Paying bills in Mexico

My wife and I own two properties and are responsible for all utilities except for the water on our condo which is covered by the HOA. We go to CFE to pay our power bills and CESPT in Rosarito to pay for water for the house. We normally put a deposit equal to about 6months worth of service on our accounts and only return when our credit balance warrants. For TV service we use Direct TV and pay that with our credit card through auto pay. Our HOA payments are payed by electronic check directly from our US bank.

We live in Rosarito, B. C.

Mike

IZZI and Telmex are paid through their web portals.  Water is paid once a year at their office.  CFE bi-monthly at their office by our houseperson since we don't live full time in Mexico and don't want to bother paying online since you need the 32 digit code that changes on each bill.  By the way we got solar power 4 months ago and our last CFE bill was just 50 pesos (the minimum you can pay).  Property taxes are paid at the tax office.  I make sure we are in Cuernavaca in October to get the 15% discount and an additional seniors discount.  Our taxes are 12,000 pesos but went to 8,000 with discounts.

Dependes on the type of bills you want to pay.... but all bills usually comes month ending and you can pay them In the bank or in some comercial stores.

We are fortunate in that our rent includes all services so we only have to pay one bill, once a month.  Since our landlord still has a USA bank account (after 20+ years in Mexico), we have set up an auto-pay from our bank account to his bank account and don't even think about it anymore.  The only other regular bill that we have is for our Spanish classes - we pay that in pesos in cash to the instructor every month.

In order to have cash, we have a Schwab checking account and use the debit card to withdraw cash in Mexico from ATMs (after putting on a travel advisory).  With this method we do not pay foreign transaction fees and all ATM fees are refunded at the end of each month.

Bills in Puerto Vallarta Mexico . I pay 500 for rent 3 blocks from the ocean . Fruits and veggies - 12 dollars a week . Tacos 2 dollars on every corner . Which fills me up very well . Electric is around 40 Dollars a month plus wifi . It depends if you need high speed or not 20-35 dollars . Water is very cheap another 20 dollars a month. I been living down there and the USA for 6 years. I enjoy it very much .

Your electric bill must be paid on time or it is cut off.  In Izamal water is not cut off.  This is not so everywhere.  You can pay on line for some things.  Cash at Bodega for some and we just pay cash at the electric company for that bill.  We get cash in pesos at the atms around.  Also sometimes send Xoom.  We have lived in the Yucatan for eleven years.

Be aware that any past due amount in a CFE account is shown only on the back of one´s paper billing statement. The front of the statement shows only this period´s billing. Somehow I missed paying this year´s February statement but never noticed the problem until July´s billing when Servicio sujeto a corte was stamped on the front of the bill (although not very prominently if you are color-blind as I am!). If someone owed me money I wouldn´t hide it in fine print on the back of a statement, that´s for sure!

This is great information for a newbie like me. Thanks so much!