[We’re outlining the perils, pitfalls, and benefits of obtaining Mexican residency. A catalog of entries is here, in reverse order]

Reader and commenter Jed sniffed out a void in our info about moving to Mexico yesterday. I’d mentioned that we were limited to four suitcases, 50 pounds each, a couple of carry-ons, and a sack full of cat. He’s seeking sense and sensibility in our actions, and not always finding it:

Four suitcases sounds too extreme. Makes me wonder what options are available, and how tenable they are, for retaining a larger set of possessions, and shipping them to you once you’ve gotten settled into a suitably large place.

Well, Jed’s right to wonder. We looked into this deeply, and settled on the course of action I’ve outlined. There are others. For the most part, they’re reserved for people with more money than we have.

The internet often mistakes our lack of squalor as access to scads of money. We don’t look like trailer park folks, so they figure we have enough dough to avoid that kind of life. But even the US Senate is at least half-filled with People of Walmart now. More money just buys more squalor with Gucci bags thrown in. I have often opined that nearly everyone was like us once. Now almost no one is. More money doesn’t enter into it much, except to allow people to graduate from meth to coke, and better lawyers to bail them out of jail.

So Jed’s right. You can have more, and larger, and heavier bags than we did. This is an international flight, though, for at least one leg, and they charge like crazy for extra baggage. The sliding scale for bag weight gets eye-watering quickly, so we bought one of those suitcase scales and made sure we were under the limits. We had to pay something like $40 for the first bag, $50 for the second, and $200 if we wanted a third. No checked bags were free on our flight, and we weren’t flying steerage, either, although not first class.

It’s funny, and I don’t know when it morphed, but I’ve noticed that first class on a plane is always filled with the sketchiest-looking people on the plane. It used to be freighted with guys in business suits getting comped by their companies. Now it’s the bar scene from Star Wars. And we’re not flying Southspirillegianontierwest Low Bidder Airlines, either.

So we decided on two large (38″) checked bags each. Larger suitcases, volume-wise, were available, and able to be checked, but they were useless to us because of the weight. Fifty pounds isn’t a hard limit, but go even one pound over, and it’s an extra hundred bucks. And no bag over 70 pounds, no matter how many martinis you qualify for in first class.

Jed is still further correct: There must be another way. There is: menaje de casa. It sounds like a swingers party for real estate agents. In reality it’s just a one-time gimme from the Mexican government to let you bring in your household belongings without being classified as an importer.

Pretty much everything you bring into Mexico except the clothes on your back, and what you can stuff in four suitcases, makes you an importer. That includes driving a car in. There are tariffs and taxes and rules and regulations and problems out the wazoo if you’re classified as an importer. But Mexico understands that if you’re going to become a legal resident, you might want to bring a household’s worth of stuff in to the country, so they give you a shot at it. The nature of this opportunity isn’t a gravy train on biscuit wheels, however:

You can only do it once. You can only do it within three months before arriving, or six months after. Everything you bring must be used. If any item is still new in a package, you’re back to being an importer. Better not bring more than one of anything, either, or you’re back to being a wholesaler in addition to being an importer, which is a whole ‘nother kind of trouble.

So it’s possible to use the menaje to bring your stuff. Clothes, furniture, dishes, books, knick-knacks, hobby stuff (but probably not much in the tool department), belongings like that. No food, booze, guns, or other fun stuff. We’ve talked to several couples who have done the manaje. They reminded me of talking to Vietnam vets in 1974, muttering the horror over and over.

First, there is the cost. Only certain moving companies can do the deed. One couple we know paid $9,000. Another $7,000. The last people we talked to didn’t mention the price, but they did mention how the moving company packed up their stuff, transported it just over the border, then unceremoniously dumped everything in a pile in a parking lot, waiting for the Mexican leg of the moving daisy chain to pick it up. A lot of their stuff arrived busted. Some didn’t arrive at all. Other people said their stuff was left out in the rain, to boot.

To qualify for the menaje, you also have to compose a bill of lading, in Spanish, of every item in the load, and I mean every item. You can pay someone to do that for you too, I guess.

There is yet another way forward, and we took it. It’s quite common in the Yucatan to rent places by the year completely furnished, with most everything you might bring with you in a menaje. Many, if not most houses are sold completely furnished, too. The place we rented has everything from shot glasses to percale sheets.

So four suitcases it is. The realtors will have to tie each other up without our help.

[to be continued]