Currency fluctuations can be invisible to the average Joe Blow or Juan Perez. Investors, traders, exporters, importers, economists and politicians may pay close attention, but most of us generally only notice the value of our home currencies when we travel — and see that they buy more or less than before.
But many Americans and Canadians residing in Mexico, as well as Mexicans and foreigners earning salaries outside their home countries (including online workers), are sitting up and taking notice of the U.S. dollar’s dramatic dip in fortunes of late.
Everyone’s talking about it,” says George Reavis of the financial service firm Mexedge. “Unless you live under a rock and have so much money it doesn’t matter.”
Still, some who are affected realize they cannot impact global finance. A 23-year old dual citizen of Mexico and the United States who now resides in Guadalajara but works online for an American company where she answers technical questions in Spanish and English, has her salary is deposited into a U.S. bank.
“Say I ended up with 20,000 pesos a year ago,” she says resignedly. “Now I’m only getting 15,000 or 16,000.”
Retired foreigners living here and getting Social Security from their home countries are in a similar position. Many realize that living in Mexico is no longer as financially advantageous as in the past, but also know the ups and downs of the dollar are beyond their control. An 88-year-old in Puerto Vallarta who receives $US1,300 a month used to convert that to 26,000 pesos when the dollar was at 20, but now that it’s at 17.30, he only gets 22,500 pesos … 3,500 pesos less, his daughter recently explains. He isn’t happy about the falling dollar, she added, so he has curtailed spending, for example, by cutting the hours of his practical nurse from full-time to part-time.
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