Puerto Vallarta Mexico Low Cost of Living

This is Dan from Vagabond Buddha. My mission is to travel the world and find the best low cost of living destinations. You see, I am not the typical retirement age yet. Plus, I may never retire because I enjoy working as a digital nomad. But, I do enjoy reporting the best low cost of living, live or retire cheap in paradise, destinations.

Luckily, I have been mostly a digital nomad since 2007. That means I don’t need to be anywhere in particular to earn money. So I earn US dollars but I spend them in beautiful places that are much cheaper to live. That means I don’t have as much pressure to work crazy hours in order to keep up or get ahead.

If you live a normal life, making just enough money to live will never allow you to retire early, if at all. But making just enough money to live, buys your initial freedom if you are a digital nomad. Most digital nomads are chasing the new economy. The new economy is based upon what is called passive income.

Passive income is a business that you set up initially with a great amount of time and effort, that continues to pay you for a long period of time, even if you only work part-time or travel like me. That is why digital nomads are attracted to the Internet. If you set up a web page that pays you $2500 USD per month, you can live like a king/queen in many countries around the world. $2500 per month buys a much better life in SE Asia, Eastern Europe, Mexico, and Central or South America.

Ultimately, you may decide not to settle down at all. You may never pick a permanent place to retire or live cheaply. Maybe you will just decide to put all of my low cost of living, live or retire cheap in paradise locations, in a traveling rotation. Maybe you will end up like me.

This post has the low cost of living data for Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. About 2% of the Americans living in Mexico at least part of the year, live in Puerto Vallarta. Since there are about 1 million Americans spending at least part of the year in Mexico, that means Puerto Vallarta has about 20,000 expats who spend at least part of the year here. That does not count tourists who just visit for a week or so.

Here are my estimated costs of living one month in Puerto Vallarta Mexico, as a temporary visitor. If you rented a furnished apartment by the month, it could be cheaper. You can rent a furnished 1 bedroom apartment ranging from about 400 to 1200 USD per month depending on how modern and how close you want to be to the Romantic Zone. The below prices are for one person and do not include alcohol, tours, or AC. If you want an estimate for year-round, plan on buying AC for 3 months of the year. For a 1 bedroom apartment that would be about $100 per month.

If you book my recommended flights, tours or accommodations, you will pay nothing extra, but we will earn a small commission.

Monthly Cost of Living, Puerto Vallarta Mexico, Mexico ($USD)

Expense	Cost	Low	Medium	High**
Apartment	$25.00	0	14	30
Moderate Hotel	$45.00	0	12	0
Backpacker Hostel	$30.00	30	3	0
High End Restaurant	$15.00	1	4	8
Neighborhood Restaurant	$5.00	30	44	48
Food Cart	$2.50	30	12	4
Subway/Train/Metro	$0.30	20	26	8
Bus	$0.30	20	10	0
Taxi/Uber	$5.00	6	10	20
Total	Per Month	$1,182.00	$1,350.80	$1,222.40
Total	Per Day	$39.40	$45.03	$40.75

For more information about how the above “Cost of Living Monthly Multiplier” works, please visit the bottom of this page at Vagabond Buddha.

Please subscribe if you would like to receive the costs of living estimates for our next Mexico stop. We are heading out of Puerto Vallarta tonight.

If you would like to learn how to make money online, or how to live internationally possibly with less money than you spend at home, please subscribe to Vagabond Buddha or get a free copy of my Ebook.

This is Dan of Vagabond Buddha. Thank you for stopping by. The world is your home. What time will you be home for dinner?

Warning: I am not offering you these prices. These are just my notes and estimates from the time of my visit and this post. Your costs will likely be drastically different if significant inflation or deflation occurs or the market changes after this post. I will not update these numbers until I am on the ground again here, if ever.