belt, talking on a cell phone, having expired tags, making an illegal left turn, etc. Know what not to do and avoid the problem.
Driving need not be a nightmare. Download the Waze (pronounced Wayze in English, Wah-zay in Spanish), which marries Google maps with real time traffic/police/pothole alerts. We have navigated through backstreets and around gridlock like locals using it. Trust the Waze! Drive slower than normal, as anything can and will happen on the carretera: people and things falling out of trucks, cattle in the highway, topes (speed-bumps) without warning signs or warning signs without topes, scooters passing on any side, pedestrians scurrying across major highways (what do you think all those roadside shrines are for?), five lanes in the space marked for three, even cars coming slowly the wrong way! You name it, we’ve seen it in Mexico. Mexico uses fewer manned police speed-traps, but does make use of speed cameras which (in Jalisco) must have a warning sign placed before the camera. So there are many such signs, with fewer cameras, and one quickly learns where you need to slow down, as the cameras don’t move around very often. So yield and go with the flow, and don’t be in a hurry. And remember, if anyone is seriously hurt in a traffic accident, all the drivers involved are going first to jail until the policia determine who is at fault. So settle on the spot if you can, know the name and number of your insurance agent, and be careful out there.
How have I gotten this far and not mentioned Lago de Chapala, the lake itself? It’s beautiful and is responsible for our microclimate. Expats get into an annual argument about how clean/dirty it is. Someone drags out an environmental group’s analysis claiming it’s so polluted it’s a crime against humanity. Someone else pulls out testing data showing it’s no more polluted than most (beaches/lakes) in (California/New York). Like most things, the truth is somewhere in between. Here’s the thing: the lake is the main source of drinking water for the millions of people in Guadalajara. Yes, the water gets processed along the way, but if it was that bad to start with, there would be plenty of seriously sick people in Guad (yes, gringos call it that). Mexican sewer systems have never been designed to withstand the deluges of the rainy season, so during that season, overflow goes straight into the lake. And that means near the towns and villages there are higher, temporary concentrations of coliform bacteria (the kind that make you sick) during the rainy season. Locals know when to go in the water (they fish in it, etc.) and when not. There are marinas with sail boats, some jet-skis, and an expat kayak club. Some people avoid the water because of abandoned fences, poles, etc. that lurk under the waves; caution is advised.
In addition to the healthy climate, we have abundant, healthy fresh foods options. A friend warned me–at the start of the pandemic–that borders might be shut and food become scarce. I responded that we’re the place that sends food elsewhere, so we’ll have plenty to eat if we can’t export it! Yes, you need to wash your fruits & vegetables from the market, although some expats say they never have. And yes, sometimes a fresh salad will give you some, shall we say, digestive discomfort. But in general, you can get really fresh meat, cheese, fruits, vegetables, and of course, tortillas for very good prices (by any standard).
Speaking of food, lakeside is a veritable Epcot Center of choices. Ok, maybe a bad comparison. How about the world’s largest food court? Still not right. Suffice it to say we have an incredible number of restaurants focused on expats, and you can find almost any type of cuisine. The cautions? We have only a few amazing, high-end places. Restaurants change hours, staffs, and locations all the time. This means the restaurant that was nearby and great last month may be down this month and better again but far-away two months from now. It’s a very variable food environment, but you can get everything from pizza to sushi to BBQ to burgers to Indian to Chinese to German/French/Italian to Argentine. Even Mexican!
Expats are quite involved in the local community beyond eating out at restaurants every day. There are many clubs and too many charitable groups to name, but I know there is one that will float your boat. Get involved. Mexicans view the family as the source of charity, and that leaves many gaps, so this is a welcome way expats can bring a positive aspect of NOB culture with them.
All those charitable groups doesn’t stop there from being many people looking for donations on the street. Begging in Mexico isn’t looked down on in the way I felt it was NOB: it’s just viewed here as a fact of life. Beggars in general are not aggressive, and there is no need to fear them. Some people hang out in public places to help you back out of a parking place, or to cross the street. Others stand at topes (where traffic slows) or outside of grocery stores, selling candies or hand-made trinkets. Feel free to buy from them, give to them, or just greet them, but not judge them, por favor!
Likewise, you’ll see many street dogs or roof dogs. The latter are a form of security, as Mexicans (mostly) view dogs as working animals, not pets. The former may or may not be on their own–some locals let their dogs wander during the day. Which leads to all the dog carcasses one sees on the carretera to Guadalajara. There are very active dog (and other pet) shelters run by expats; they even export dogs to the States! But dog-lovers may find the Mexican approach to dogs (and its results) challenging.
That carretera to Guadalajara runs past our international airport, which is between lakeside and Guad and only thirty minutes away (if you drive like the proverbial bat-outta-hell). It’s officially Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla Aeropuerto Internacional, but GDL for short. You can catch non-stops to hubs at Dallas (American), Houston (United), and Atlanta (Delta), along with others to Los Angeles and Chicago. GDL is a small airport, albeit Mexico’s largest for freight. It is due for a major renovation and expansion in the next few years. As a tip, there is a secure parking lot at the airport, and other park-n-ride options near it: we used both many times with no issues.

Speaking of issues, one which always surprises new expats is noise. Mexico is a noisy country. As I write this, I’m being serenaded by gardeners employing the country’s favorite musical instrument: the leaf blower. Here it is known just as the blower, because it is used for all forms of blowing: leaves, clothes, trash, insects, animals, other blowers, or just because. Mexicans love to set off fireworks (cohetes) for any reason. Lakeside retains small farms and indigenous properties where animals live side-by-side with their owners, in the village. You’ll hear dogs (of course), roosters, birds, cows, horses and the occasional chupacabra (Ok, I made the last one up . . . I think). Locals celebrate with long and loud parties (fiestas) that may be held at an evento or at home, complete with bands and dancing and singing to the wee hours. Even Mother’s Day has a tradition here of serenading Mom by having a band play songs under her window . . .at the crack of dawn. There are laws about noise, but they are more honored in the breach. Either get used to it, buy earplugs, or get invited and join in. All three work equally well.
Finally, speaking of holidays and fiestas, here’s a tip: get a calendar, one with all the Mexican federal holidays AND all the Saints’ days. “Why?” you ask. Mexicans take their holidays seriously and they celebrate all the federal holidays, Catholic holidays, and local Saint’s days (for example, the parish’s patron Saint). If you don’t know what they are, you’ll always be the one asking “what was with all the cohetes last night?” or “where did all the traffic come from?” or “why is the street closed?” Here’s a pro-tip: for the Catholic holidays, Mexicans often practice a novena, which is supposed to be nine days of prayer and fasting leading up the the celebration of the Saint. In Mexico it has become nine days of fireworks, or bands, or whatever leading up to the Saint’s day. So also know the names of local parishes and plot the novena out on your calendar. For example, San Andrés is Ajijic’s main parish, and his feast is November 3oth. The national (Mexican) feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is December 12th. Christmas (La Navidad) is December 25th, and Three Kings’ Day (Tres Reyes, when presents arrive in Mexico) is January 6th. Plot that out on your calendar, and you’ll soon realize there are non-stop parties (and many business closures) from American Thanksgiving through the end of the NFL regular season (to use secular America holidays as an example). Consider yourself warned!

I hope you enjoyed reading this stream-of-consciousness review as much as I did writing it. As always, there are way more details hidden away in blog posts and through authoritative websites. But I hope this gives you a flavor of expat life–if you’re just considering it–or eases your arrival if you’ve already made the jump.