Topic: Paperwork

We have been avoiding opening a Mexican bank account. Everyone we have talked to has told us it is a long, grueling process that takes most of a day. I certainly didn't want anything to do with that. I have much better things to do with my time than sit in a bank all day, thank you. And really, we have gotten along just fine without one. All our money is in an American bank account that we access through an ATM without problems. In fact, our bank charges us no fees to use any ATM anywhere in the world, so keeping our American bank account has been a very practical and economical choice. Until now.

The federal electric company, CFE, works in ways I do not understand, and sometimes hurts my brain. Of course, a lot of my confusion stems from the fact that I have NOB sensibilities and ideas about how things should be done. I am sure this will change slowly over time, as I become more integrated into my new home and culture, but for now, I am really annoyed.

Today is the one year anniversary of our border crossing into Mexico and the start of our new life. We celebrated it by going to migracion to finish the renewal of our FM-3s. Yes, we just took our final proof that we had registered with Hacienda to pay taxes 9 days ago. It took us so long to get our working permission, that we only had 9 days of sweet, blessed legalness before we had to reapply.

When Chuck and I were contemplating our move to Mazatlan, we knew we were going to be working. Let's face it, we're in our low-to-mid 30's. We haven't worked long enough to build up the kind of nest egg necessary to retire. We have an online computer components store, and I have US clients for my web development business, but we knew that if we wanted our house with a view and to go out to eat whenever we wanted and a maid and all the other little things that make life great, we were going to need to generate some additional income.

Our very low electric bills have been very exciting to us. We came from Fort Worth, where in the Summer, our electric bill could be $800USD. And ours was low compared to a lot of our neighbors. So when we got our first electric bill, a scarce $204MXN, we were astonished and did a happy dance. Other people we spoke with thought that was a little low, but we reminded them that we don't have air conditioning. We insisted that fact, combined with the different rates charged to each neighborhood made up for the difference between our bill and theirs. A theory proven false.