Was it worth it?

When we return to Mexico on October 5th, we will have had our house here for one full year. So now we can do the math as to whether or not it was worth it to us from a financial perspective... and from an enjoyment of life perspective.

We're headed back to Canada on Wednesday for six weeks, so we now know how many nights of that one year we will have spent in the Mexico house.

I went back and counted... we will have spent 149 nights in this house over the one year period... almost five months in total. Which is about what we expected.

Our house in Mexico.

So, was it worth it? Well, from a financial perspective, we spent about 86,000 pesos ($7,000 CAD, $5,000 USD) fixing the place up enough that we would be happy living here. And we spent 84,000 pesos ($6,850 CAD, $4,900 USD) in rent for 12 months. And 4,000 pesos ($326 CAD, $235 USD) on a year of home internet. And maybe another 4,000 pesos in miscellaneous expenses like electricity and gas.

So our total cost for year one was about 178,000 pesos ($14,500 CAD, $10,500 USD). (Edit: I probably should have included the cost of our ATV as well... another 30,000 pesos ($2,400 CAD, $1,750 USD). 

Had we stayed here full time, it definitely would have been worth it from a financial perspective. But we didn't... we will have only stayed here 149 days. So the cost per day was 1,195 pesos ($97 CAD, $70 USD) for the days we were here. Which is pretty high. I mean, yes, we would have had to pay to stay somewhere even if we didn't have this house, but normally we would not have paid that much.

But the plan is to stay here for many years, and so the initial cost (on a daily basis) to fix the place up will decrease as time goes by because it was a one time cost. And we'll be renting it out occasionally to recoup some of that investment as well.

The original plan was to rent it out on Airbnb when we're not here, but that brought up all kinds of legal and logistical problems and we simply decided we didn't want the hassle. We didn't go into this as a money making venture in the first place. And so we are only renting it out to friends, and blog readers. If you're interested, most of this coming November through January is still available! Minimum one month stay, at 13,000 pesos ($1,060 CAD, $763 USD) per month. Contact us at karead7@gmail.com for details.

And from a personal perspective... it has definitely been worth it!

We enjoy many beautiful sunsets from our patio.

We LOVE living here. Our patio is the highlight of the actual living space. We spend a lot of time out there enjoying our hammocks and the view. We have made quite a few friends in the area. There is a lot to see and do. In our opinion, the weather is perfect, year round. 

And, it's only a two hour bus ride from Mexico City airport where we can fly pretty much anywhere. That's important to us because even when we love a place, we get itchy feet! We find that for us, a month at a time of down time here is pretty much perfect, then we're ready to travel again.

So, while we look forward to our upcoming six weeks in Canada... we also look forward to our return here in October!

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