Episode 65: Expats Worldwide: From Alabama to Yucatán: A First-Hand Expat Experience in Mexico

Rachel: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Truly Expat Podcast. I'm Rachel and as always, I'm joined by my co host Paula. Today we're heading to Mexico as we chat with Jen from Expatsi about what life is really like in Mexico. as an expat there.

Rachel: From the cost of living and the best cities for expats to the cultural adjustments and practicalities of visas and health care, Jen shares her first hand experience of making Mexico home. Whether you're dreaming of a move or curious about expat life or just love a good relocation story, this episode is packed with insights you won't want to miss out on.

Rachel: Hello Jen! Thank you very much for joining us. We love having you. for having me. Where are we? Oh, sorry. It's all right. I just said welcome. Um, so tell us a little bit about yourself. What [00:01:00] inspired you to move to Mexico and how did you choose where to settle? 

Jen Expatsi: So I'm from Alabama in the US and we were wanting to move abroad in 2016.

Jen Expatsi: See? Um, if you're not in the U. S. and live on her rock, it's a real crazy time there and things are kind of going a wire and have been for a while. And so, in 2016, we started looking at places to move, but we didn't know anything about anything. We visited Vancouver, Canada to see if we might want to live there and.

Jen Expatsi: Honestly, we couldn't afford it. We had no path to move there and it really didn't feel like home. So we sort of came home, put it on the back burner and started thinking about it again in 2020 when everything went haywire again around the world. And 

Paula: we 

Jen Expatsi: sat and just. So we decided to start listing out what was important [00:02:00] to us, where we might want to move, and we made a top 10 list of countries.

Jen Expatsi: We still had no idea about most of them, but we were going to visit them over 10 years. I had a whole plan. We're going to visit 10 countries over 10 years, and then we'll pick our favorite one, and then maybe we'll have to go back, and we'll visit more spots all over, and then we'll try to figure out how to move.

Jen Expatsi: And the first country we decided to visit was Mexico. We decided to come visit Medida, Yucatan because of some 

Paula: TikToks. 

Jen Expatsi: So their lives here, like, sometimes I wonder about how many people end up in Medida because he's on my TikTok, but I saw someone else. And it was, um, a couple from LA who had moved here.

Jen Expatsi: They broke up. It broke my heart. But anyway, um, they made it look amazing and they had vegan chef meals delivered and they didn't even need a car and Listen, you need a car here, but beside the point, [00:03:00] they had a beautiful condo and a pool and I thought, Oh, let's go visit there. And we came down and we just loved it immediately.

Jen Expatsi: So that's, uh, and instead of our ten year plan. I said, why, why wait? Like, why are we waiting? Like let's go now. And we can still visit our other nine countries and all of them, but we can do it at like half the cost of living and without living in this crazy pressure cooker we're in. So that's what we decided 

Paula: to do.

Paula: That, that's amazing. So you only, you got to the first place and loved it. So you didn't go through that. That's 

Jen Expatsi: like marrying the first guy you sleep with. I'm going to be fair. I did go to Vancouver, so I guess I have like blood stuck up my neck and then 

Paula: I'm married 

Jen Expatsi: to the first guy I slept with. I 

Paula: love that.

Paula: I've [00:04:00] never heard sort of that kind of step by step, you know, most people that I know their work takes them there or it's somewhere they've always wanted to be. But the whole 10, like 10 country process is, is a unique way of, you know, finding the right place for you. 

Jen Expatsi: You know, Americans, we've never been anywhere.

Jen Expatsi: Um, if we, you know, people go on a cruise and that's about it. Like some people travel, but we only see touristy things and we just don't have very much experience outside of the country. It's a big, it's a big place. Um, and so we had no idea where to start. 

Paula: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I know that we'll be talking another time about your, about Expatsi and what you do and why you do it.

Paula: And it's, and you know, I don't want to give too much away on this one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but for now, so, you know, you've arrived in Mexico, how did you find your community? 

Jen Expatsi: So [00:05:00] honestly, it keeps finding us, we, uh, our business got really busy. It was very slow paced, like. mom and pop shop, uh, business. And right after we moved here, there was kind of a disastrous presidential debate between Biden and, and, and it just, uh, made our business very busy for Americans who want to leave the U S.

Jen Expatsi: So we haven't socialized in the way that we've wanted to, but we just keep meeting people anyway. Um, I talk about her, but my best friend here absolutely accosted me at Costco. Do you have Costco? You have Costco, don't you? Um, accosted me and said, are you American? And I was like, yes, I just got here, don't yell at me.

Jen Expatsi: And she said, can I give you a hug? You look like my friend in Chicago. And I was like, yeah. And uh, yeah. And so [00:06:00] we got to be friends. She was very bold. Um, she had, I'm not even the only person who she got to be friends with at Costco. Like she has a whole list of people she met at Costco. And then we all get together for breakfast some days and, um, and talk about, I don't know.

Jen Expatsi: It's the craziest thing. 

Rachel: Like a Costco clan or something. 

Jen Expatsi: We call ourselves, I'm not even, I don't even know, we're the hot co girls. Oh, I love that. Much better, yeah. And then, um, you know, I met somebody because our dogs were playing together at the mall. You can take your dog to the mall here. And then, yeah, we make friends at Spanish class.

Jen Expatsi: Cause we're no beginner Spanish speakers. And so is everyone else at Spanish class. And so we practice Spanish and then we feel like kindergarten, you know, and then we go out for margaritas and, and then actually get to know each other. So it's not so kindergarten. [00:07:00] Yeah. 

Paula: Yeah. Not so kindergarten.

Paula: So what, what besides, uh, the TikTok from the, the. The lady on Tik Tok, the couple on Tik Tok. What, what made you gravitate towards Mexico? Or Yucatan? So, 

Jen Expatsi: yeah, so we outlined like all these Things we wanted a place to have. Um, and it was, you know, this kind of health care, this kind of safety, this kind of infrastructure, um, what languages we were open to learning, what time zones we wanted to be in, whether, um, and I will tell you, honestly, it made the list because of time zones.

Jen Expatsi: At the time we were working or we were working remote and Brett wanted to be able to stay remote where we were. And so he was like, and he also wanted to be close by because he has a lot of family. We had, he'd only ever been to Cancun, you know, which is like a resort area. I'd [00:08:00] never been to Mexico and being American, I had a stereotype of Mexico.

Jen Expatsi: Some people think that they have stereotypes of Mexico not being safe, but mine wasn't that. It was, um. You know, dusty desert with saloons.

Jen Expatsi: And I hear this a lot of times when you meet Europeans, that's what they think about the U S because of like cowboy. 

Rachel: Yeah, spaghetti western. 

Jen Expatsi: And that's kind of, I imagine, I knew it couldn't be like that, right. There's 150 some million people. They can't all be living with this land, but I really didn't know what it was like.

Jen Expatsi: And so this couple. Uh, Medida in Yucatan, it's, it's very hot, you know, for one thing, but it, um, it's lush, you know, it's the jungle and so, and it's flat and it's not dusty at all and as the beaches and, and whatever else. And so when we came down and [00:09:00] visited, it was like, wow, this is so different from what I imagined.

Jen Expatsi: Oh. And. The other thing was the people here are just really warm and kind. Um, they're very outgoing, like as a culture. And so. Like they smile at you a lot, which you know, is like a very, this is what like Europeans say Americans are like, but comparatively, oh my gosh, people, I don't know if it's all Mexicans or just Yucatan, because Yucaticos are unique.

Jen Expatsi: But everybody smiles at you. When we take, we have a big pit bull, and we take them to the mall, and all the old ladies smile at the dog, they think he's cute. You just can't help, but be happy in a place where everyone is smiling at you all the time, you know? 

Rachel: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's lovely. It's kind of like the Southern, uh, European, European, um, you know, like Spain and, and you know, like everybody is very [00:10:00] welcoming and, and open and loud and happy and that's like that.

Rachel: Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. For sure. 

Paula: That is a 

Rachel: lovely community. 

Paula: Um, and so what, what does the cost of living look like there? 

Jen Expatsi: A lot less than what I'm used to. So I'm from Alabama. And if you even have, if people have even heard of Alabama, it's probably not favorable unless we have a really famous football team, but yeah, um, it is impoverished.

Jen Expatsi: It's a pretty poor state. It's not very expensive to live there comparatively to most others. And even still, it is so much less expensive to live here in Medina, and we have a much higher quality of life. So, for example, I have, oh boy, you're on metric. Um, I think it's 200 square meter house with a pool.

Jen Expatsi: And it's 12 a [00:11:00] month, and it's furnished, it has everything we need, we could have just brought a toothbrush, it's in a beautiful neighborhood, you know, everything here isn't polished and pristine, the way that it is. It can be in certain parts of the U. S., but it's beautiful, the people are friendly, we're 30 minutes from the Gulf of Mexico, so beautiful warm ocean that you can swim in, and it includes, I mean, I get a lot of beauty services, which I definitely need, so I have like nails, I got, I got my eyebrows tattooed.

Paula: Oh nice! 

Jen Expatsi: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Um, I have Botox and I get my eyelashes done. Nice. Yeah, and that's a big one because I make TikTok videos. Yeah. And the biggest thing at home or north of the border in the US was I had to go put on all my [00:12:00] makeup and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and get. Already. And now I feel like, like, I don't have, uh, makeup on actually.

Jen Expatsi: I have lipstick. Yep. And that's because, um, I had to think about it because I'm on and when you're on anyway, and then, um, the healthcare that we've gotten has been tremendous. Um, like. I mean, just incredibly detailed and thorough and thoughtful and paying out of pocket is so much more affordable than anything you could get done in the U.

Jen Expatsi: S. 

Paula: Do you have to have health care still in the U. S. while you're in Mexico? 

Jen Expatsi: No, we don't. We had Obamacare, um, which is our Affordable Care Act, which is a sort of attempt at universal health care. But basically, it's just the ability to be guaranteed that you can purchase expensive health insurance, which [00:13:00] was a huge benefit from before we were allowed to be guaranteed to purchase expensive health insurance because a lot of us would get denied for health insurance.

Jen Expatsi: Really? One of them. I got denied when I was in my early forties because I had neck pain, um, and I wasn't even having the neck pain treated in any way. I didn't take meds. I didn't see doctors. I just had had one visit and I do have, um, like fused vertebrae. And I was like, and I, well, it's a long story, but I'd been hauling turkeys and, uh, and I went to see a doctor for neck pulling turkeys.

Jen Expatsi: Oh, yeah. I thought that's what you said. I 

Rachel: was like, is that a euphemism? Or 

Jen Expatsi: is that 

Rachel: like a 

Jen Expatsi: real thing? Like, Holland butt. No. I had a grocery store. It's a whole nother, it's a whole nother podcast. Anyway, and then when I tried to get health insurance, uh, they denied me for having neck pain. And they said, you have a pre existing condition that keeps you [00:14:00] from having health insurance.

Jen Expatsi: And then it listed the condition and it was neck pain. And I was like, dang, that is That's brutal. I've 

Paula: never, I've never heard of, of being denied to get health cover before. I have. I mean, 

Rachel: you get, you get health insurance, but some things are not covered. Like, so if you, maybe if you've had cancer or something like that, that's kind of normal.

Rachel: Well, it's not normal. I think it's, I think it's outrageous, but you know, that, that you can't get health insurance at all for one small. little problem. It doesn't make any sense. 

Jen Expatsi: Yeah. It's really common. And then of course, you know, our bills are unbelievably outrageous there, but when, and so what it does is it forces you to work for an employer because if you have an employer, then they can't deny you healthcare.

Jen Expatsi: Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Um, so that's how it works. You have to have a job. Um, and [00:15:00] so, but I was an entrepreneur. And so basically what it forced me to do was to take, and as a matter of fact, what it actually forced me to do twice is get married. So I, I'm no lie, I married somebody who had, uh, helped through their work.

Jen Expatsi: But allowed you, yeah, so you still paid the same amount, but you couldn't be denied. And then so 16, they kept threatening to end Obamacare and I was just like this all the time. Um, and that is actually when I had my second marriage. And I love, listen, I love him, madly, but, but, you know, uh, but also he had health insurance.This is the American condition, I'm telling you. 

Paula: So, uh, you, did you move there with the intention of, um, eventually retiring there or [00:16:00] just as an expat instead? for the short period of time? 

Jen Expatsi: It's a great question. I don't know. Um, the way that we look at it is if we live here the rest of our days, we'll be perfectly happy.

Jen Expatsi: Yeah. Okay. But we are going to keep visiting those. Other countries. 

Rachel: Yeah. Well, nine countries. 

Jen Expatsi: Yeah. Um, and then if at any point we say, you know what I've never felt so alive is when we were in blank, then we can move there and it's, it's so much harder to do that first. Move. I feel like, yeah. Now that said another big pull for Mexico is that, um, you can drive from the U S now I will tell you, it was 4, 400 kilometers that we drove.

Jen Expatsi: Wow. With four animals.

Jen Expatsi: But it made it easier to move all our animals, you know, cause squeaky, he can't fly on a plane unless we charter. [00:17:00] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

Rachel: Are you told is that you're. Pitbull. The 

Paula: pitbull. Yes. He's a pit bulldog mix. Yeah. A bit like, my dog's the same. I got a half, my dog's half pitbull, half um, uh, my gosh, half the one with the flat nose I've gotten.

Paula: Pug? Yeah. Like a bulldog or a 

Jen Expatsi: pug? 

Paula: No. French. No, it doesn't matter. Just take that 

Jen Expatsi: out. Boxer! Boxer! Thank you! I really wanted to know, I'm glad we figured it out. 

Rachel: But she looks more like a bit strange if it was mixed with a pack to be honest. HAHAHAHA Short 

Paula: legs looks like a boxer. I was 

Jen Expatsi: like 

Paula: HAHAHA No, but she looks more like a No, there's 

Jen Expatsi: a good dancer.

Paula: Yeah, they're beautiful dogs. 

Jen Expatsi: Really beautiful dogs. Everybody loves Squiggy here. 

Paula: So is it hard to bring a dog into, uh, into Mexico? 

Jen Expatsi: No, it's not hard to do anything here. I mean, it is the most freewheeling [00:18:00] place. I love it. Um, they are so much freer here than we are in the U. S. But so you have to bring, they have to have, um, rabies paperwork.

Jen Expatsi: That's it. And then nobody looked at it. Nobody looked at the animals. We went through the something to declare line and they just waved us on. We didn't even know we were in Mexico. I'm not even kidding. And I was like, well, we can't be here yet because no one stopped us. Like, that must have just been a toll booth or something.

Jen Expatsi: And finally I was like, everything is in Spanish.

Jen Expatsi: We are in Mexico. Like, you didn't even know. I'm like, no wonder people are concerned about the border. Like, this is 

Paula: I've seen someone else do that as well, like a video of them driving through and going, I think we're in Mexico, but I'm not sure because no one's taken my paperwork. 

Jen Expatsi: Yes, that's [00:19:00] exactly what it's like.

Jen Expatsi: That is exactly what it's like. You have no idea. And then, um, like 40 miles in, we stopped at a place and I went in and got a permit for the car and got a tourist visas. They Brett didn't even come in and, um, I thought they'd come out to the car and they were like, Piece, I'm like,

Jen Expatsi: I could have 17 animals in the car. Let me tell you the biggest thing, though. Yeah. So I love to cook. And I had every spice oil, vinegar at home and I didn't bring them. And you know how expensive like spices and oils and vinegars are. Ridiculous. And I didn't bring them because I was like, Oh, they'll never let me bring open food, whatever.

Jen Expatsi: I could have brought AK 47s and fireworks. I cannot believe that I left my, like, open olive oil at home [00:20:00] because I thought it would be so 

Paula: I guess it'd be hard on the other way around, right? Taking that back to the US. 

Jen Expatsi: Theoretically. Theoretically, yes. You know, so do you need to have maybe now? 

Paula: Yeah, yeah.

Paula: Especially now. Now especially, do you need to have an international license to drive in Mexico or you can drive on your us. Okay. Oh yeah. That's interesting. We have 

Jen Expatsi: US plates and a US driver's license. Um, and I mean, nobody says boo. Okay, that makes life a bit easier. 

Paula: Yeah, that's strange. We used to be 

Jen Expatsi: fine.

Paula: Yeah, do you drive? Sorry, do you drive on the same side? 

Jen Expatsi: Yes. 

Paula: Okay. 

Rachel: Pretty much, a lot of them are the same. Most countries make you, like, change your driver's licence after like one or two years, right? But you don't need to do that. Yeah. I don't know. Interesting. 

Paula: I know that some countries allow you to be on an international license for a year before you have to [00:21:00]move over, change over, but then some countries I've lived in, I didn't need to, I just drove on my Australian license forever.

Paula: I don't know. 

Jen Expatsi: I think that's probably, if we become permanent residents, I think that's probably the point. Yeah. We're all native Mexican. 

Rachel: So are you on a tourist visa now or? 

Jen Expatsi: We are. So, okay, originally we had gotten temporary residency on, in the U. S. The way that works is you go to a local consulate and there's a million.

Jen Expatsi: They're Mexican consulates everywhere. And so we only drive a couple of hours to closest one, you get an appointment, and you have to show either six months of pay stubs and bank statements that shows that you have the amounts are really high. I will tell you for how really living is here. It's one person.

Jen Expatsi: It depends on which consulate you go to. They don't all, they all have a different amount, but it's [00:22:00]about 4, 000 a month. Okay. Or you can show 75, 000 in savings for temporary residency. If you want permanent residency, it's about 7, 000 a month for one person or like 250, 000. That is a ridiculous amount of money in Mexico.

Jen Expatsi: I mean, it really is a crazy, but the reason is because, um, it's tied to minimum wage. Like it is in a lot of places and. And they have increased minimum wage every year over the past six, seven years, which is great. However, they need to reconfigure how many multiples of minimum wage people need, because many retirees can't.

Jen Expatsi: you know, clear that, that bar. 

Paula: Yeah. And 

Jen Expatsi: also it's just more money than you need for like a couple you would need for permanent residency. You might need like 10 a month. That's a lot. Yeah. So we, yeah, it is. So [00:23:00] we did that. However, you have six months then to cross the border into Mexico and do the second half.

Jen Expatsi: Of your visa and we didn't, um, we had had been under the understanding that our jobs are. I had already left and started working on Expatsi, but Brett had a job and they said he could work from anywhere, but then they changed their rules. So. He left came checks Patsy full time and then we spent like a year building it up and up to where it could support both of us.

Jen Expatsi: And, but that point I was like, we can't really show income very well, you know, we have a startup. So, we're doing a second. And that option is called R N E or regularization. And what that is, is that you come into Mexico on a tourist visa for, for Americans at six months, I presume, I presume everyone who can come visa free gets six months, but I can't swear to that, but you can come for six months.

Jen Expatsi: Then you overstay your tourist [00:24:00] visa and you pay a fine and they give you four years of residency. Wow. You don't show any financial info at all. Wow. I know. So 

Paula: the problem. Yeah, go ahead. Now, so after the four years, can you renew that or 

Jen Expatsi: that you get permanent resident permanent residency then and then citizenship if you want it so you can become a citizen by staying illegally.

Jen Expatsi: But, so this started during COVID. Yeah, people got stuck here. And so they wanted a way for people to accidentally overstaying their tourist visas to get become residents. And again, I don't know, it's just American service everyone. But, um, the problem is, is that we cannot get our tourist visas to expire, because every time we leave, we come back and they give us six more.

Jen Expatsi: Okay. So we have concocted [00:25:00] a plan next month. We are taking a ferry to Belize. We're spending the weekend in Belize and then we are coming back and supposedly with the land borders, they're much more likely to give you a shorter stay. Yeah, so that it can expire and we can, there is another way. It's even crazier.

Jen Expatsi: But if you'll just pay 3, 000 a person, you can circumvent all of this and they'll just give you the residency right away, but 6, 000. That's a lot of money. And I'm like, it is. You know, we could have a nice weekend in Belize for 500. 

Paula: Yeah. 

Jen Expatsi: Yeah. Okay. 

Paula: Go 

Jen Expatsi: on. You know, 5, 500 and, um, and potentially do it. So we're going to try that first.

Jen Expatsi: If it doesn't work out, we'll do something else, but that's the path on. 

Paula: Isn't that interesting? I mean, it's um, so there's no type of like, for someone wanting to come over, uh, there's no real [00:26:00] visa like they do here, where it's an employment pass or a, you know, a dependent pass. There 

Jen Expatsi: is. 

Paula: There is. 

Jen Expatsi: You can get a job here.

Jen Expatsi: Now, if you're a permanent resident, you can work and you don't need it, but there is a skilled work visa. Um, but you know, salaries are really, are much, much lower. So you have to be prepared for that. You need a lot less money to live on, but sometimes it can be hard, you know, psychologically to make a lot less money.

Paula: Plus, if you've already, if you've still got things back at home that you need to pay for and stuff. 

Jen Expatsi: Yeah, which we do. Yeah, so 

Paula: that, that doesn't work. 

Jen Expatsi: Yeah, we've got good old American student loans and stuff like that. Yeah. 

Paula: Um, and so how easy is it to get around Mexico? You need a car, right? 

Jen Expatsi: I mean, pretty much all of North America is incredibly car dependent.

Jen Expatsi: There are a lot more options here than there [00:27:00] are at in the, in the US. Um, there are, there's a really nice bus system, both for in the city and take you between cities. Um, and a lot of different kinds, like you can just go in bare bones or you can take the platinum bus and it's fancy. Um, then there are. A lot of like collectivos, which is just sort of somebody threw a van together and, you know, and you go wherever.

Jen Expatsi: Um, then we, of course we drove our car. So it's easy. There aren't a lot of trains. There's a new train that's being built called trend Maya. And it connects, um, the whole Yucatan peninsula, but it's a real, it's very controversial here. You know, they think boondoggle and who knows. Um, but we've taken the bus to Cancun and, and had a great experience.

Jen Expatsi: Yeah. And of course there are plenty of flights as well. I'm flying to, uh, Oaxaca next week. [00:28:00] Oh, 

Paula: I don't even know where that is. I'm guessing that's Mexico. 

Jen Expatsi: It is. It's in the center of the country, but it's super famous for food. Um, it's where mezcal comes from and a sauce and Oaxaca cheese and stuff like that.

Jen Expatsi: And they're having a food and wine festival and we're doing, um, a scouting trip there for folks who want to move to Oaxaca. So I'm going to go be there. Um, well, I'm actually going kind of as a guest, but yeah. Oh wow. That is fun. That is cool. That is fun. 

Rachel: I have heard of Waka Aka and um, yeah. I think they had a restaurant in London and we used to go to all the time there.

Rachel: And yeah, the food is incredible. Yeah. 

Jen Expatsi: Yeah. Yeah. I'm really excited about it too. They're so famous for their cuisine and I love Malay sauce. 

Rachel: So it's quite, it's quite cheap and easy to get around the country. 

Jen Expatsi: Yeah, I mean, bus tickets are really, really affordable and, um, flights are not, you know, it's not like Europe where you have the little Ryanair tap air [00:29:00] flights that are just 30, 40, 50 bucks.

Jen Expatsi: It's not that cheap, but it's a lot less expensive than like, flying around the us. Um, you could get a flight to Oaxaca for, you know, maybe a hundred, 150, 200 bucks. 

Paula: Yeah. Still cheaper than Australia. Yeah. 

Jen Expatsi: Oh, yeah. 

Paula: Yeah. Australia is expensive to fly around. Yeah. I want to go to that island where the Quokkas 

Jen Expatsi: are.

Jen Expatsi: Where what? Where the Quokkas are. 

Paula: Oh, okay. You want to go up north into Queensland. I 

Jen Expatsi: want Quokkas. 

Paula: So do I. I've not done that either. We've got such a big country that I feel like I can do that when I retire, but yeah, that's another story. 

Jen Expatsi: I'll meet you down there and then we'll go over to New Zealand and drink Sauvignon Blanc.

Jen Expatsi: Sounds good. Yeah, I love New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. 

Rachel: Yeah. My uncle, my uncles and aunties grow the grapes and a co op, a great co op down there. So I have a [00:30:00] family all over the Marlborough region where the Sauvignon Blanc comes from. So 

Jen Expatsi: amazing. We'll 

Rachel: give you a lovely tour of that place. 

Paula: Okay. I'm 

Rachel: so on board.

Rachel: I'm so on board. 

Jen Expatsi: I think we'll 

Paula: just organize a girl's trip there. 

Jen Expatsi: Yeah. This is all I want. Like we travel a lot for work, but I'm like, we have got to start traveling more for fun. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. They don't, you know, people don't realize that when you're on these tours, we love it. We love our guests, but they do not realize that it is work that we are, uh, you know, you're on, 

Rachel: you are 

Jen Expatsi: doing customer service.

Paula: Yeah. I totally get it. 

Rachel: I used to host, um, fam trips for the airline I worked for and it was, it was a lot. It was, you know, you're, you are on all the time and you're, uh, questions and, you know, and most people just like to be led and they have no idea where they're going or [00:31:00] what they did, even though that they signed up for the trip and they're given an itinerary and they're like, Oh, what are we doing today?

Rachel: I'm like, for the 50th time, you're like, going, well, we're good.

Jen Expatsi: Yeah. To be honest, my husband is the same. We have a system. He never knows where we're going and he never knows where we've been, but on the ground in the moment he takes charge, um, you know, a huge gift, but like he has, he'll say, do you remember, he'll say, someone will say, were you in Aveiro, Portugal? And he says, yes.

Jen Expatsi: And I'm like, you weren't. 

Paula: Oh, 

Rachel: that's so funny, that's cool, and oh, sorry, you go, um, so what are your favorite things about daily life in Mexico?[00:32:00]

Jen Expatsi: You know. The cost of living is, is not to be, uh, to be sniffed at, like having a lower cost of living is a huge game changer, especially when you're a startup. Um, you know, we go to Pilates. And at home, like it, Pilates was really, uh, affordable in Birmingham compared to a lot of places, but it was like 25 and up per class.

Jen Expatsi: Um, I talked to people in LA and it's like 75 bucks a class. I can't even conceive. And here it's five. Wow. Yeah. And it's much nicer, like the facility that we go to and the teachers. And it's also fun because it's the best Spanish class we have. Cause like, I've learned all my body parts and, you know, cause you got to figure it out and do it like in the moment.

Jen Expatsi: Um, and we peek, we peek at each other and try to, but the teacher will be like, stop looking at her. But she says it in Spanish and, uh, and [00:33:00] she loves to tease us. Also, they think it's so funny that Brent goes, because he's the only boy that goes to Pilates, and also they have all different words, like, if there's a girl there, if it's all girls, they'll say listas, which means like, are you ready?

Jen Expatsi: But because he's a boy, they can't say listas, because he's listo. And so they go, listas, listo, listo, Brett. It's so funny to me, um, but, but that's really huge. Um, I love the weather. It's so funny on our expats, he tests of our own. When we said what kind of weather we wanted, I wanted that eternal spring, like 70 degrees every day.

Jen Expatsi: I don't know what that is. What is that? 25, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. 25 year round and sunny and basically, you know. Close to what Lisbon is or whatever. And it's hot as hell. They call it the furnace of Mexico. And, you know, Mexico's not chilly [00:34:00] to begin with. But we love it. We love the fact that you know, we know what the weather is going to be almost every single day. We can get hurricanes. I'll tell you. Yeah. Yeah. You can't hurricanes here, but it's really rare. I think the last one hit here and The 80s or something.

Jen Expatsi: And so we can get, um, hurricane adjacent, but, but, you know, nothing really major has happened. Um, I like the fact that we're abroad, but there are a lot of comforts of home here. Like, I love to cook, um, and there's an Asian market, so I can get all the Asian food ingredients out. It's my favorite thing. Um, and so, and then there's, there's like Texas Roadhouse.

Jen Expatsi: So if we're feeling, um, nostalgic for American food, we can go and get burgers and steaks and, and stuff like that. But at the same time, there's all of this Mexican culture that we can enjoy. [00:35:00] And. On Saturday nights, they do a Mayan fireball game and they play this game where they have to throw a ball through these hoops and the ball is on fire.

Jen Expatsi: Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. And so they play it. Everybody goes and watches it. Anybody who comes, we take them. And then there's another. Park where they do live music and dancing every Friday and Saturday night. Then there's cantinas everywhere. And like, there's just so much local culture and I get to experience it a little bit at the time, as opposed to if I were somewhere where there's nothing familiar and I had to pick up everything all at once.

Jen Expatsi: And so. I feel like that helps me. And now in, you know, today where we have Google Maps and Google Translate and Netflix, I can kind of have a little bit of 

Paula: best of both worlds. 

Jen Expatsi: Yeah, yeah. 

Paula: So do you have to speak Spanish to be able to live there? No, [00:36:00]

Jen Expatsi: not at all. When we came down, we were like a zero, as they say.

Jen Expatsi: We had nothing, nothing that wasn't like food words. Yeah. Um, and now we're A2, which is still all beginners, but we feel like there will be B2 and the next year will be C2 and we just keep practicing, um, at our own pace, you know, but because we don't have to work in Spanish, it just gives you so much longer to learn it.

Paula: The 

Jen Expatsi: hardest thing is understanding it, like reading it. No big deal. Um, speaking it, I can say basic stuff. I sometimes I get frustrated, um, if I can't think of a word, but I just use Google Translate. Understanding it. It is so challenging. I listened to the radio so 

Rachel: fast. Right. 

Jen Expatsi: Yes. Yes. And I listened to the radio and [00:37:00] my goal is I there's, it's all, the, and all the music's in English, all the movies are in English, but when they do talk segments.

Jen Expatsi: It's, you know, it's in Spanish. And so what I challenged myself to do is pick out any words I can, and then try to understand the topic. Like, what is, I was listening to it today and I was like, okay, I think they're talking about the responsibility of people who are announcers on the radio. And then I pulled out my phone and I held it up to Google translate to, to, um, translate a couple of paragraphs to see if I was right.

Jen Expatsi: I was pretty close. Um, yeah. And so I'm like, If I can just train my old ears, eventually I'll be able to understand it. But we are foiled because if there is a movie here, um, that was made, that was filmed in English, they're going to show it here in English with Spanish subtitles. You can sometimes also see it [00:38:00] dubbed.

Jen Expatsi: But the thing is, if it's dubbed, there will not be English subtitles. Yeah, yeah. Because nobody reads them, right? So, um, so you are really just having time completely. Yes. 

Paula: Understand it. Cause you can't even look at their, you try to look at the reading. Yeah. 

Jen Expatsi: Yeah. 

Paula: It doesn't work. 

Jen Expatsi: That's too many. Definitely too many things at once, especially because they serve margaritas at the theater.

Jen Expatsi: I 

Paula: wouldn't have been able to read the subtitles by the end of it anyway. 

Jen Expatsi: It's true, but I have learned some really fun words that way. I imagine. 

Paula: Do you think there's any misconceptions? I know you spoke about what you thought um, Mexico was like before you got there. Do you think there's any other misconceptions?

Jen Expatsi: Oh yeah, for sure. So, it's really common to think that Mexico is really really crime heavy. Um, and that there is more crime in Mexico than the US. It just is. [00:39:00] Period. Um, but it isn't. Universal. It, you know, it isn't the same crime everywhere. A lot of crimes are little petty crimes of opportunity, just like in lots of places that have for us or income inequality.

Jen Expatsi: And I like to compare the city that I'm from, Birmingham, Alabama, to the city I live in now, Medida, Yucatan. And Birmingham has 40 times as many murders. Per capita. 

Paula: Wow. And 

Jen Expatsi: meida and Meida iss larger. It's not that, you know, Birmingham is a big fancy city and Meida is some little berg on the ocean. Yeah.

Jen Expatsi: So to me, yeah. I mean, in general, Mexico has more crime. It, it does. Um. And certainly there are some things that happen, you know, that are shocking, you know, kidnapping a whole school bus or, or whatever else, but I'm sure that's what [00:40:00] people think about the US right and school shootings. And there's one, there's more than one school shooting every single day.

Paula: Wow, I didn't know that. 

Jen Expatsi: There isn't a bus of kids being kidnapped every single day. 

Paula: Yeah. 

Jen Expatsi: Wow. Or I should say there's a mass shooting every day. Not a school shooting every day. Yeah. Yeah. Just a mass shooting. Yeah. Just a mass shooting. You know, run of the mill. Yeah. Yeah. 

Paula: Yeah. 

Jen Expatsi: Run of the mill. 

Paula: We got, coming from Australia, we don't, we don't have guns.

Paula: So it's, for me, it's like, wow. 

Jen Expatsi: Um. Yeah. Yeah. Because it took like once, right? And then. It's like, oh yeah, this is a bad idea. Um, and Mexico also doesn't have guns unless you are a criminal. There is a gun store in Mexico City. You have to make an appointment. There are a lot of laws around it. Um, the guns that they get here are from the US.

Jen Expatsi: Oh, yeah. 

Rachel: Wow. 

Jen Expatsi: Yeah. It's crazy, 

Rachel: right? Yeah. 

Jen Expatsi: It's not to say that nothing can happen. Um, but we live in really uncertain [00:41:00] times, especially in the U. S. and, and, um, I just find myself to have more control over my life and my future here. Than I did there. I, you know, I was just on a call, I think it was with the same guy and Cartel bought the avocado for him next to his grandmother.

Jen Expatsi: And so she's wanting to leave and stuff like that. And then, and it's true the cartel is involved mostly with drugs, but also with avocados. Um, avocado, , but you know, it's 

Rachel: big business. The avocados really sought after all over the world. Right. For good reason. For good reason, for sure. 

Jen Expatsi: So, but you know, I'm not involved.

Jen Expatsi: I just, I think we all are doing the best we can right now. And so I think that's a big one in corruption in general. But again, I think that I think that the U S is incredibly corrupt. Um, we just, you know, it is looked upon differently. 

Paula: Yeah. And so do you give any [00:42:00] advice to anybody that wants to move there?

Jen Expatsi: Sure. Um, the big thing is. Figuring out if you have that income level, you know, uh, you don't have to maintain it. One funny thing is, is that, let's say that you have a job and you're a nurse and you make 9, 000 a month. Um, you can go to the consulate and get your, they're like, Oh, you make 9, 000 a month.

Jen Expatsi: That's enough. Boom. But you can't, you're not a nurse once you leave the country and move to Mexico, but you have your residency at that point. Um, so one thing is figuring that out. The other is there are a vast number of cities, you know, Mexico's huge, it has 150 million people. And you have, I mean Mexico City like the absolute pinnacle of vibrant nightlife cool art, everything 25 million people or something.

Jen Expatsi: And then you have innumerable. Fishing villages where you could [00:43:00] disappear and live the most chill, you know, life ever off the land, um, buying produce from the fruit stand next door and fishing for your supper and things like that and everything in between, you know, Medida is. There are a lot of, uh, retirees here from the U.

Jen Expatsi: S. and Canada, but for Mexican folks, it's mostly young parents, um, and there are a lot of, um, people from Mexico City who have second homes here and things like that because it's, it's on the beach, remote working. I think so. I think so. Or, or, um, or maybe, uh, you know, one spouse is working in Mexico city and the rest of the family comes out and has leisure time.

Jen Expatsi: It's a very wealthy place. We are not listening. People sometimes, you know, again, I make videos. So of course I get all kind of hate mail and comments and people are like, you're gentrifying Mexico. And I'm like, [00:44:00]have you been to Mexico? Like you are judging what is going on here. We are. I mean average at best in many ways.

Jen Expatsi: Not best. Like, get it together. Like, you are just presuming, you're picturing the dusty place with the saloon doors and you're thinking that I'm some fancy yoga girl. Um, and uh, and it's not, It's just not true. This is a super nice place. It's way nicer than where I come from. It's filled with like tons of beautiful shopping and homes and things to do and restaurants and it's phenomenal.

Jen Expatsi: So if anyone 

Paula: wants to kind of move there, they can get in touch with you, right? 

Jen Expatsi: Or 

Paula: in Mexico. So we'll I mean, we'll put your links on the show notes so that people can get in touch if they need to. They're thinking of moving to Mexico, right? 

Jen Expatsi: Yes, we do all kind of so which we'll talk about more in the world, but yeah, [00:45:00] we work with people in Fido Carmen here in Medida, uh, San Miguel de Allende, Oaxaca, Mexico City, Cabo San Lucas, Baja, and Guadalajara.

Rachel: Wow. Wow. And soon, Oaxaca. 

Jen Expatsi: That's right. That's right. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Our person in Oaxaca. Um, I do need something for Lake, Lake Chapala. That's where we're adding. So, um, places that are popular for foreigners. 

Rachel: Oh, wow. 

Jen Expatsi: Awesome. Fantastic. 

Rachel: Yeah. That's great. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing all of your wonderful knowledge and giving us a few laughs as well.

Rachel: We really enjoyed it. 

Jen Expatsi: Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. See you again. Yeah. We'll see you on the next episode. I can't wait to come back. And I'm holding everyone to quokkas and, uh, Sauvignon Blanc. So don't they. [00:46:00] I won't forget. 

Paula: Excited about that. I will come to Mexico. Yeah. 

Jen Expatsi: Fireball game. Please.

Jen Expatsi: Awesome. All 

Rachel: right. Yeah. You too. Bye bye. Bye.