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Cost of Living in Loreto and La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico
Cost of living in Baja, Loreto, and La Paz
My answer is CHEAPER in the Baja as can be seen by the details below. Please take into consideration that the cost of living in the US will differ significantly from Us region to US region. For instance, it costs 6 times more money to live in Manhattan New York or San Marino California than it does to live in a suburb of Atlanta Georgia or Kentucky or Nebraska. I am going to take a moderate point of view and compare the US cost of living in a very average older 3 bedroom $400,000 home in an average Orange County California town and compare that to Loreto cost of living in Baja California Sur, Mexico in a new two bedroom 900 sq. ft. Mexican home on a 5,000 sq. ft. lot with underground water and sewer and above ground electricity and phone service and propane gas. Family of three.
Cost of Living in Mexico (see more specific details below) for the common consumer necessities such as telephone, gasoline, electricity, water, propane gas (instead of natural gas) will be 25% - 50% cheaper. Food will be 30% cheaper. Property taxes will be 95% less. Maintenance repair labor for auto and home repairs will be 80% cheaper as maintenance labor is 10 times cheaper in Mexico. Parts cost will be the same, but they will try to get you used parts from an auto junk yard to save a few bucks. The cost of the house (not beachfront property, that is) will be 70% cheaper and the property tax is 95% cheaper (the property tax for a $100,000 home is $61 per year!). See details below.
Cost to maintain a vacation home in the Baja. If you use a house as a vacation home only, then the monthly cost to maintain the home would be $7 for minimum electricity service (electricity is about 3 to 4 times cheaper in the Baja: a Kilowatt hour is about $.06 USD in Mexico and about $.20 USD in the USA) and $6 for minimum water and sewer service, $5 for property tax. Let’s see, that’s $18 per month or an annual cost of under $216 US to maintain a house in absentia. Worth it! Also, if anything goes wrong in the US and you need a place to live that no one in the USA can take away from you, you’ve got a great safety net in the Baja.
Food. If you cooked all your meals at home, food would cost about $250 for a family of three per month, including drinking water. For a family of three, drinking water is about $10 a month as it costs about $1.25 for five gallons. Eating out would be extra. Fresh fish is about $2.00 to $3.00 US per lb. and so is the beef and pork. Chicken is about $.95 per lb (the chicken in Mexico is discernably more tasteful than in the US). Fruits, vegetables and dairy are about 30% cheaper in the Baja. Dry goods and canned goods are about the same as in the USA.
Gasoline would be about $30 per month for a Chevy Suburban. Gasoline today is about $7.40 pesos per liter which is about $.50 US and that translates to about $1.94 per gallon for regular unleaded. Your expenditure for gasoline will be low because, well, you won't be driving very far. Loreto is about 1.5 miles square and La Paz is about 8 miles square, if that. You won't have to travel very far for anything.
Utilities. Monthly utility expenses for a family of three would be about $70 a month. $15 for propane gas and about $20 electricity. Plumbed water would be about $10 per month. You buy drinking water from the store along with your food. If you use cell phones for phone communication (which everyone does as land lines are used primarily by businesses), it would cost about $.13 US per minute for local calls under a prepaid minutes plan. Plans differ. My plan costs only $.79 for each call to the USA under fifteen minutes and $.13 per minute for local calls. The local residents all use cell phones and they keep there calls short. If you are smart, your local calls shouldn't cost more than $25 per month.
Household Repair and Auto Repair. This is where we Americans make out like real bandits. Manual labor and skilled labor in Mexico is about 10 times cheaper in the Baja. Auto repairs and maintenance are much cheaper as is household repair as labor rates are really low compared to the labor rates in the USA. For instance, manual repair and upkeep labor is about $400 pesos for a day's work. At an exchange rate of 14 that is about $28.50 US dollars per day or roughly $3.60 USD per hour. The labor rates to get your car fixed are not much higher than that. For menial unskilled labor, the rates are even cheaper than $3.60 per hour. At the local hardware store, I talked to a clerk who said he worked 12 hours per day for 6 days a week and got take home pay of $170 US dollars every two weeks. You can get skilled handyman labor for $3 to $6 per hour including semi-skilled construction workers.
Medical and dental insurance together is $150 to $300 per year per person and includes cost of prescribed medications. If you have to buy prescription medications, they are about 50% of what they cost in the US and for most of it, you don't need to pay for a doctor's visit because you don't need a prescription in Mexico for most common US prescribed medicines.
Auto Insurance. I pay $170 US per year for my four-wheel drive SUV.
The internet and Satellite TV are cheaper in Mexico. Satellite dish TV is about $30 per month. Most people use a phone modem for the internet, so the internet connection would be the same in Mexico as in the US using a phone modem.
Entertainment, well, very reasonable. Just the cost of margaritas ($2.00 US), cervezas ($1.50 US) and dinner out ($6 to $12 US). The cost of living in La Paz as it is affected by the low cost of entertainment and eating out. That is even more true for Loreto. You won't be spending $200 per person for concert tickets. No fancy concert venues. Nor will you be spending $65 per person eating dinners at Mortons or Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. You won't be spending $700 to get away for a weekend because you are already "away". You can go to a cantina for cocktail hour, but you will spend only 50% of what Dave and Busters or B & J's would cost you in the US.
Cocktail Hour. Actually, it's fun to stock your own bar at home and invite people over. Hard liquor and beer are cheaper at the local stores in Mexico. You can impress the locals with your knowledge of TGIF and Claim Jumper cocktail recipes. Let's face it, no one lives very far away from each other. Loreto is about the size of Dana Point and La Paz is about the size of Newport Beach. Also, since Loreto is 2 miles long and 1 mile wide, you can have your gas guzzling Suburban four-wheel drive since you are not going to drive more than five miles a day. Also, in the Baja, who needs Gucci shoes, Armani suits, Florsheim shoes, or styled hair? They don't have a Snowstorm's there.
Airfare can be cheaper if you live within driving distance to the Mexican and US border crossing. I drive to San Diego and leave me car in a very safe and secure San Diego overnight border parking lot, $8 per day. I walk across the border and take a taxi to the Tijuana Airport, $15. I take Volaris airlines from Tijuana to La Paz, which is usually 50% - 65% cheaper than flying from LAX (Also, LAX parking = $18 day). Today, its $186 round trip from Tijuana to La Paz per person on Volaris (or $550 per person on Delta for a round trip from LAX to La Paz). I buy the tickets online at www.Volaris.com.mx. TOP