We’re back for another monthly update on the life and times (and finances) of Root of Good! February was a whirlwind of activity that had us out and about exploring the Raleigh area during periods of unseasonably warm weather. Then we hopped on a jet plane to go south of the border for the last half of the month. We spent a wonderful twelve days in Mexico City celebrating our fifteenth anniversary (and we left the kids at home with grandma!).
One of the magical moments in early retirement is when you head off for a couple weeks of vacation somewhere exciting and your net worth shoots way up. You don’t do a thing and you grow wealthier!
That happened for us in February. Our net worth climbed by $45,000 to $2,049,000 while we were traipsing around the woods in Raleigh and hopping on subways and eating tacos across Mexico City.
Income remained strong for the month of February at $4,430. Expenses dropped to $1,537 for the month which is somewhat surprising given we spent half the month living it up on vacation.
Let’s dive into the financial numbers for February.
Income
Investment income totaled $434 in February. Our equity mutual funds and ETFs pay dividends quarterly in March, June, September, and December so February was expected to be a low income month for our investments. Next month should bring us a few thousand dollars of investment income.
Blog income, shown as “other income” in the chart, totaled $3,197 for the month of February which is a slight improvement over January. March will be a bit lower. I’m hoping to get out a few articles in March that should lead to higher revenue in April and May. That’s really dependent on weather. If it’s nice weather I’m going outside to play, loss of revenue notwithstanding.
My early retirement lifestyle consulting income (“consulting”) remained fairly steady at $260 for the month. That represents two one hour sessions. One of the sessions turned into a two hour session and that extra hour’s worth of revenue ($120) was received in the very beginning of March. Raising rates a small amount didn’t kill the demand for consulting altogether.
Deposit income of $538 mostly came from the Ebates.com and Mrrebates.com online shopping portals (some of which was earned from you readers signing up through these links).
If you sign up for Ebates through this link and make a qualifying $25 purchase through Ebates, you’ll get a $10 gift card.
During February I also received a $5 statement credit from Chase for enrolling in paperless statements on one credit card. I love random free money!
If you’re interested in tracking your income and expenses like I do, then check out Personal Capital (it’s free!). All of our savings and spending accounts (including checking, money market, and five credit cards) are all linked and updated in real time through Personal Capital. We have accounts all over the place, and Personal Capital makes it really easy to check on everything at one time.
Personal Capital is also a solid tool for investment management. Keeping track of our entire investment portfolio takes two clicks. If you haven’t signed up for the free Personal Capital service, check it out today (review here).
Tracking spending was one of the critical steps I took that allowed me to retire at 33. And it’s now easier than ever with Personal Capital.
Expenses
Now let’s take a look at February expenses:
In total, we spent $1,537 during February which is almost $2,000 less than our target spending of $3,333 per month (or $40,000 per year). The top expense categories for February were travel and groceries like most months. We travel a lot and you gotta eat, right? Priorities!
Detailed breakdown of spending:
Travel – $390:
The biggest travel expense was our in-country spending for our twelve day adults-only trip to Mexico City. We spent $310 for all food, drinks, groceries, entertainment, ubers, subways, and local and intercity bus and train tickets for the two of us.
We had already booked the airbnb apartment for about $780 back in December. Flights were free with frequent flyer miles from Jetblue and Southwest (plus about $100 taxes per round trip ticket, also paid in previous months).
Airbnb plays a huge role in keeping lodging expenses moderate when we travel. Save $40 off your first Airbnb stay with my airbnb referral link.
Mexico is incredibly inexpensive, especially if you can speak Spanish (I try!). The subway is $0.25 for any distance including unlimited transfers. The train that goes to the very edge of town is $0.15. Local buses are $0.15 to $0.30. The one hour bus ride to the major ruins, Teotihuacan, is $2.50 each way.
We also Uber’d all over the city for short and long rides. Short rides of a couple miles were $2. Trips between the airport and downtown were $5-6. We took a 30 minute ride home from the suburbs during rush hour for $5.
Sometimes we’d take the subway, bus, or train for the long journey across town for mere pennies and then pay $2 for an uber the last mile or two to our final destination. This “public transit plus short uber” trick came in handy when:
- we didn’t feel like walking
- the area is known to be relatively unsafe
- public transit is forecast to be faster than getting stuck in traffic in an uber
I’m a transportation nerd so I managed to figure a lot of this out on the fly. I just read that Lyft does some public transit+rideshare trip planning already in certain geographic areas and they hope to roll this out across the country (world?) eventually. How cool is that?
If you’re not already using Uber or Lyft, check them out on your next trip (and use those links for free rides to get started).
Food in Mexico was also rather inexpensive. We ate out for almost every meal. Prices start at $1-2 per meal for street food. At a sit down restaurant we typically paid $2.50 to $7 per meal which often included a beer and a bottle of water or juice. The most expensive restaurant we visited was a whopping $8.50 each! We spent roughly $9 per person per day on dining out plus about $40 on groceries.
The remaining $80 in travel spending in February was the passport renewal fee for our six year old. Child passports are crazy expensive at $115 total and they expire after five years. Fortunately, it’s in the travel budget to cover these “hidden” costs of traveling with kids.
If you want to score some free travel from credit cards, there are several cards currently offering 50,000 points or more. These points can be redeemed for $500 cash or $500+ in free flights or hotel stays. Compare travel credit card deals.
Groceries – $370:
We spent less in February because us adults weren’t at home half the month!
The kids stayed at our house with my parents while we were gone. The kids consumed all the food we left for them (even some vegetables!).
Looking back on things, grocery spending in January was probably a little higher than normal simply because we were gathering supplies to leave for the kids.
Healthcare/Medical – $338:
Our new 2019 healthcare premiums are $31 per month thanks to very generous Affordable Care Act subsidies that we receive due to our low ~$40,000 per year Adjusted Gross Income.
The remaining healthcare cost for the month was a diagnostic test for me that was mostly a precaution (everything is “mostly normal” per the doctor). I hit my deductible due to this test and I’m about $250 from my out of pocket max for the year. Further healthcare spending for me, if any, will be limited.
The diagnostic test was an interesting exercise in cost savings. I shopped it a bit and found the same test costs $1500 at one place and $500 at another place. I called my doc to see if they cared which place did the test and they didn’t have a preference. So I saved myself $250 in coinsurance (I would have hit the max out of pocket of $600) and I saved the insurance company $750 in the process.
It took an hour or two of phone calls to track down what the specific procedure costs at two different offices. I suppose $125-250 per hour is a decent after tax hourly rate for my efforts. The insurance company website was shockingly helpful at tipping me off to the potential cost savings (good job Blue Cross Blue Shield!). The difficult detective work came from needing to verify the accuracy of the insurance company’s price data.
Clothing/shoes – $194:
I bought a $208 Walmart gift card at Raise.com at a discount and paid $194 total. I made the Raise purchase through ebates for another 1% cash back.
The ladies of the house are planning an epic summertime clothing shopping spree to gear up for our big Southeast Asia trip and I expect they’ll spend most or all of the Walmart gift card. Fortunately I have been asked to stay at home for this particular shopping spree.
Utilities – $171:
The natural gas bill was $126 which covers heating and hot water. This is a lower than average wintertime natural gas bill. Global climate change adding extra pocket change for us this month! March is cold so far so it will probably erase all those gains…
I paid $45 on the water bill. I had a small credit balance due to pre-paying the water bill in past months to meet the minimum spending requirements for credit card sign up bonus offers.
The electric bill still has a positive credit balance so I paid nothing toward it in February.
Gas – $37:
We refueled the minivan in February.
Entertainment – $20:
I bought a good quality used Playstation 3 controller from a friend for $20. I could have purchased it online slightly cheaper but there are a lot of counterfeit “genuine Sony” video game controllers on the market. And I didn’t want to get a third party controller that might not work as well as a genuine Playstation controller. So I decided to go with a trusted source for a genuine used controller. It’s working great so far!
Cable/Satellite – $15:
$15 for one month’s internet bill. We qualify for a local reduced rate package due to having a lower income and having kids. 30 mbit/s download, 4 mbit/s upload.
Restaurants – $4:
I categorized all the restaurant meals we ate in Mexico as “travel” expenses so they are not included in this “restaurant” section.
The $4 restaurant expense incurred in February was beef lo mein take out from a local Chinese restaurant. The Chase Pay app had a $5 off promotion that I used on the purchase.
We also got some free food:
Total Spending in 2019
By the end of February we were already $2,000 under the $6,667 we budgeted for two months of our $40,000 annual early retirement budget.
It’s looking good so far!
We do have two big trips coming up soon that will require some spending on transportation, food, and incidentals:
- April finds us on a week long cruise to several Caribbean islands including Cuba and Cozumel in Mexico
- In June we depart for eight weeks of adventuring in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand.
The big ticket items like cruise fare, plane tickets, and lodging are all paid in full for these two trips.
Long term, we’re starting to think more about college costs for our two kids that are four to five years away from college. We have roughly $45,000 in dedicated 529 accounts for the two of them and are hoping we will get some need-based or merit-based scholarships to help defray the cost of college.
Monthly Expense Summary for 2019:
- January – $2,937
- February – $1,537
Summary of annual spending from all years of early retirement:
- 2014 – $34,352
- 2015 – $23,802
- 2016 – $38,991
- 2017 – $31,708
- 2018 – $29,058
- 2019 (so far) – $4,473
Net Worth: $2,049,000 (+$45,000!!!)
Another great month. We mostly ignored our portfolio as we bummed around town and then jetsetted off to somewhere warm and tasty. What do you know? The portfolio went up $45,000. I’ll take that win.
We are way up from where we were five years ago when we started this whole early retirement journey and feeling pretty flush with cash. The funds in the portfolio are more than enough to fund our meager $30,000 to $40,000 per year average spending and the portfolio continues to grow long term. It’s unlikely we’ll ever run out of cash in early retirement.
After an ugly December that saw us lose more than $100,000 in a single month, these past two months of positive gains have been comforting. Will see more volatility like we saw in December?
Yes, eventually.
When?
No clue, friends! If I knew that I’d still be working at my multi-billion dollar hedge fun collecting my 2%+20% fees year after year.
Coming up during the next month I hope to publish a more in depth trip summary from our recent Mexico trip since so many people have already asked me about it.
Until then, have a good month and best of luck on your own financial independence journey!
Anything big going on in your life or finances this month? Got your taxes done? Ready for Spring to arrive?
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I am interested to know what internet package you found based on income? I make 40,250 per year and am saving while paying off large medical bills. My children are all out of the house so am finally making strides for financial security. Was a single mother for almost 20 years raising 4 children and supporting my mother on 13k to 25k per year.
Love your blog. Am new to it via Financial independence on Reddit. A great community!
P.S. I lived in Raleigh for 8 years and am now back in Cary to be nearer to my elderly mother.
Thanks for your encouraging model of frugality.
I think it is called “Spectrum Assist” and it’s $14.99/month (no extra fees). I believe they had several ways to qualify for it but don’t recall the details since I applied almost 2 years ago and haven’t needed to recertify anything regarding income. Give them a call!
I would love to see the Mexico City summary. It’s such a beautiful country down South and with some of the best food in the world but it seems like 90% of travel down there from the US is to a beach on the Yucatan? Also that’s a crazy amount of mangos!? Seriously, are your kids orange? Thanks for sharing
Yes, most tourists hear “Mexico” and think the only places worth visiting are Cancun area or the Baja Peninsula. Maybe Puerto Vallarta. But there are so many cool places to explore in the central highlands part of Mexico too. And I think the weather is way better (less humidity and nice temps year round).
As for the orange kids – they might be. They certainly ate enough mangoes to make them so!
Hi Justin,
Great update as always. I’m amazed of your low expense ratio every month. Don’t you have any housing costs? Even if a house is completely paid off we still have to pay some taxes to live in our own home here in Denmark.
Hi Jorgen,
I am not positive about where RoG lives, but where I live in the US property taxes (usually 1-2% of a property’s value) are due twice per year, although some people with mortgages pay them monthly through their mortgage companies. I would suspect you’d see those expenses on either an April or a December expense report.
Charles
And it’s worth noting that property taxes vary a lot across the US based on home prices: $150-200k in the cheaper parts and easily $500,000 to $1,000,000 for nothing particularly special in higher cost cities.
And it varies based on tax rates. We pay around 1% of house value annually in Raleigh but some states are less while others are 2-3% of value (Texas). It’s set at the local level in general and the taxes pay for city parks, schools, local police, fire department, and things of that nature.
$9000/yr on a $300k house in Batavia, IL. Great schooos, great community, crazy taxes. 10ueaes til the kids are done with school and we are out.
Yes, we still have several thousand dollars in housing expenses each year. Annual property tax is due in January each year and that’s $1600 per year for us. Maintenance and improvements usually cost another $1-2 thousand per year. Insurance is $600 or so.
Hey Justin,
Well if you remember I told you I was going to start my blog about renting properties at Snowshoe, and I have done a couple posts so far. It keeps me in the game and watching my expenses. The properties’ income has been great so far.
I am going to use one of your ideas for installing laminate flooring from Sams Club at one of my rental properties. I was going to log into my American Airlines shopping portal and go to Samsclub.com, then I was going to purchase the flooring using my credit card linked to my Dosh account (https://link.dosh.cash/KEVINS254)referral link. AA shopping portal gives me 1 or 2 miles per dollar spent at Sams Club thru the portal then my Dosh linked AAmerican card gives me 2% back at Sams Club then the Dosh linked AA card also gives me 1 mile for every dollar spent. Get all this free stuff for something I had to buy anyway. 🙂
Our big trip is coming up at the end of the month leaving on Transatlantic 14 night cruise from Miami to Rome. We are looking forward to relaxing for 14 nights on the ship and eating like a king and queen.
Question about your Mexico City trip? Did you feel worried about the crime there or getting robbed? I have never been to Mexico City but want to go, but all the talk about crime there scares me!
Kevin
Nice way to stack up the rewards!
I don’t worry too much about the crime there other than taking ordinary big city precautions like be aware of your surroundings, confident body language, don’t have $ and phone in your pocket when getting on a crowded subway, etc. There were 2 areas where we were careful due to them being listed as “higher crime” but we didn’t feel like they were any riskier just by looking at them. We took an uber in those areas to get from subway to destination just so that we could avoid walking a mile through what would have been a slightly higher risk of crime area.
And let’s face it – there’s a ton of violent crime in the US, especially in some cities, and I’ve visited those places too!
Isn’t Mexico great? Going there with the family for a week this month as well. As for the race boats, I do that with the kids all the time and they get a kick out of it. I remember doing that with my dad too. The simple things…
Enjoy Mexico!
Good Morning Justin,
I’ve been reading this updates for about two years and I really enjoy them! Every time I come here I am reminded I can be more a little more frugal. I am very happy to see you and the wife getting away together. The tacos look fantastic! I’ve been to Mexico a few times, but I’ve never visited Mexico City. I hope you include some pictures of the inside of the airbnb when the post goes up. That view is great! Did you find most people speaking English to you?
I am struggling up here in Pennsylvania with the cold weather. I’m glad you all had some warm days down there in the Raleigh. My finances were good for the month, hopefully I don’t dip down past 400,000 ever again. I hope you never dip down past 2 mill either :).
I also am working my way through the ChooseFI podcast and just listened to your episode. Now I read these post and I hear your voice!
– Ryan
P.S. Where do you pick up mango by the case?
Gotta visit Mexico City. And yes, I have a few pics of the inside of the Airbnb for the article. One of the nicer places we’ve stayed for sure and only $68/nt (which isn’t particularly cheap by Mexico standards but a nice luxury).
Most people spoke Spanish down there but honestly I didn’t try to speak English hardly at all, so I can’t accurately gauge how many people spoke English. Probably a few in the most tourist-traveled areas but otherwise I think it’s mostly Spanish.
Mangoes in the pics were from Aldi or Lidl here in Raleigh. I can’t recall how much but usually .49 to .69 each when on sale. And these were GOOD and huge!
Haha that Sheets “monster” cracked me up
Sounds like another great month. Net worth moving further into multi-millionaire territory and away from meager millionaire 🙂
Will be watching very closely what college ends up looking like for your daughters. Best of luck!
Oh man, I just ate another Sheetz monster today! They keep sending me free sub coupons and it’s a nice 4 mile round trip bike ride up there so a nice little field trip for me!
I’ll be watching the college costs very closely, too. So far it’s looking pretty decent and we’ve saved quite a bit in 529s for the older 2 🙂
Nice month! It’s always a great feeling to do “nothing” and know you got richer 🙂
Looking forward to that vacation post as Mexico City is definitely some place I want to go in the near future!
Yeah, it’s a good feeling. Shoving tacos and churros in my mouth, sitting in coffee shops chilling, and gaining $1-2k/day in net worth!! Magical stuff.
Those tacos look awesome. Food in Mexico is a great deal especially if you aren’t squirmish about street food. The income looks great. Nice job. My blog income dropped a lot this year. That’s not good, but it happens. Oh well…
We spent most of February moving and fixing up our old place to sell. That’s done so March is much more relaxing. Our housing cost should drop quite a bit too.
We had no problem with street food but followed a few rules of thumb to mitigate risk. Mainly try to visit the busy places. I think I’ve had food poisoning or some other possibly-not-food related illness 3x in Mexico and it’s always been regular restaurants or an in-home meal when I was staying with a family for study abroad. That’s spread across many months of living/traveling down there and not cooking for myself most of the time.
Great, detailed post outlining income/expenses. It offers great comparison for self reflection. ALl of those posts of food made me really hungry though….
Good food will do that! 🙂
I feel like I wouldn’t know the safe places in Mexico City to make it work. It looks fantastic though.
We’ve got a 2-week trip in March. Keep your fingers crossed that our net worth goes up $45,000. It will take a good rebound from this job report and some real estate jumps.
It’s a little tricky re: safety/security since we didn’t really know the local areas either. US Dept of State travel advisories are somewhat useful but not very granular once you’re on the ground. Basically use common sense and if it feels sketchy then GTFO. Also possible to ask a local or at your hotel, or airbnb host if they would travel to a given area. In general the tourist areas are safe enough all over. The dangerous places don’t have a lot to offer to tourists but there are some notable exceptions.
I recognize the area where you took the picture on Avenida Juárez; the building should be close to the Hilton Hotel and a Santander Bank. I don’t know if you have one in Raleigh. If you do, it’s a great way to withdraw pesos from their ATM. If you have an account, you can withdraw pesos, charge-free, from the ATMs in Mexico. You can’t use the actual bank, just the ATMs, but we have had a great experience. That way we have cash on hand (street food, vendors, etc.), but can withdraw small amounts as needed. I love the Centro HIstórico!
Yes, that’s the exact location where we stayed. Hilton was 1-2 blocks west of us and I think I remember the Santander branch you’re referencing. We actually had an ATM in the 1st floor of our apartment building and the charge was just under $1. We have the Fidelity ATM card and they reimburse ATM fees anyway so we didn’t worry too much about the fees (Schwab also offers one of these).
I usually get out a small amount of cash at a time and get it frequently. Much better than ending up with $100-200+ in local currency and having to pay to convert back to USD or hold on to it as inflation erodes the value. In Czech Republic we were getting $8-10 at a time from the ATMs in some cases since we were only there for a week!
I always love your travel updates so I look forward to hearing about Mexico City. But I was wondering if you might tell us sometime about the places you go in your local area. Your photos of the parks and trails look fantastic, and for those of us who aren’t likely to hop on a plane any time soon but might manage trips to neighboring states, it would be great to get some local guidance. I have been to the NC beaches a couple times but never to the inland areas. You obviously have great outdoor and other “travel” opportunities close to home, and I would love to hear more about them.
Thanks always for the great inspiration and food for thought!
That’s a good idea! I’ll see if I can pull together a “Guide to Raleigh” type of blog post at some point. I’d love to share my local favorite places to visit!
We loved Mexico so much that we stayed there for 3.5 months very recently. We agree that it is pretty inexpensive compared to the USA. I’m looking forward to reading your upcoming update about Mexico City and I am curious to compare if you favorite spots / activities match ours that we documented on our blog (https://www.nomadnumbers.com/cost-of-our-nomad-living-in-mexico-city/).
And it seems that you guys are back to Mexico in April. Does this means more delicious tacos for you guys? 🙂
We’ll only be returning for a few brief hours when we go back in April since it’s a cruise. I doubt we’ll eat anything while off the ship given the unlimited quantities of generally delicious food on board. But you never know! We might find some Mexican snacks/treats to buy and bring those back home for future consumption.
Another great month. I’m about to buy your consulting services but first I’d like to know if you’d be able to give advices for non-standard investor like me which is a US-resident not a citzen and I plan on moving out of the US in 5yrs so IRA/401k and many strategies and tax advices would be different for me. Do you think you’re up for this challenge? Thanks
International taxation is a weak point for me unfortunately. I’m not really sure how the US tax strategies would combine with the taxes in your country of citizenship (or future residency, as the case may be). I could help if the scope of the engagement is limited to US tax strategies, saving, investing, expenses, general FIRE stuff, etc.
Can’t wait to read the Mexico City blog post. I went a few years ago and stayed with a friend in the Foreign Service stationed there. It was really charming. Surprisingly chilly, given the altitude.
I’m on a family trip right now in Puerto Rico staying in an Airbnb. Walking distance to the beach and also our own pool in the back has been great for my littles.
Puerto Rico sounds nice! We looked at that as a destination for our big summer beach trip in 2017 but Bahamas won out.
Looking forward to reading more about your family’s travels this year!
We are late 20s couple with a young family still on the road to FI. (Paying off PPOR first)
Cool! Looking back, we didn’t travel nearly as much when the kids were very young. Accidental way to save money (on travel at least!).
Hi Justin – great to see the bounce back in the stock market the first two months of the year.
I am just curious to see if you have a net worth target for the end of the year? Or do you just want to ensure that your income is greater than your expenses each and every month?
Thank you.
No, no specific net worth target for year end. Just going with the flow 🙂
I don’t even try to peg my spending to my income either. Income just happens to be more than expenses most months. My key metric is keeping spending around $40,000 or less per year. In general. Though we can spend more right now while I have income from consulting and my blog. As the portfolio goes up, we know we can spend more $ if we want to.
Hi Justin,
It’s great to see you enjoying yourself in Mexico. It’s awesome to see that you have upcoming holiday schedule later in the year. This goes to show that life is not about full-time employment. Early retirement can be achieved with prudent planning and execution.
I look forward to seeing more updates from you.
WTK
Thanks! We’re excited about the upcoming trips!
Enjoy your updates and they are a reminder that with a little effort you can do a lot of things without spending too much. Restaurants, fast food, pizza places etc are always sending out coupons and having specials (BOGO) so many times you can enjoy that for much less. Plus, I try to get a discounted gift card or use my credit card for extra savings.
Good point. We get free/discounted food pretty often from places with discounts. And the gift card trick is a favorite too. And one you can combine with coupons/discounts/promos!
The monthly update is one of my favorites.
I like your pictures a lot.
Have you planned your Trip to South-East-Asia already, which City you wil stay and which Country or is it in Planning?
The cities/countries are all planned. Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand spread across 8 weeks.
Finally some taco pictures! I’ve been waiting for those since you announced the Mexico trip!
Incredibly low spending as usual Justin! — Great job!
Were the kids bummed out about not going to Mexico? I bet they were! The misses and I are going on our first trip without the kids this summer, and I can’t wait. The first in 5 years! 🙂
They were a little bummed to not go. But they understand they have school. And that we need to have the occasional solo trips to party! 😉
We brought back a ton of Mexican candy and cookies so at least they got to experience their favorite part of traveling abroad. Eating good stuff!
Justin- Question on CHIP/ACA Math
I’ve been looking at the Kaiser calculator, and it shows at 199% of FPL (Family of 3), kiddo is eligible for CHIP.
If kiddo is eligible for CHIP, do I now need to calculate for a family of 2 for ACA rates/subsidies? 199% FPL for family of 2 vs. 3 is ~$8k.
Pretty sure household size is household size, regardless of where some of those household members get health insurance. So you’ll still use 3 for HH size even if kiddo goes on CHIP/Medicaid.
My wife and I really enjoy Mexico, specifically the Playa del Carmen/Riviera Maya area (we spent our honeymoon there). However, when you say “Mexico is incredibly inexpensive, especially if you can speak Spanish (I try!)” what do you mean? Food? Transportation? Thanks.
Food and transportation. And lodging if you were trying to negotiate lower rates at a smaller hotel.
The food – you can more easily visit restaurants with Spanish only menus (lower prices, better food). And ask questions about what specific dishes include. And recognize names on the street food signs. So we’re eating for a buck or so at the street food vendors or $5 at the Spanish language menu places whereas the English-only tourists pay $10/meal at the restaurant with the English language menu. Or even simply asking for the best local place for X food item. Hard to do if you can’t understand the responses you get!
Transport – we’re fine taking local buses/trains/metro for $.20-.25 or so but we can manage to ask where the stop is, how to connect to a different route, directions, etc. Uber is super cheap ($2-10 to pretty much anywhere in the city) but the local transit is even cheaper.
With google translate it’s easier than ever to “go local” but I definitely feel like knowing the language helps save $.
This may not be as applicable to Playa del Carmen/Tulum/Cancun tourist areas since everything is more expensive there than outside the tourist area or in other cities. And at least in Cancun tourist zone, everyone speaks English already!
“So we’re eating for a buck or so at the street food vendors or $5 at the Spanish language menu places whereas the English-only tourists pay $10/meal at the restaurant with the English language menu…This may not be as applicable to Playa del Carmen/Tulum/Cancun tourist areas since everything is more expensive there than outside the tourist area or in other cities.”
Makes total sense. Thank you. We are currently looking into another trip to Mexico with our two kids and want an authentic trip, so we’ll be looking to venture out of the more popular tourist areas.
We greatly appreciate all that you share on your site: travel, food, fun, and finance!
You’re welcome. Enjoy Mexico next time around!
Glad you enjoyed your time in Mexico! We absolutely loved the 0.25 cent subway tickets too. So easy to get around. Only downside is that the food easily made me gain 5-10lbs withinin a month. Had to do a ton of swimming to work it off. I suspect it’s because Mexican food has a ton of starch and not so much fresh veggies.
When in June exactly are you heading to SE Asia? I realized I can leave a bit later than originally thought so our timelines might overlap if you are there during the first week of June.
I think I kept even on weight or maybe even lost a pound or so. Not for lack of trying to eat everything though! We didn’t drink more than a half beer each per day and avoided the tequila. And breakfasts were fresh fruit and maybe a little pastry or yogurt. Definitely better eating than on the cruises where everything is unlimited all day!
We’ll be in Hong Kong for 1 day then Vietnam the last half of June, Cambodia in 1st half July and Thailand the rest of the time until mid-August. Not sure if that’ll line up with your schedule, but would love to see you guys if so!
Great cost of living in Mexico. I’ve traveled through Central America and enjoyed seeing the different lifestyles. I’m still on my way to FI but I’m excited to have travel opportunities along the way.
Haven’t spent much time in the rest of Central America but someday we’ll make it happen!
Do you have a post that says which index funds you invest in? Thanks.