Mexico the Best Place to Buy Your Most Precious Commodity: Time
Updated January, 2022
In the U.S., it’s easy to assign a monetary value to your time and calculate opportunity costs. Living in Mexico, however, will drive you to redefine how to value time. Suddenly, you can afford to eat out rather than cook. You can decide to have your place cleaned rather that spend the afternoon cleaning yourself.
Determining what your time is worth isn’t quite straight forward though. You have to plug in variables you wouldn’t have to consider at home; ease of communication in a foreign language, the level of engagement you desire with the culture and the impression you want to make as an expat all come into play in deciding whether or not you want to do it yourself or hire someone for tasks you don’t like in Mexico.
Which is more important to you: Time or money?
U.S. studies from Harvard Business School indicate that paying people to do chores you don't like will make you happier than buying material goods. In spite of that, a New York Times survey showed that when asked which is more important, time or money, 64% of 4,230 people surveyed said money. Even people who can easily afford to pay someone to do an unpleasant task rarely do. They will still spend the $50 on dinner rather than $50 to have someone do their yard work.
I know the feeling, even though I don’t completely understand it. When I was spending weekends as a ski instructor at a resort four hours away from home, I couldn't keep up with housework and my career at the same time. A dirty house unsettles me. Even though I paid a housekeeper with extra money I was making instructing for the fun of it, I still felt strange about not cleaning my own house.
What I came to realize in overcoming the reluctance, and have since read in studies, is that it’s important how you spend the time you save. That time shouldn’t be wasted on surfing the net or napping. That time should be spent on hobbies and past times that are gratifying and enjoyable, yet challenging. Teaching people how to ski was physically demanding and a paying job. I soon realized the personal growth achieved by doing it outweighed any satisfaction I got from cleaning my own home.
In Mexico, the time I save by hiring people gives me time to study Spanish, learn to cook Mexican cuisine, or read materials related to work that are challenging that I tend to put off. For other expats it might be volunteering, photography or learning to play a musical instrument, none of which are fun to do when tired or stressed.
One of the best reasons to hire people for certain tasks is to save you time and energy to learn a pleasurable, although not necessarily easy, new skill.
Paying for tasks in Mexico
I hesitate far less in hiring help in Mexico, and not only because labor is cheaper. I remember cheerily asking a young Uber driver one afternoon what was going on in his world. He looked startled by the question. Work! He said.
Mexico is a a young country. The average age is 28.8 years old. (The average age in the U.S. is 38.8.) That creates an enormous pool of relatively inexperienced workers, all needing work.
When I pay a Mexican to do a task I don't like doing, I feel like I'm contributing to Mexican economy, especially since I can afford pay that person well by Mexican standards. Being able to pay well, not just the going rate, makes a big difference in how I feel delegating out things I don’t like to do.
I might give the accountant in the property management office 100 pesos to scan, print and organize legal documents. I once paid an Uber driver (who was also a civil engineer) 150 pesos on-the-spot to proofread a letter I'd written in Spanish. Week to week, I find myself contracting out for a host of small jobs that I’d do myself at home. Rarely does any task cost more than 350 pesos (about $25 dollars) in Mexico.
Native expectations
I once lived in an old resort with a large staff of service personnel. In addition to housekeeping, for a 20 peso tip (about $1 dollar), restaurant staff were delighted to bring up my dinner from the restaurant downstairs.
A load of laundry washed and freshly folded cost by that same staff rather that go out and do it myself cost about $5 dollars. For 50 pesos ($2-3), one of their gardeners was more than happy to sweep my patio and trim flowering climbing vines that I can practically watch growing right in front of my eyes in the summer. Staff became much friendlier towards me when I began to avail myself of all these services, ones that I never indulged in at first because it felt lazy.
Mexican Uber drivers: Your instant Rolodex
Even long-term expats often don’t capitalize on this opportunity for richer days focusing on challenging past times and hobbies they enjoy. I have a friend who rents out a few casitas and still does most the housework. Managing the rentals is almost all she talks about.
This seems crazy to me. Housekeeping services cost less than $5 dollars an hour. Perhaps she feels awkward not knowing how much to pay and fears paying too much or too little. Many expats, especially those who don’t speak Spanish, don’t know where to begin in finding people for tasks they might like to farm out. Not knowing any Mexicans is why god created Uber drivers.
If lacking local contacts, finding five Uber drivers you feel good about can be an easy way to developing a network of locals to reach out to if you need help (via email if you don't speak Spanish and need to use Google Translate). They can provide referrals to painters, handymen, locksmiths, seamstresses, I.T. professionals and other job that you either don’t want to do, or can’t. It’s a great start.
If you do know Mexicans, most all of them have extensive social and family networks, networks of people they’ve known since grade school and family members whom they're expected to look out for. I was once roundly admonished by a Mexican girlfriend (who has three jobs herself) for hiring an Uber driver for a round of morning errands instead of calling and hiring her son, which never occurred to me.
How much do I spend on a weekly paying someone to do tasks I hate but could do myself? Maybe $30 a week. Not only am I happier, as the studies say I should be. I also feel like I'm participating in both Mexico's economy and its society - a society that hustles.
Related links:
In Mexico, you can once again indulge in those little luxuries you might have given up at home. Here are some that cost less than $30 dollars. - Ventanas Mexico
Up Next:
Your introduction to Guadalajara, the big city of your dreams.
About the author:
Hola! I'm Kerry Baker and author of "If Only I Had a Place," a guide to renting in Mexico written for the aspiring expat. If you don’t have an e-reader, you can download an e-reader for free. [Currently under revision].
The second book I released “The Mexico Solution: Saving your money, sanity, and quality of life through part-time life in Mexico.” This is a how-two book with anecdotes sure to entertain. Most recently I co-authored a cookbook, “The Lazy Expat: Healthy Recipes That Translate in Mexico for expats, travelers and snowbirds trying to stay healthy in a foreign cooking environment.