Mexico

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Making Sense of New Mexican Visa Rules

Where I am right now in my life plan is that I want to go Mexico full-time next winter (although I am prepared to defer that one additional year if need be). So that gives me a year to get everything sorted out, including navigating all the new visa rules. It’s really hard to get advice right now because so many ‘old timers’ are used to the old system and really don’t know anything about the reformed immigration system. Another thing is that Mexico is getting more and more computerized, so a lot of these people just aren’t cognizant of just how strictly you need to follow the rules now compared to the old days.

This is going to be the first in what will likely be a series of posts as I figure out what I need to know to get to myself to Mexico permanently.

Here are a few of the things I need to consider:

Visas

The most pressing thing I need to figure out is how do I get to stay in Mexico for longer than 180 days and begin the path to citizenship? I’ve been getting a lot of conflicting info on that and false hope that I can get citizenship within about five years. Last night, I finally managed to sort it all out.

I read in several places that if I am self-employed with clients outside Mexico and can prove that I make a minimum amount per month, I can apply to be residente permanente (permanent resident), just as a retiree would, and be eligible after four years to apply for citizenship. This is false.

The visa I need to apply for is residente temporal (temporary resident). This isn’t as scary as it sounds. If you get it, you are allowed to stay in Mexico for a full year and then reapply for up to an additional three years. At the end of the three years (four total), you either leave Mexico or convert to a residente permanente visa, and then begin to the path to naturalization.

While the residente temporal path will take me a lot longer to get through, it will actually make it easier for me to get my foot in the door because the income requirements are so much lower and you only need to prove them for the past six months, not a full year. I am now making more than the minimum for both schemes, and, in fact, average at least twice the minimum for the residente temporal requirements. If I can show them a year’s worth of statements, not just the six months they ask for, I’m sure that will give me an edge.

I am also planning to do my interview in Spanish since I can answer the questions easily even without having researched certain terms ahead of time. Some of the questions I need to answer could be why do I want to move to Mexico and how will I support myself?

These visas can only be applied from at your home consulate, which, in my case, is in Calgary. So I need to plan to go there next fall. All this visit gives you is permission to apply for temporary residence when you get to the border. You can still get turned away.

Financial and Tax Matters

I really need to find myself a tax accountant who deals with people in my situation. Google is being surprisingly non-helpful in this regard. If anyone reading this has a tax account who deals with Canadians who move to Mexico, please send me their info!

It’s really unclear at this point what my tax obligation will be when I move to Mexico permanently beyond the fact that I won’t have to pay Mexican taxes. I may be able to be deemed a non-resident for tax purposes in Canada if I cut all my ties here, but I plan to keep my property, so I may not be able to. Needless to say, my next step really is to find an accountant.

I have some debts here that I need to pay off. It’s not realistic to think that I can pay them all off within the next year, but I can make a big enough dent to make a difference. So that’s going to be a priority for me as soon as I get to the lower Mexican cost of living in November.

Vehicle

I need to see if I can keep a legal vehicle here and my SK driver’s license while on residente temporal status or if I should get my Mexican driver’s license and have it be good here.

It is really difficult to bring a non-Mexican plated vehicle into Mexico and nearly impossible right now to have it converted into a Mexican vehicle. I wanted to buy myself a ‘new’ car next spring, but am revising that plan. You can’t have a non-Mexican vehicle on a residente permanente visa anyway, so I think I’m better off not even bothering bringing a vehicle into Mexico and buying one when I get there.

Housing

I’m planning to fly to Mérida this winter to check it out as my possible initial home base for my new life in Mexico, if only to have a comparison point to Mazatlán. I really like the idea of being down in the Yucatán with all the history, Mérida is a colonial city like Maz, it is easier to get to from Montreal, it is one of the lower cost ex-pat destinations (compared to, say, San Miguel de Allende or Lake Chapala), and it has enough of an ex-pat population that immigration services are nearby (no having to drive two hours to get a visa stamped).

Part of the trip will be to look at the rental market and possibly pick out my landing place for the next winter so I have a Mexican address for my visa application. This would involve a much more formal arrangement than what I have in Maz, with a 12-month rental contract and deposit. It will be a gamble to take if I don’t get my temporary resident status approved, but, worst case, I’d still get to use most of the 180 days I’d have as a visitor, so it wouldn’t be a total loss. If I go ahead and sign a contract, I’d probably aim to have it start January 1st of 2017. If I manage to get to Mérida sooner, I could take a short-term rental.

Household Goods

I’m allowed to import so much ‘stuff’ when I move to Mexico permanently, but that amount will be seriously limited if I decide to fly rather than drive in. The truth is that at this point, I can pretty much carry with me everything that I need to start over in life and the rest is just stuff that can easily be purchased anywhere. Yes, some things are more expensive in Mexico, but it’s really not worth the effort to me to pack up a U-Haul with my dishwasher, tools, and washing machine, especially when I would still need them while here. I’m convinced that I can get it all on a plane by paying for excess luggage, a much cheaper option than having anything shipped.

Healthcare

Under a temporary resident visa, I would be eligible for Mexican government healthcare, just like I am eligible in SK. This is basic emergency care and I would also have the option of paying out of pocket for access to private clinics. I will have better access to both regular and emergency care in Mexico than I have ever had in Canada, so I’m not too worried about this part of the moving to Mexico plan.

Name

I’ve been thinking of changing my first name name legally to Rae for several years now and the more I dig into the Mexican bureaucracy and see how much paperwork I’d have to fill out, the more I’m convinced that changing my name before I apply for anything would be really helpful since my legal name on my passport and birth certificate is about a billion miles long and I don’t want to have to keep needing to spell it. Its accent and hyphen also keep causing me grief. This would, of course, delay applying for the visa.

I’m absolutely serious about going to Bulgaria next summer and think that I could start the name change process upon coming back and then apply for my new birth certificate and passport, which I’d need anyway since my current one expires in early spring 2017. This would mean delaying my visa request into the winter, so moving to a short-term rental in Calgary while I sort out everything could be the neatest solution to covering this gap.

A name change request for someone born anywhere in Canada but Quebec is easy. For a Quebecer, it is very difficult and just about impossible if you’re a resident of the province. I’ve spent a lot of time researching this and believe I may have found the path of least resistance in the red tape, so this might not be the impossible plan it seemed a few years ago.

Conclusion

My ‘I want to move to Mexico!’ plan is firming up as I collect more information. It’s no longer something I’m just talking about and researching, but rather actually making concrete steps in implementing. The idea of taking nine or ten years to become a citizen is a bit daunting, but I have to live somewhere, so why not there? It’s not like I’d be a prisoner of Mexico and unable to leave for holidays elsewhere (I’d just need to pay attention to the rules of how much I can be out of Mexico in a certain period of time to not lose my residency status). I’d also have a whole big country to explore and could plan to move to a different city every couple of years!

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A Mattress Topper at Last

Since I had to go back to Plentywood today to pick up a piece for the booster, I decided to make the trip worthwhile and finally ordered myself for delivery there a mattress topper, something I badly need for my bed in Mexico. As I was shopping in earnest the other night and doing research, something hit me: those things are absolutely not portable!

They are vacuum packed and meant to expand on the bed. It would be impractical to think that I could fold it up and easily take it with me to Mexico. I’m already planning to spend money on an easy chair that I will leave behind after six months and didn’t want to spend over $100 on yet another thing that was going to have to stay. So I started searching for a travel or portable mattress topper and actually found one! It is amusingly called a Bag of Comfort by Sleep Innovations.

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Now, this is meant to be portable, so it’s just a 1″ piece of memory foam, a far cry from the luxuriously thick cloud on John’s RV bed in Santa Fe, but it’s definitely better than nothing.

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Reviews say that it’s easy to get back in the bag, so I should even be able to take it into a hotel for one night if that’s true. If I can have a more comfy bed at Totonaka in San Carlos, I would be happy to go back there because it’s so convenient.

The kit also includes a memory foam pillow! I needed a new pillow, too, and have been wanting to try a memory foam one, so this Bag of Comfort was quite a deal for me.

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The topper is marked as being sized for a long XL twin (standard dorm bed, apparently). I have a full size bed and the topper is plenty big enough for me since I only sleep on one half of the bed anyway (it’s only a few inches narrower than the mattress). I think a couple could fit on it if they really wanted to as it’s a lot wider than I expected.

It was a good drive to go get both the topper and the piece of cable. My “Danger! Danger! Danger!” alert did go off at the U.S. border when they started to ask me questions about Mexico and what I do for a living. The question I have never flat out been asked, but was dreading, came, “Do you work in Mexico?”

I don’t lie at the border and I think people who do are idiots looking for trouble. So I replied in the affirmative. A very, very, very long beat passed and I wondered if they were making notes in my file that would cause me issues next month. Finally, the other officer came back to my window. “Sorry. We’re both confused. Do you work in Spanish or?”

He was curious, not suspicious. Classic U.S. customs scenario for me and I started to relax. “No, no, no. I work for my existing clients from the computer. I don’t have a visa to take a Mexican job.”

“Oh, that makes more sense! Mexico wouldn’t care since you’re not taking one of their jobs and you’re spending money. Good for you! Have a good afternoon in Montana!”

And that was that. American border officials are generally so lovely. It’s almost always, “Welcome to America! We’re glad to have you and your money, but, please, don’t overstay your welcome,” a sharp comparison to consistently being treated like a criminal by my country’s border officials.

I got to Plentywood around 11:30 and immediately went for lunch. Then, I got my packages, which cost me $10 ($5 each). I think the amount would add up really fast if I was frequently having stuff sent to them, but for these occasional situations, it’s a bargain since you get the confirmation that your packages are on site (something I don’t get in Opheim for the same price) and the package room is more secure.

After, I went across the street to a hardware store to get a faceplate for my booster project as well as some copper wire. The gal who served me was really helpful, but the surly man working there was rather unpleasant. Anyway, I got what I needed, so I was happy.

Then, I headed to a museum just east of town that I believed was open at 1:00 p.m. after Labour Day, but it wasn’t. Oh, well. I pointed the truck towards home and found a Dairy Queen tucked away off the main drag, so I popped in for a Blizzard. A ‘mini’ was still way more Blizzard than anyone should eat, but I highly recommend brownie cookie dough. 🙂

The border was quickly upon me after my snack and I sat at the window for what felt like ages but was probably only five minutes until someone acknowledged me. It was a very quick interview: where do I live, how long was I in the States, how much did I have to declare, and did I have any drugs or ATF? And that was it! I didn’t even have to go in to pay my $8.50 or so in taxes and no one emptied my truck (which was absolutely empty except for myself, my purse, and my purchases. This was my first easy crossing back into Canada since crossing at the Sault in 2012. I hate CBSA.

And then, it was just rolling hills and I think maybe passing one car all the way home. This picture didn’t turn out that well (my iPhone camera sucks compared to my Pentax), but I was struck by the golden trees contrasting with the olive hills. Fall is here!

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When I got home, I spent about three hours finishing up my booster installation. I can’t believe it was that long, but time flew by since everything was coming together fairly easily and, so, I was having fun! That post will be next!

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Flying Versus Driving to Mexico

Chris made a comment yesterday that I should consider flying to Mexico this winter. I already have! So I thought I’d share my thought process to better explain why I feel that driving is the better option for me to get to Mazatlán.

Driving Pros:

-I can bring pretty much everything I want to take down with me for the winter, including my entire office setup, like my chair and printer, as well as what I need in the kitchen since I know that as much as I joke about wanting to eat out all winter, I am going to want to cook at some point.

-I don’t need to commit to the entire round trip amount at one time, ie. I can save for the gas money to come north over the course of the winter.

-I can stretch the winter season by spending time in the U.S. if needed (especially useful in the spring, as this past trip north demonstrated).

-I have control over what days I arrive and depart.

-I enjoy driving/the trip down is part of the fun.

Driving Cons:

-My truck is a gas guzzler — when the exchange rate was better, the savings in the States made the couple of Mexican tanks I’ll have to buy insignificant, but now, I’m looking at expensive fuel all the way down.

-I have to pay for hotels along the way.

-I have to go through the temporary vehicle import process at the Mexican border.

Flying Pros:

-All-in, it’s cheaper than driving.

-I don’t have to go through U.S. Customs.

-My truck won’t continue rusting in the sea air down there (I really don’t need my truck in Maz).

Flying Cons:

-No control over the dates I get there and have to leave.

-Getting to and from the airport in Regina will be a huge hassle. I’ll either have to leave my truck here all winter and bum rides to and from Assiniboia to catch the bus or pay for storing my truck in Regina all winter.

-There are no direct flights from Regina to Maz; flights go through Calgary or Vancouver and are poorly timed so I’d very likely lose a full night of sleep. I don’t handle losing sleep well and the recovery will cut into my enjoyment at arriving in Maz.

-I can’t bring everything I need for the winter and would be limited to the computer equipment I can fit in a carry on.

-I’m limited to my 180 days in Mexico and traveling directly between it and Canada, so I’d have to go straight home in late April/early May (brr).

-I’d have to commit to the round-trip ticket now. I know some people just buy a one-way and look for deals for the trip home there, but knowing my luck at the border, I’ll have to show a proof that I’m planning to go home, ie. a return ticket.

When you add it all up, it boils down to the fact that I love the drive. It’s a decompression period for me, even if I am planning to do a cannonball run this time around. If I was dreading the drive, flying would be more appealing. But I’m just thinking of getting all my luggage from Haven to Maz and feeling rather faint at the thought. Driving actually feels like less trouble!

Of course, if I get a bad inspection report, I could change my mind…

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In Sync

Disclaimer: Anyone who has no use for modern gadgets and is going to leave a ‘I don’t have a smart phone and am proud of it’ comment, please don’t bother reading this post as it will be an eye roller for you. 😉

I was balancing the books yesterday and was frustrated by my inability to thoroughly keep track of my cash purchases. I was out a whole $25 that I couldn’t remember spending. When in town, I try to remember to input cash purchases into a note on my iPhone, but it’s clumsy, not quick to do on the fly, and then I have to put the information into my budgeting software. Since I pretty much only use cash in Mexico and want to keep better track of where I’m spending that money this winter since I know that I won’t just be spending on it primarily on food the way I was for almost four months last year, I really needed to come up with a better system.

I decided to investigate their iPhone version of the app, which promised to sync seamlessly with the desktop version through Dropbox. Now that I just about always have internet and unlimited bandwidth, syncing across the ether didn’t sound as scary as it once did, although it has always been a huge disaster with my Apple devices…

Well, I downloaded the iOS version of the budgeting app and tried it out when I was in Willow Bunch yesterday, immediately punching into the app the amounts spent at the pub and thrift store. It was much easier than creating a note in that the app could quickly pull up my payees with just a few keystrokes instead of having to type the whole name, recognize which categories they belong to, and has really big buttons to press to punch in the numbers instead of the tiny iPhone keyboard that pops up with the notes. When I got home and connected my Mac to the internet, my desktop app updated with the new purchases. Wow, cloud syncing could be wonderful!

So today, in between fits of work, I decided to figure out why I have such a hard time syncing between my Mac and my iOS devices. I’ve been trying to figure this out for five years, but never really pressed the issue because it wasn’t a critical issue for me. But now that I have an iPhone, work has really picked up, and I spend half the year out in the world and not staying cooped up at home 95% of the time, I need to be able to better use this powerful little pocket computer. If anything, I wanted to be able to have my calendar on my phone and not have to enter reminders on my Mac and then reenter them on the phone. I also go to bed with my iPad and wish that I could check my day’s to-do list and appointments before getting up, so syncing with it too would be a bonus.

I’m not quite sure how the epiphany came about this morning, but it didn’t take long for the light bulb to go on. My problem was that I have two Apple IDs (the reason for which I won’t bore you with) and have been using them pretty much interchangeably while I should have only been using one. So I took about a half hour (would have been much quicker with non-flaky internet) and made sure that all my devices were hooked up to the correct Apple ID and then I activated iCloud under that same Apple ID for each device. Bingo!

I still wound up with some duplicates and garbage information and it took me a moment to realise that the best way to clean that up is right in the cloud where everything is stored by signing in at icloud.com. But now that everything is synced and duplicates have been removed, I can update on whatever device I want and the changes appear seamlessly on each device (well, as long as my internet is cooperating).

I’ll be getting a new computer in a few weeks, so I’ll make sure to set it up properly from the get go.

Because I haven’t paid full price for an Apple device in ages (in fact, for all intents and purposes every one of my current devices was free!*) I sometimes forget how expensive they are and that I really should be maxing out their potential to get more value out of them. Cloud syncing is going to help me do just that!

Next step, when I have a lot more time to focus on the issue, will be to figure out how to link my Filemaker Pro database to the iOS app so that I can consult my invoices on the go. It happens about once a month that I get an invoice query from a client when I’m away from the desk, so it would be nice to at minimum be able to look up invoice numbers, amounts, and due dates.

I remember life with paper dayplanners and no internet at my fingertips and this is better. I can’t imagine running my little empire without these tools. I’m not a slave to them, but now that work is so much steadier and I’m expected to keep more normal business hours, it’s good to not be tethered to my desk and to feel that I can get away without announcing that I’m away.

(*My current Mac was a straight trade for my older computer, my iPad was mostly paid for with a generous work bonus, and my phone was absolutely free with a two-year contract because it’s an older model and they were clearing out stock)

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First Steps Towards My Second Isla Winter

I managed to get hold of my landlady on Isla a few minutes ago (on the first try!) and confirmed that I can arrive early. I had talked about coming for November 25th, but now I want to be there November 1st. No problem, the house will be ready for me and I should have TelMex internet for the 3rd, which is going to be my first work day in Mexico. Worst case scenario, I’ll have time to get the booster antenna on the roof to get a reliable TelCel signal to tide me over till the hard wired internet kicks in.

I learned last year that my landlady doesn’t communicate well, possibly a Mexican trait. The attitude is, I’ve got the information and there’s no need to discuss it again unless anything changes. I nearly drove myself batty last year trying to get hold of her as I got closer to Mexico to confirm that I was coming and that the house would be ready. Now I know that she was thinking, “OMG, how many times does she have to tell me this?!” So on this call, I told her that I would not be calling again unless my date of arrival changed and that if anything changed for her, she could Facebook me. So for me, this is done. I’m arriving the 1st of November and the house will be ready.

The other big news is that I’ve decided not to take time off the new job to get to Isla. I’m trying to put off taking any vacation time until I’m feeling a bit more secure in the position and am ready to take a proper vacation. It would be nice in January to take a week, or maybe even two!, and go to a resort or something and be pampered a bit. Flights within Mexico are super cheap, so I could maybe even fly somewhere like the Yucatán to explore ancient ruins or fly to another city I could easily drive to from Canada to explore housing options for my third Mexican winter.

So the plan is to drive down to Isla in two chunks. I will finish work at 4PM on Thursday October 22nd and spend the evening finishing the packing of the truck and closing up the inside of Miranda. I’ll be up at first light on Friday the 23rd to close up the property and take off by 7AM to get to the border when it opens at 8AM.

Once I’m across, I’m going to drive till I drop and repeat on Saturday and Sunday to get to Nogales, AZ, by noonish on Monday the 26th. This will give me time on the Monday to get pesos, Mexican vehicle insurance, and do a Walmart run (I promised friends I’d arrive loaded down with kitty litter!).

I’ll then work my Tuesday through Thursday shifts, which will help me recoup a bit of energy from the mad dash down. I’ll then take off for the Mexican border super early on the Friday to arrive in San Carlos by early afternoon, like I did last year. Then drive partway to Culiacán Saturday, and then get to Isla around 2PM on Sunday. This gives me Monday to breathe and work on the booster.

WHEW! Of course, this doesn’t give me much leeway if I’m delayed for any reason, but I can of course stop sooner than Nogales to work if I need to and I know I could get to Isla in two days rather than two and a half if I wanted to now that I know the route. I could go from the border to Navojoa and then from Navojoa straight to Isla, for example. It really makes a difference that I’m not going into the unknown this time around.

So if you’re looking at your calendars, I’m already talking about leaving in terms of two months and a few weeks. The summer is going by really quickly!