Lou Quillio

Excellent, thanks. Still have access to near zero-cost RXs in the States, so I don't need to buy locally ... yet. But the research is eye-opening. They tend to prescribe the latest and greatest in the U.S., whether necessary or not, because it's reckoned you're not spending your own money anyway. Then there's the racket where a 25mg formulation is dirt cheap, but the price for 50mg is 10x. Same BS happens around here, too. So far from god, and so close to the United States. LQ

Confirmed: the combination of CapOne 360 and the HSBC ATM near Centro Laguna "mall" gave me $15,000 yesterday, for the same ATM fee as $10,000 (~$4.50 USD). Since it was Friday, I had to try a second machine (of the three). Only 500s at $15,000. At $10,000 I'll get maybe $2,000 in 200s and a sprinkling of smaller bills. I believe the machine in Walmart gives smaller bills routinely, which makes sense. Stock up for semana santa, y'all. ATMs will empty as soon as they're filled. LQ

Thanks. I'm technically still a software engineer at Google, so ... LQ

Muchas gracias. LQ

I've been treated for hypertension since age 21 (thanks, Dad). Went in to have my wisdom teeth extracted while in the service, and they wouldn't cut me. Who knew? Have taken something for it ever since. Problem solved. These days I'm taking a beta blocker called nadolol (brand name Corgard) and am looking for a pharmacy that carries it. Farmacia Guadalajara doesn't, so before I scour the area, does anyone know of a pharmacy that does? Thanks. Mail order is probably where I'll end up, but for now I need a local source. LQ

Good to know; thanks. I was going to test them, but now probably won't bother. WRT the "big bills" challenge, my approach has evolved. I pass 500s at every possible chance, and there are more chances than I once assumed. I just avoid doing so early in the business day (no clerk likes that), and show the 500 with an Está bien? If there's any resistance at all, we'll try something else. But I find that the key is to let those 100s, 50s and 20s received as cambio build up till I've got a good stash, and not to feel so obliged to always pay with the smallest bills. Was probably too cautious before. And the definition of a "big bill" isn't static. Heck, ATMs in the States dispense 50s these days. LQ

Right now, only HSBC. I may compare some others against it later, but I stopped shopping around once I found a good deal. Honestly I'm not too motivated to hunt for, what, a $1 savings somewhere else, every two weeks or so? Not worth it, and may not exist. Can't say. The largest enumerated amount is $7,000, then "Other amount." Haven't pushed it past $10k. On a Sunday or holiday, it might refuse $10k. I've seen $6,000 limit, all in 200s -- but it's always because the machine has run low. There are three machines. LQ

We use Capital One 360 at HSBC, generally at the branch near Steren in San Antonio. We always withdraw $10,000 MXN (roughly $500 USD ... sorta) because (1) we don't want to go to an ATM all the time, (2) it's a round number, so auditing is easier, and (3) I'm satisfied with their policy and math. But I still check. CapOne doesn't impose any ATM or Foreign Transaction fees of their own, but they don't refund HSBC's ATM fee. Naturally, we always decline HSBC's exchange rate on the last screen. CapOne converts at the "daily rate," which fluctuates during the day. It's loosely auditable, but I don't log time-of-day, only date. Here are four recent ATM withdrawals and their details (blue values are from my CapOne statement): MXN USD Calculated Rate Yahoo Rate ATM Fee Net Effective Rate Withdrawal Net Cost 3/25 10,000.00 541.46 18.47 ~= 4.41 18.32 0.8145% 3/14 10,000.00 537.79 18.59 ~= 4.38 18.44 0.8144% 3/1 10,000.00 553.18 18.08 ~= 4.50 17.93 0.8135% 2/6 10,000.00 529.38 18.89 ~= 4.31 18.74 0.8142% The USD column is CapOne's converted value, the ATM Fee column is what CapOne reports I paid HSBC, and the two together are what was debited from my CapOne account. The Calculated Rate is MXN ÷ USD. From time-to-time I compare this to Yahoo Finance's historical rate chart. Yahoo only has Open, High, Low, Close. My Calculated Rate is never exactly one of these (again, time of day matters) but it's close, and it tracks. I'm satisfied there's no game-playing. Net Effective Rate is MXN / (USD + ATM Fee). It serves as my alarm. If this number falls out of line, something changed, and I'll investigate. Trust me, this model could be 10x more sophisticated. But there's no need. So, to simplify, what's it cost me to withdraw about 500 bucks? About $4, or roughly 0.81%. I consider this reasonable, all things considered, and won't sweat it further. ps. Important: This is for $10,000 MXN withdrawals. If $2,000 is more your speed, you'll likely pay more, and definitely not less. LQ

Yes. We order nearly all non-food items from amazon.com.mx or amazon.com (occasionally mercadolibre.com), depending on availability, delivery time, and final cost. Mostly cost. I'll open each site in a separate browser window. Having identified a prospective purchase in one, I'll search for the ASIN (Amazon stock number) in the other. You can copy-paste it from the URL. It's this part: https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B007IRMTXE?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details Most often, the item is available from either one. Then I start the check-out in both, so that shipping cost and estimated duty are calculated. Duty will be the same (except for the [very] few items actually produced in Mexico), but two more factors can affect the bottom line. For items from Amazon Marketplace (that is, items sold by sub-vendors, not Amazon itself), the seller may have jacked-up the basic price in the first place, thinking international sales are a costly hassle.. Those cases are generally a bad deal. Second, amazon.com purchases delivered to Mexico may bear additional shipping charges, often $8-$10 USD. To minimize extra shipping, I'll save these items in my cart until I have a few, since the charge is per shipment, not per item. Imagine a $25 amazon.com item that, ordered alone, bears $8 international shipping. If combined with three other $25 USD items, the total extra shipping might be $11, not $32. Beyond this gamesmanship though, it's the same Amazon guy making the delivery, because in the end, Amazon is Amazon is Amazon. Shipping almost always follows the same path, too: Origin -> Laredo -> Pacifico -> Delivery. This is all second nature to we urbane, 60-ish, coastal elite types. 🙂 LQ

I'd ask among the millennial-and-younger Lakeside gringo groups, maybe on Facebook. Should be a concentration of Mac users there. LQ

That place is called Fuentes Peña, and it's here: https://goo.gl/maps/99tcSCEa3YQdjqwq5 They may have (or can get) Goodyear tires, but I think they mostly have a Goodyear sign. They're good guys, and I'd recommend them for a one-off tire repair or replacement. If I needed a new set, I'd go to Costco. LQ

This is definitely what Azucena will tell you. Unless you allow at least six weeks she won't even take your money. Might you get away with 30 days, start to finish, if everything's booked and you hit all the marks, and INM doesn't have a card production delay? Sure, maybe. But if you leave before canje is complete, everything starts over, including consular approval. It's a nice place. Stay awhile. 🙂 LQ

I paid $2,000, in early 2022. I'd balk at $11,000, too. LQ

It is. We wanted ours back as soon as possible, because otherwise all we had were our California driver's licenses and our good looks. And a Costco card. Couldn't say for sure, but this is one area where a facilitator might make a difference. I leaned on Acuzena about this and, because she has a girl hand-holding her clients every day that Chapala INM is open, she could retrieve them to her office once they were no longer needed, and email me to pick them up. With the passports back, there was nothing left to do but wait for the cards. Let me mention that Chapala INM seems proud of their camera setup, but it takes the shittiest photos ever. I look like death, and Joan -- who doesn't know how to take a bad picture -- hates hers too (it's not that bad). You can't provide your own photos, either. I'm saying all this as though I and my wife went to INM together, but we didn't. I somehow got an appointment at the San Francisco consulate, went there was a ton of paper and got approved, and finished in Chapala. This let Joan apply in-country under "family unity," with only an apostille of our CA marriage license, no financials. She never did get an appointment in S.F. This is by far the easier way to go. While we were at it we got our birth certificates apostilled (New Jersey & California) because, hey, you never know. LQ

To clarify a bit: when you enter Mexico for the purpose of completing your legal residency, you are not a tourist, and do not want to be issued a tourist visa. Instead, you're engaged in a special process that INM calls canje. Make sure to show the INM agent (at the airport, etc.) the special sticker the consulate placed in your passport. He or she will know what to do. Most international airports are now paperless, but in your case they'll issue the old-style FMM form and give you the bottom portion. Don't lose it, because INM (or your migración facilitator) will need it and your passport to set an appointment for issuing your green card. This FMM form may be marked for only thirty days, but that's okay. As long as you've applied for a green card at INM and it's in process, you're good -- even if the process takes more than thirty days to complete. You just can't leave Mexico in the meantime. You won't get your passport back till later, so you'd have a hard time leaving anyway. The canje process is quite painless and involves no further approvals, just bureaucracy. You're already approved for residency, but it takes a while for INM to generate the physical green card. LQ

Oh. I suppose that's right. 😶 "Spring ahead" means "later." My personal solution is to not care. Most of the time I don't know what day of the week it is. OTOH, I've been thirty-three years old since 1993, so don't go by me. LQ

Correctamundo. When the U.S. starts Daylight Time, most of Mexico will be on par with U.S. Eastern. When they go back to Standard Time, we'll be the same as U.S. Central, as we are now. LQ

Guessing this is for Lakeside. Standard advice is hire an immigration lawyer. We used Azucena Bateman, on 16 de Septiembre in Ajijic. She's not expensive, and will reply to email. Recommended. Tell her I sent you. https://www.facebook.com/AzucenaBatemanCampos/ You can do it all yourself, but that'll only save you about $100 USD. Tourist visas are mostly back to 180 days now, by default, so the only requirement on you (besides INM fees) is to remain in Mexico while your legal residency is processed -- maybe five weeks, but allow six. An immigration lawyer can provide an entire education, has the right connections, and will send somebody with you to INM. It's the only way to fly. As an aside and if you don't know them already, I can also recommend Paul Kurzweil's YouTube videos on practical matters for expats. He keeps the content fresh. https://www.youtube.com/@qroo/featured Search for his migración topics this way: https://www.youtube.com/@qroo/search?query=inm immigration LQ

True dat. I think there are folks from the States who've recently had a shiny new Walmart Supercenter go up in their town, and they like it, and it suits their needs, blah, blah. To a person like that, a grimy old Walmart "Classic" store is gonna look like crap. Everything's old and disorganized, and you can see by the flooring that the shelves and registers have been reconfigured many times. Nobody loves that store, employees included. There are many times more shoddy Walmarts than shiny ones, and that's what almost everybody is familiar with. (I think there might be a shiny Walmart in Tlaquepaque or somewhere.) Embrace the grimy Walmart for what it is! Everybody knows the proposition: of the things you'd buy (maybe 3% of their SKUs), they might just have the lowest price. No other advantage. Nothing wrong with the lowest price for something I'm buying anyway. LQ

Right. Just use Gmail. Most email is spam. Take it from someone who no longer administers mail servers, your only hope is to use an email provider that handles billions of messages per day, so knows all the tricks. That's Gmail. There's no equivalent solution. If fact, you can forward mails sent to a non-Gmail account through Gmail, and get the spam filtering benefit. You can further configure this to reply to the sender "From:" the address they sent to originally. The sender won't even know, and doesn't need to know. Take a look in Gmail -> Settings -> Accounts and Import. Here are the many accounts that forward to my Gmail, since the Dark Ages: LQ

Seconded. Quick in and out; better-than-average photos. Inexpensive. LQ

Maybe try something that isn't store-branded, since those will disappear into the crowd, or could even be picked up mistakenly. We use ChicoBags and some slightly larger printed ones (BeeGreen). These are less common and more interesting. https://www.amazon.com.mx/Reusable-Shopping-Grocery-Assortment-Mazarine/dp/B005ZV91T0/ https://www.amazon.com.mx/BeeGreen-Fun-Animal-reutilizables-extragrandes/dp/B083J5YVLG/ LQ

Which is more tedious? Suffering sock puppets; or Suffering sock puppets that use Orwell's given name? #2 is just so erudite and clever that I declare it winner of the Tedium Challenge. LQ

It's not that one shouldn't care about recycling, it's that it's not real. It's real to the recycling consumer, and maybe real to whomever you hand it off to. It's real, in a way, to your hauler, who provides separate bins, but he's really just flattering you or complying with his contract. As soon as the material is far enough from your eyes, it's landfill, landfill, landfill. Sorry. Keep on doing it if you want. I put plastic bottles in big translucent trash bags on the curb -- just in case interested pickers want it. I give aluminum cans to mi vecina, who collects el servicio. At the same time I don't kid myself that anything's really being recycled, cuz it's not. The problem is that the makers of packaging waste don't bear the cost of disposal. They choose packaging that suits their business interests: marketing, transport, loss prevention, etc. After you buy the item, they're gone. It's a problem -- excess waste -- that can't be solved bottom-up. Until manufacturers are made to price-in disposal costs, consumer recycling is an aspirational exercise in self-congratulation. Committed recyclers don't like hearing this. There are niches where some recycling is viable, but it's a drop in the ocean. When there was a lot of newsprint in circulation there was a workable recycling stream for it. Today, newsprint has fallen way off, but it has a modern proxy: Amazon boxes (I bundle mine separately). But because of "aspirational recycling," somebody looks at their greasy pizza box, concludes that "It's cardboard," and combines it with the clean corrugated cardboard -- spoiling the lot. In 2023, consumer recycling is a fraud. A harmless fraud, but a fraud nonetheless. LQ