3 Things I Wish I Knew Before Moving to Mexico — After Living Here Nearly 7 Years

Before my family and I moved to Mexico in 2019, we spent about two years planning.

We watched the YouTube videos. We joined the Facebook groups. We researched neighborhoods, residency, schools, transportation, housing—all the stuff you're supposed to research before moving to another country.

And I would consider our MexitPlans a success.

We made the move. We stayed. We built a life here in Mérida. Our daughter has grown up bilingual and bicultural. Mexico is home.

But here's the thing...

Knowing what I know now, there are definitely some things I would do differently.

Not because our plan was bad. And not because we didn't do enough research.

The problem was that we couldn't see how one decision would affect the next one.

And some of those lessons cost us real money.

So if you're planning your own move to Mexico, here are three things I wish I understood before we made ours.

1. I Wish I Knew How Long It Really Takes to Leave Your Old Life

We had our move date picked out years in advance.

October 15, 2019.

That was the day we were getting on a plane and starting our new life in Mexico.

What I didn't fully understand was that getting on the plane and actually leaving your old life are two completely different things.

Our situation was a little different because we didn't immediately sell our house in Atlanta. Our oldest daughter was starting college, so the plan was to keep the house for a while and go back and forth as needed.

That sounded perfectly reasonable.

Then life happened.

A few months after we moved to Mérida, the pandemic shut down the world. We had already signed our first long-term lease, bought furniture and started establishing a second household here.

At one point, I took one of the last flights back to Atlanta because I didn't know how long travel restrictions would last.

Now we had a house in Atlanta and a house in Mérida.

Eventually it was time to sell the Atlanta house, and that's when I learned another lesson.

Getting rid of your stuff is no joke.

We originally planned to sell or give away almost everything. We had a friends-and-family yard sale and gave some really nice things to people we loved.

Then we started trying to sell the rest.

Man...

People were offering pennies for things that would cost us significantly more to replace in Mexico.

So we changed the plan.

Instead of getting rid of everything, we decided to ship some of our better furniture and belongings to Mexico.

That meant packing an international shipment while renovating a house and trying to get it on the market at the right time.

We eventually threw away about five construction dumpsters full of stuff. Furniture. Clothes. Electronics. Things we simply didn't have enough time to sell or donate.

Looking back now, after living in a culture where people repair and reuse almost everything, that feels incredibly wasteful.

But at the time, we had a deadline.

That's the part I wish I understood.

Don't just plan your move to Mexico. Give yourself enough time to unwind the life you're leaving behind.

Those are two different projects.

If you're six months away from moving and still have a house full of 20 years of stuff, I wouldn't wait.

Start now.

2. I Wish I Knew That One Decision Could Change Everything Else

Deciding to ship our belongings to Mexico solved one problem.

It also created several new ones.

Now we needed a bigger house.

A bigger house meant more rent.

More rent meant larger deposits.

We also needed someplace to put everything when it arrived.

And because of the timing, I had to find our next house while my wife was still in the United States.

That's where things started going sideways.

I found a large house that could accommodate everything we were shipping down. But there were warning signs with the landlord almost immediately.

The property wasn't completely ready. Money that should have been used to prepare the house wasn't being used that way.

I knew it wasn't starting well.

But our belongings were already coming.

Walking away at that point would have meant losing a significant amount of money, so I moved forward hoping everything would work itself out.

Spoiler alert:

It didn't.

We lived in that house for four years, and the landlord problems continued throughout the relationship.

Here's what I understand now that I didn't fully appreciate then.

The housing decision wasn't really just a housing decision.

The decision to ship our belongings affected how much space we needed.

That affected which houses we could consider.

That affected how much cash we needed for deposits.

That affected our timing.

And the timing reduced our ability to walk away when the landlord situation didn't feel right.

One decision created a ripple effect through the entire plan.

That's happened enough times over the years that I've learned to ask a different question.

Instead of only asking:

Does this decision make sense?

I also ask:

What happens to everything else if I make this decision?

That's a much better question.

3. I Wish I Knew That More Information Wasn't Necessarily What We Needed

This may be the biggest lesson of all.

We researched this move for two years.

And today there is probably 10 times more information available about moving to Mexico than there was when we were planning.

YouTube. Facebook groups. Blogs. Reddit. AI.

Everybody has an opinion about where you should live, how much money you need, which neighborhood is best, what you should bring, whether you need a car, and everything else.

Information isn't the problem anymore.

In some ways, there's too much of it.

What I've learned from my own experience—and from helping other people plan their moves—is that the bigger problem is understanding the risk inside your particular plan.

You can have a perfectly reasonable housing plan.

A perfectly reasonable financial plan.

A perfectly reasonable family plan.

And a perfectly reasonable timeline.

But what happens when those plans start interacting with each other?

What happens if your residency takes longer than expected?

What happens if your income changes?

What happens if the neighborhood you love doesn't work for your child's school?

What happens if you buy furniture before you've settled on where you're going to live?

What happens if something you planned for October gets pushed into January?

That's where things get expensive.

And stressful.

That's also something I didn't really understand when we started this journey.

Most people don't need another person telling them how Mexico works.

They need someone asking:

What breaks if this gets delayed?

What becomes expensive if I do this too early?

What am I assuming will simply work itself out?

Over the years, that's changed the way I help people plan their moves.

Instead of just giving people more information, I started looking at the entire plan—finances, housing, family, healthcare, transportation, immigration, income continuity—and looking for the places where one decision could create problems somewhere else.

That eventually became Roadmap to Expat.

If I Were Planning My Move Today

I wouldn't start by trying to consume every piece of information about Mexico.

I'd still research. Of course.

But before worrying about which neighborhood has the best coffee shop or which Facebook group has the best advice, I'd pressure-test my own plan.

I'd ask:

Where am I vulnerable?

Which decisions depend on something else happening first?

Where am I committing money too early?

What happens if my timeline changes by three months?

What assumptions am I making that I haven't actually tested?

Because that's the lesson nearly seven years in Mexico has taught me.

Our MexitPlans worked.

But some of the most expensive mistakes we made weren't caused by a lack of information.

They happened because we couldn't see the whole plan at once.

And if I were doing it all over again, that's the part I would change first.

Before You Make Your Move

If you're planning a move to Mexico, you don't necessarily need another checklist.

You need to know where the gaps are in your plan before those gaps turn into expensive surprises.

That's what the Roadmap to Expat Readiness Review is designed to help you do.

Dream. Plan. Live!