One of my most trusted sources for info about moving and living in Mexico, Sonia Diaz, has put together a booked called The Move to Mexico Bible. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but based on the information on Sonia’s website and discussions I’ve had with her, I am confident in recommending it to my readers interested in coming to Mexico. It covers everything from immigration to opening a bank account and takes into account the fact that Mexico is a large country and that what might be true in one region isn’t in another.

(Note that the above is an affiliate link through which a commissions are earned and passed on to a family in need. If you are shopping at the US Amazon site this weekend, accessing Amazon through that link will mean that all the purchases you make will help this family at no extra cost to you.)

I was having another good day when I got an email that caused me to drop everything. It was from my neighbour Caroline advising me that I’d received a scary letter from the Canada Revenue Agency regarding my business account. It did sound really bad on paper, but I knew that if I could only just get hold of them, something I’ve been trying to do since I got the initial letter about this issue back to SK in spring of 2017, it would be very quick to resolve.

It is extremely difficult to reach a live person at CRA. It’s generally a game of phone tag. That is made even more difficult and frustrating when the agent only leaves you a toll-free number you can’t call from outside Canada and the US and you only have Mexican phone numbers. So I tend to just work at it when I’m in the mood to do so until the issue absolutely has to be dealt with, unless, of course, I know I’m in the wrong and that delays, even due to no fault of my own, will mean penalties and interest. In this case, I knew that the odds of having any penalties or interest were very close to nil so this just wasn’t a huge priority for me.

Well, today’s letter was the big one, the “If you don’t respond to us right now, we’re going to start seizing assets” warning. It was time to think outside the box because there wasn’t any time left to play phone tag. After a Google search, I tried a couple of direct CRA phone numbers until I found one where I was able, through a phone options maze and a bit of a wait, reach a call centre agent who was then able to transfer me to the agent who had sent the letter. And since that transfer would have looked like an internal call, the actually agent picked up!

Doesn’t this look like a proper professional setup to be calling a tax agency from about your business account?! It’s even got a landline!

I had a pleasant chat with a very pleasant man who took me at my word, was sympathetic to my difficulties in reaching someone (he admitted it’s a common complaint), sent me to a website to e-file some paperwork (shocked that that worked as CRA’s website frequently goes down), and that was that. All told, it was exactly 40 minutes from receiving Caroline’s email to my letting her know everything was sorted. I still can’t believe it took 18 months to get to this point. But with CRA stubbornly refusing to update its contact procedures to get with the times, it is what it is.

I do have to say CRA is more pleasant to deal with than the IRS. Today’s call to CRA and my last communications with the IRS make me even less eager to get in bed with Hacienda here, so I’m glad that, for now, I don’t have to. Dealing with two tax agencies is enough!

Of course my triumph over bureaucracy meant I needed celebratory tacos for dinner. I Whatsapped an order and the situation got quite comical. It’s raining, so deliveries were super slow and the dispatcher was freaking out about it and updating me every few minutes even though I kept telling her that I understood and could wait. My meal eventually showed up and was still piping hot and fresh. I texted to let her know and she thanked me for being such a good customer. I just love my little local taquería — it’s exactly the kind of place I hoped I’d have nearby. It’s not fancy, but the food is good, the staff is friendly, and it’s nice to be able to text a food order on a cold and rainy night and have the restaurant care about the order getting to you in a timely fashion. It’s just another layer of “home.”

My neighbour’s %!#$@%! rooster has been quiet the last couple of mornings so I’ve had several nights of uninterrupted blissful sleep where I wake up smiling and cosy and content and rested after a solid seven to eight hours of sleep. Lovely. And, yes, I’m still sleeping in my hammock!

Work has been steady and not too onerous. Yesterday, I took a break mid-afternoon and walked to a garage sale in my neighbourhood as the lady had some lamps for sale. Lamps here are super expensive and I’ve been procrastinating on buying more, moving the one that came with the house from room to room as needed. So I was super happy to come home with these beauties! They were $350 each, but I got the pair for $600!

The one in good shape will be a task lamp in my office. The one with rust and spots will go up to my craft area. The finish on them is actually pretty cheap, not stainless steel, and they come completely apart, so I may experiment with spray painting them as there continues to not be enough colour in this house! 🙂

Today, a really important purchase arrived, the next big step to getting back to a truly functional workstation, something I haven’t had since I left for Europe in 2016. I’ve been making do with cobbled together workstations and barely adequate tools while really missing my nearly perfect office in Miranda.

Well, I’m settled for a bit, have space, and business is booming. A 13″ MacBook Air just isn’t cutting it anymore. I’m tired of the tiny display and the processor is too slow to run the Office for Mac suite. So I’m getting a new computer and since the new Mac Mini is better than the current iMac on the market and about 1,500USD (half the price!) cheaper, it’s a no-brainer to go that route even though I’d never considered a Mini before. Since a Mini is a “headless” computer, it needs a monitor. So why not start with that and use it with my laptop until I can afford the Mini?

After some shopping (options are limited here in Mexico), I found for half my budget (!) a monitor by a reputable manufacturer (Samsung) in the size (24″) and finish (matte) I wanted, plus with an HDMI port as I have the adapter to make the monitor work with my MacBook Air. The monitor arrived today and what a difference!

I can’t get over how light monitors are today compared to the ones of old. I actually wondered if the box was empty when it arrived! I have some work to do to get the monitor work as I expected it to (I think I have to play with the resolution), but I can already tell I’m not going to regret this purchase. 24″ is a great size. My last desktop Mac had a 24″ display and I remembered it as being more than enough, hence why I didn’t go for a 27″. I’m certain I made the right choice.

It’ll be really tight, but I’m fairly certain I’ll be able to buy my Mini before the year-end for tax advantage purposes, which is awesome. I otherwise didn’t see myself getting a new computer until the spring!

I enjoyed my new monitor for a few hours and then headed out to pick up yet another garage sale site item. I was going to drive over with Bonita, but my truck battery was dead! I don’t know if I have a drain somewhere or if the battery just simply needs to be replaced. Considering my battery is more than six years old, I’m going with the latter! Unfortunately, I’m parked on the street, so using my new trickle charger is out of the question. I’ll probably skip getting a boost and just have someone deliver and install me a new battery.

So poor Bonita didn’t get her truck ride and I had to hurry to order an Uber as I had an appointment to pick up the item and I knew the lady had to leave shortly thereafter. Traffic was heavy, but we arrived just a couple of minutes late. The item in question was a Corning Visions-brand pot, another of the items on my “when I get a bigger kitchen” wishlist!

This cookware is awesome as it does stovetop (gas and electric), oven and broiler, microwave, and can even go in the freezer! It was hard to gauge the size of the pot from the picture and I was delighted as it was a medium-sized one. The price was a bargain!

I was only 3.6KM from home, the pot was quite light (and I had a bag for it), and the rain had let up, so walking home was very appealing, especially since it was a very walkable route. I’d be in by about 6PM in time to give B her supper. So off I went, enjoying the cool air. Well, I was 1KM from home when the sky decided to open up again! I got in very soaked (thankfully, my purse is water resistant!). I dried off, changed, gave B her supper, and then made myself a curry with one of my last packets I brought back from Canada, a really lovely treat.

So that’s all the domestic excitement over here. Life in Mexico continues to be wonderfully mundane. 🙂

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