In this video, we’ll be discussing something very important you need to know if you plan on moving to Mexico, and particularly Guadalajara: cost of living in Guadalajara. We’ve been getting lots of questions from the community and the top question is all about cost of living. So in the video, we’ll be breaking down exactly what everything costs in Guadalajara.
Moving to Mexico Resources Mentioned In This Video:
- Download our free Moving to Mexico guide here.
- Want to run your online business on autopilot so you can travel the world? Download a free guide with our favorite automations here.
Cost of Living In the U.S. vs Mexico
A recent study by SmartAsset broke down the cost of living per state in the U.S. In California, where Justin is from, a family with two adults and two children needs an income of nearly $277,000 to live comfortably.
Another study showed that in Florida, where Amanda is from, metropolitan areas are seeing rents of an average of nearly $3,000 per month.
With rising cost of living in the U.S. and Canada, both Americans and Canadians are looking for a higher quality of life that won’t cost them as much money, hence a lot of them are moving to Mexico.
Cost of Living in Guadalajara
For what it costs to pay rent in Florida, two people can pay for their entire lives far beyond the basics by moving to Mexico. At that price, we are in a large house, have private healthcare, a cleaning lady, a massage therapist that makes house calls, eat out all the time, and daily meals prepared and delivered to our house. If you were to do that in the United States, it would easily be well over $10,000 a month.
So let’s break this down by category. For explicit details and resources, make sure to watch the video.
Housing: Roughly $1000 USD depending on the exchange rate for a three story house.
Healthcare: Private insurance can run you about $100/mo. For out of pocket expenses, you’re looking at a $4 USD trip to the pharmacy for minor issues. To see a specialist, will run you about $40 to $50 USD and both eye care and dental work are about a third of the price of what you pay in the U.S. The peace of mind that comes from not going bankrupt when you get sick: priceless.
Cell Phones: Our Mexican cell phone plan costs around $15 USD per month and has unlimited calls and texts between the U.S., Mexico and Canada. It also has data for when we visit the U.S. For our U.S. number, we switched to a prepaid plan with an e-sim and only pay about $10 a month. If you need to travel overseas, you can get e-sims from GigSky for $25 to $30 USD per month and you’ll get an e-sim that works in the country that you are in.
Internet: Because we work from home, we have two internet service providers so we always have a backup. Both together are about $100 USD per month. We also have a Starlink as a backup or for when we travel to more remote locations.
Vets: On average veterinarian visits for our dog and cat have cost around $30 USD. Sometimes it’s higher depending on what they need to do. For example, a blood panel is $100 USD.
Food: Food is very cheap in Mexico. We get most of our meals prepared and delivered to the house which is currently costing around $400 USD per month. In the U.S. we have friends paying close to $800 a month just for groceries. If we were to go out, we can get meals for as little as $5 per person and of course, there are inexpensive tacos everywhere.
Electricity: We’ve been living in Guadalajara together for about a year and have just experienced the hottest summer on record. That means, we were using our mini splits and using more electricity. Our bill for two months only came out to $100 USD. Granted, Guadalajara is typically cooler than other parts of Mexico so take that into consideration when calculating living costs of moving to Mexico.
Moving to Mexico Makes Financial Sense
As you can see, moving to Mexico makes a lot of financial sense to most Americans and Canadians. The peace of mind that comes from knowing your basic needs are covered at a fraction of the cost of what you were paying before, is priceless.
Of course, this all varies according to exchange rates. At the time of writing this, we are at about $18.50 MX$ for every USD so obviously, the dollar goes a lot further. However, since so many foreigners are moving to Mexico, costs are going up so that’s something to be aware of.
In case you are curious, we did another video on how the Mexican Peso has been performing against the USD which you can find here.
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