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The Five Year Plan


Cactus Jack

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17 hours ago, gimpychimp said:

When the people in the gated communities in Florida  bitch about "the locals", who are they referring to?   Are they not all Floridians if they live there?

My point was how in Florida, those behind the gates do not become involved in the community. They do not socialize with people outside their gates. They do not know what's going on in town. They have warped perceptions about where they live due to preconceived views and their unwillingness to be a part of the community. They constantly complain about taxes and anything that "isn't like home." It would be a shame if they brought those same feelings to another country. They have money, so they can bend their surroundings to fit.

I have no idea about the situation down there, other than what I've read.

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18 hours ago, Prudent said:

I have upper middle class Mexican friends and they fly to the US in family planes. They send their children to schools in Switzerland.

In my experience, this could really not be called middle class. This would be rich. Very rich.

Everyone needs someone to look down on. I provide a public service to all.

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32 minutes ago, Tiny said:

Sorry, I just found these comments negative. Just like thinking that someone is ugly. While it may true, there is no reason to say it. I didn't say untrue.

It seemed to me that they were implying that the community had to be gated to be regulated. 

I didn't see the mention of village life. There is other life besides village life. We have been in the City over 20 years. Just a "newbie" here.

I guess I need to start looking for some horses in 8 foot grass.

If you live here then you know your home must be fortified or face the reality of repeated break-ins.  Not speaking of security here is being naive.  There is a safety and security factor of gated communities such as Vista Allegre that the rest of us must create on our own.

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31 minutes ago, Cactus Jack said:

My point was how in Florida, those behind the gates do not become involved in the community. They do not socialize with people outside their gates. They do not know what's going on in town. They have warped perceptions about where they live due to preconceived views and their unwillingness to be a part of the community. They constantly complain about taxes and anything that "isn't like home." It would be a shame if they brought those same feelings to another country. They have money, so they can bend their surroundings to fit.

I have no idea about the situation down there, other than what I've read.

I have to disagree. I lived in a gated community in Miramar, FL (next to Hollywood) for 10 years. There gated community idea was just marketing. The selling of false sense of security.

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Everybody's level of security needs are different. In the twenty-one years that I've lived in Mexico, only four of those were in gated communities. Lots of back biting and bitching going on amongst the various groups within those communities. Now that's only TWO communities out of a lot of them. I'm out of them again and am happy to be free of somebody else's rules and regulations. Have never had electrified fences or glass on the walls tops either... And the only place that I've ever been robbed was in Toronto.

Knock on wood.

 

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3 hours ago, Cactus Jack said:

In my experience, this could really not be called middle class. This would be rich. Very rich.

Everyone needs someone to look down on. I provide a public service to all.

Cactus Jack, very funny and I understand. It is just a different frame of financial reference. As Americans we typically apply US standards to the rest of the world, which is a normal thing to do. It just isn't always an accurate view. I became rich when I worked in one Asian country because everyone was rich or really, really poor. I went back to being middle class when I moved out of that country. I am middle class in Mexico. 

I hope you can make your five year plan work. I think I would really like you.

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On 10/14/2017 at 3:52 PM, Cactus Jack said:

A goal. We both have people at work who love to help us practice. A big advantage we have is living right in the barrio of Las Vegas. Most of the stores in our area are latino. 

I didn't tell you one of my tricks for the lack of speaking Spanish. I have a translation app on my cell phone and use the phase "habla despacio por favor".  hahaha

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11 hours ago, Ferret said:

Everybody's level of security needs are different. In the twenty-one years that I've lived in Mexico, only four of those were in gated communities. Lots of back biting and bitching going on amongst the various groups within those communities. Now that's only TWO communities out of a lot of them. I'm out of them again and am happy to be free of somebody else's rules and regulations. Have never had electrified fences or glass on the walls tops either... And the only place that I've ever been robbed was in Toronto.

Knock on wood.

 

I have iron bars on windows and doors and a large vigilant dog. That's it. Have never had even an attempted break-in in the 15 years I have lived here. My place is modest and doesn't look like it would house expensive toys, nor is my vehicle out front anything new or fancy. But my friends who live in upscale neighborhoods have extensive and elaborate security systems and still have ongoing theft and attempted theft problems. I figure it's not a good idea to choose to live a perceived fancy lifestyle in a place where so many have so little.

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My neighbors are up in arms concerning a couple of recent home and car break-ins. All of my neighbors are Mexican. It happens anywhere and to  anyone. 

They say that I have lowered their property values. hahaha

They are working on a neighbor watch to make people more alert and aware.

Maybe I should not say this. We have had one break-in in 20 years. And that was before we updated security.

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I hate that the avocados are not ripe, the bananas too ripe, toast is burnt, my wife's 7:00 am water class and my pill container needs to be filled.

I guess someone is having a bad start of the day.  Have you ever had this kind of morning?

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17 minutes ago, Tiny said:

I hate that the avocados are not ripe, the bananas too ripe, toast is burnt, my wife's 7:00 am water class and my pill container needs to be filled.

I guess someone is having a bad start of the day.  Have you ever had this kind of morning?

So you wanted a Mexican wife, eh..........................

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The only break in I've had in over nine years in Ajijic centro was before I had bars installed above the front garage door between it and the casita above.  A meth head hit a number of Mexican neighbors and me.  He couldn't get in the house itself so he lit the woodpile on fire.  Luckily, we got home before much damage was done.  Don't have the right kind of place for a dog, so no canine guard.  Also, no blingy car or other indication of goodies to be snatched.  Basically, your usual thief goes where it looks like riches live, like the famous bank robber who went for banks since "that's where the money is".

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On ‎10‎/‎14‎/‎2017 at 10:15 AM, Cactus Jack said:

(I hit the little black box called "Quote this.")

I see a lot of articles that say "Retire here on $1000 a month!" A better headline would be "How to live in a box under a bridge." A large percentage of Americans have been in a downward spiral for decades. The only pension plans are for government employees. Setting any kind of reasonable budget five years in advance is unreasonable, but we gotta do it, right? Let's double the headline amount and call it $2000 a month. That's about where we are now; we'd like to live close to how we do now, but we know that might not be doable. Our rent is $750. We'd be happy if we could cut that but still be comfortable.

In the US, the only real variable is housing. A Big Mac costs the same in Dallas, LA, and Who-the-hell-knows, FL. Taxes--income, personal, property--are all pretty much the same. If all of those are lower, so is the standard of living. Since we're talking about retirement, job income does not come into play, other than at arm's length. If they pay more, it costs more, but is worth more. A rising tide improves the view. What we are studying is the sliding scale--cost vs comfort.

This is subjective. Everyone has a different idea of comfort. None of us wants to live in a tent. (Some might, but we can safely call them outliers.) But we all have some idea of what is acceptable, and what requires sacrifice. I've read and seen videos of people saying you can live on a hundred a month in Mexico, but I would expect that to be at the level of those who come north for a better life. We can call that an outlier as well. We do not expect to live in a gate community. We have no illusions of being able to live in a recreated US. Somewhere in that mess would be a range we can all agree would make us okay. Maybe not great, but okay. Living on SS alone isn't ever going to be great.

We're studying that range. If we have a budget of $2000 US a month, and we want to maintain a middle-class quality of life, how far away can we get from gringos without losing contact? Is it even possible, meaning we have to become Mexicans, or Colombians or Nicaraguans? Or Vietnamese?

The longer we can prepare, the less stress we'll encounter. Knowledge is power.

Thanks for the forum to think this out. 

:)

 

 

Just a note in line with recent posts and not in line with recent posts. You will be traveling to Medellin. I'd recommend this site for current info: could be http or https:medellinliving.com.  One interesting article compared rentals across strata. So, in Medellin, a huge city, but with good public transit, neighborhoods are defined by level, or stratum (called Estrada, I believe). I forget how many categories, but places like Poblado will equate with Fifth Avenue in New York or Polanco in DF and prices to match.  I was able to armchair visit some of these neighborhoods just by a Google search for the name of the neighborhood and video, so Colombia, Poblado, video. Yes, some are biased toward selling something, but many are not. Likely the same with most anywhere in Mexico. I've revisited Chapala by video. I remember it pre-Walmart; this would be post-Walmart.

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2 hours ago, seoulguy said:

Just a note in line with recent posts and not in line with recent posts. You will be traveling to Medellin. I'd recommend this site for current info: could be http or https:medellinliving.com.  One interesting article compared rentals across strata. So, in Medellin, a huge city, but with good public transit, neighborhoods are defined by level, or stratum (called Estrada, I believe). I forget how many categories, but places like Poblado will equate with Fifth Avenue in New York or Polanco in DF and prices to match.  I was able to armchair visit some of these neighborhoods just by a Google search for the name of the neighborhood and video, so Colombia, Poblado, video. Yes, some are biased toward selling something, but many are not. Likely the same with most anywhere in Mexico. I've revisited Chapala by video. I remember it pre-Walmart; this would be post-Walmart.

Looking for the balance between wishes and dreams and reality with some sacrifices. It will be an interesting study over the next few years.

Keep us in mind as your investigation continues.

Don and Terrie

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