How Much it Costs to Live in MEXICO CITY in 2021 - One month actual spending split into categories

Today we're going to talk about money, specifically how much it costs to live or stay in Mexico City for a month. I'll kick off with our forecasted cost of living, then get into our actual spend. I'll break that down into categories throughout the video, and then I'll end with, you know, where and how we reduced our cost of living, and finally caveats and final thoughts. Our forecasted cost of living was based on actual spend in Puerto Vallarta last year. Link in the description if you want to check that post out. Our forecasted total monthly costs on a per couple basis actually stayed the same at $2,500. Accommodation we forecasted at $1,350 for the month. Food and alcohol at $750. Transportation at $350. We reduced activities to zero and left miscellaneous at $50. Our actual cost of living for the month, not including travel in and out of Mexico from California, was $2,341.31 on a per couple basis, or $1,170.66 per person per month, or finally $39.02 per person per day. And now we will break down the category of spend and expenses. So our accommodation for the month was just under $1,400, about $1,391 for both of us. It's worth noting that we actually for the month of June spent 25 nights in Mexico City and five nights in Puebla, so this is one area where things kind of stand out. We actually paid $1,419 for the Mexico City Airbnb for four weeks, so that's about $50 and change per night. So if we were to stay there for a full month or 30 days, it'd be $1,520. If you're interested in our Airbnb in Mexico City, I'll leave a link suggested above so you can check that out. Food and alcohol is where things start to get exciting. We spent a little under $900 as a couple on the month at $883. I'll break this down into groceries and eating in, restaurants and eating out. I'll break those restaurants out by brunch, lunch, and dinner. I'll also show you how much we spent at bars and how much we spent on alcohol in general. For groceries and eating in, we spent about $145 for the month. This was a little over 16% of our food and alcohol spend. I keep referring to PV and you can find that article in the description, but this was one of the few areas where we actually saved money compared to our time in PV. The reason for this was while we were in Puerto Vallarta, we had a rooftop pool in larger common areas, so we kind of ate and drank at home more often. If you're interested in groceries and what things cost in Mexico City, I've included a suggested card at the top so you can link to that video. For restaurants and eating out, we spent just under $600 for the month. We ate out for 30 meals and I'll break those down by brunch, lunch, and dinner and how much we spent on each. For brunch, we spent a little over $173 for the month. That was just under 30% of our restaurant spend and an average brunch for two was $15.78. For lunch, we spent just over $192 for the month. That was just under 33% of our restaurant spend. An average lunch for two was $19.25. For dinner, we spent a little over $217 for the month or a little over 37% of our restaurant spend. An average dinner for two was $24.17. We spent a little over $154 on the month for bars and going out to drink. This category actually almost tripled from our PV spend and was a little over 17% of our food and alcohol spend. So alcohol represents any time we spent money on alcohol, whether that was at the grocery store, at a bar, or at a restaurant. We spent a little over $318 for the month. This accounted for a little over 36% of our food and alcohol budget and was 50% higher than our PV spend. This was highly likely due to drinking more at bars than buying tequila at the grocery store and enjoying it home. Fun fact, alcohol costs more at bars than the grocery store. For transportation, we only spent a little over $33 as a couple for the month. We're not including flights here because we flew in May. I can talk about that a little more later. Our only transportation costs in June were Ubers. Five of those Ubers were $18.62 and first class bus tickets on ADO to Puebla. That was $14.66 for two tickets. Miscellaneous expenses were actually super similar to transportation, a little over $33 for the both of us. This really was mostly for water, sometimes buying fruit from vendors, pan dulce, or just stuff from bakeries. Yunji grabbed an agua fresca from a market one day when we were walking around and a cash tip from a place, El Higualdense, that lets you pay for food with your credit card, but not your tip, which is kind of weird. Standing firm on the fact that eating and drinking are the best activities, so that's why activities did come in at zero dollars, we actually did do a few activities in Mexico City. We did three kind of DIY neighborhood tours, one in Polanco, one in Condesa, Roma, and one in Centro. Eventually I'll get videos up of those. We also visited the Sumaya Museum, which was free and awesome. Parque Mexico has this audio-rama thing that was really cool, also free, and went to the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral, you guessed it, also free. So that's how we came in at zero dollars. Where and how we reduced our cost of living, nothing really new here from our last article. Just buying groceries and eating in saved a lot of money, as well as walking a ton. We only took five Ubers, and I think a few of those were to and from the main bus station when we were going to Puebla. And then lastly, just being in Mexico versus being in California, San Francisco, or LA. So kind of final thoughts and caveats. The main thing is because we flew the month before, we're not including that cost, so whether you want to see that or not, that is a caveat. We were traveling as a couple, so that does cut down on things like Airbnbs and Ubers, but doesn't really save much on things like eating out or groceries. I still do think there is an artificial increase in not only Mexico City, but just Mexico, Airbnbs, based on Mexico being open and the rest of the world or many countries not being. I also think we do and did have a friend in Mexico City at the time, so we went out more and probably spent more. And then because Mexico City's, you know, dining scene or fine dining scene and amount of like awesome bars and restaurants is so big, I do think that increased our food and beverage or food and alcohol spend. But yeah, let me know what you think in the comments. Subscribe if you liked this. And again, I've included the link to the write-up article in the description. Bye!