living.boondockingmexico@yahoo.com
I read quite a bit
about the difficulty ex-pats have in paying bills. I write this as one comment send, "we live in the land of maybe". It took offense to that statement. I realize that not everyone is going to be a
Spanish speaker. As I have said, people
live here for many different reasons and some feel just fine to stay with their
own kind. Although I have to say that I
see many lonely women in and around San Miguel de Allende just as an
example. I also noticed that in Cuenca,
Ecuador which is also another big ex-pat community. They could learn some Spanish and meet a nice muchacho :)
Most of the issue with
doing just about anything in Mexico is that if you don’t speak the language you
have to kind of fuddle your way through things until you sort them out. I have heard many people say, “well I have
lived here for years and never knew that”.
Read the newspaper, listen to the news on the television or the internet. Use an online translator and
read ex-pat newspapers.
So how do you pay bills
in Mexico? First off, there are very few
countries with a decent mail delivery system and the same goes for Mexico. We get our mail regularly but it only
includes two bills; the phone and our membership dues payment at the resort
south of our house.
The most common things
one has to pay are utilities and cable.
Telmex, CFE (electric), gas, be it filling a cylinder at home or in some
major Mexican cities that have a natural gas network, cable, and internet. The good thing about bills today is that
mail doesn’t matter much anymore. Even
the CFE who delivers bills is slowly getting out of the business. Everything is online these days including property
taxes, Mexican car insurance, credit cards, etc. I was shocked when my little brother recently told me that he still writes checks. Egads!
The CFE has cajeros or
machines where you can pay your bill.
Some even had card readers to pay via debit or credit. You can scan the bar code or enter your
service number which is on any bill you may have or your contract. The cajero accepts both bills and coins and
returns change. You can also pay at the counter.
Telmex has offices all
over Mexico and again, you only need your phone number with the area and an ID
in some cities. This is good also if you
just have the Infinitum internet and not the landline.
If you are a Mexican
resident, temporary or permanent, you can also open a Mexican bank account. Someone told me recently that another person
had told this person that Mexican banks weren’t safe. Wow, all Mexican banks have a counterpart in
either Europe or the U.S. We even have investments in Mexican banks. We have used
Banorte for over 30 years and never an issue. Banorte is associated with the International Bank of Laredo. You can have an account there in IB of L and
do transfers back and forth.
Your online account has
a page for paying the most popular companies.
Banorte has a list of over 50 that includes all of the payments above and
then some. Speaking of banking, most
Mexican banks are now going to mobile apps and you can pay with your phone in
many places. We saw the new readers at
Mega and Soriana in SMA, as an example. You just tap your phone and scan it with the QR code.
Then you have the famous
OXXO convenience stores. They accept all
types of payments, bank transfers, deposits, credit card payments, school
tuition, and then some for a small price of 10 pesos. You can send money from one store to another
in less than 30 minutes if someone you know needs cash.
After that comes
banks. Any bank will, whether you are a
customer or not, allow you to pay any of your bills for a small fee of
again, 10 pesos. If it is not a utility
bill, there will be a list of banks on the bottom of your payment slip with the
corresponding bar codes for the bank to use.
We even pay our property taxes and car tags at the bank, online bank or
at the OXXO.
When we are traveling
in Mexico, we can pay the essentials at any branch of the utility company. When we travel outside Mexico we then use our
Mexican online banking. We even make a
payment transfer weekly to the gardener online as well.
Well, that’s that
unless someone who reads this would like to add something I may have forgotten. You can always send me an email and I will be glad to answer any questions.
BTW, we celebrate 35
years of blissful togetherness today.
Wow, how time flies.