The cost of living, from my actual receipts.

01The short answer

Expensive for Mexico, cheap for coastal California. Baja California Sur runs pricier than most of the country, and this corridor is its boutique corner. Even so, most expats I talk to land at 40 to 60% of what the same lifestyle costs them back home in San Diego or Santa Barbara. The savings live in local food, labor, and services; the costs live in housing and anything imported.

One note on method, because the method is the article: every peso figure below comes from my own receipts, which I log in a database because 25+ years in real estate ruins you in specific ways. Prices are from 2026, mostly Pescadero and Todos Santos, converted at roughly 18 MXN to the dollar. Your mileage will vary; your avocados won't by much.

02How money actually works here

Cash is still the default. The fruterías, the taco stands, half the restaurants: pesos, in hand. Cards work at the bigger restaurants and grocery stores, and Cabo is full of ATMs, but you'll settle into a rhythm of pulling cash and spending it slowly.

Think in pesos, fast. The people who stay happy here stop converting in their heads within a few months. A 65-peso pack of strawberries is a strawberry price, and a 632-peso dinner for two is a dinner price. Converting everything back to dollars keeps you a tourist.

Facturas matter if you run a business. Mexico's invoicing system (CFDI) is how expenses become deductible. If you're just living here, ignore this. If you're operating here, get an accountant who'll train you on it; our relocation guide covers the paperwork side.

03Groceries: the two-market system

You'll shop in 2 parallel economies, and learning which is which saves you real money.

Economy 1: local. The fruterías and cooperativas. Recent receipts from mine: avocados 32 MXN ($1.80), a pack of strawberries 65 MXN ($3.80), a flat of eggs 110 MXN ($6), fresh totopos 65 MXN. A full produce run for the week lands between 290 and 505 MXN ($16 to $28). The produce is grown in Pescadero's fields, some of it picked that morning, and it's better than what I bought in California for 3 times the price.

Economy 2: imported. Anything in a box with English on it. A 150g box of corn flakes: 35 MXN, fair enough. But a kilo-plus of shredded cheese ran me 260 MXN ($14.44), and American brands routinely price at or above US retail. The $4 jar of peanut butter is $8 here. Nobody escapes this; you just adjust what you eat.

04The Costco run

Yes, there's a Costco. It's in Cabo San Lucas, 47 mi / 76 km south, and the monthly run is a genuine institution of corridor life. Same warehouse, same Kirkland, same $1.50 hot dog energy, plus an IVA line on the receipt.

My April stock-up run came to 19,903 MXN, about $1,100 USD, and that's a real month-plus of proteins, frozen seafood, supplements, paper goods, and bulk staples for a household that cooks. A quick 2-item sunscreen stop the same day: 796 MXN. Costco math here works the same as everywhere; the trap is bulk produce that spoils before you finish it, when the frutería sells it fresher, cheaper, 5 minutes away.

My working rule, literally written into my shopping list: buy it at Costco only when the per-unit price beats local. Proteins and household goods usually pass. Produce usually fails.

05The monthly bills

Internet. Starlink is the workhorse out here, and my bill is 1,405 MXN a month, about $78 (it went up 100 pesos this summer). Totalplay and Telmex fiber exist in parts of Todos Santos proper for less. I run a real business on Starlink: video calls, big files, no drama.

Electricity. CFE, the national utility. Rates are subsidized at low usage and climb steeply once AC season pushes you into the high tier; that's the bill that surprises people in September. My last cycle, bundled with septic service on our lot, ran just over 4,000 MXN ($232). I'll publish a clean month-by-month CFE breakdown once I have a full summer on the meter logged.

Water and gas. Municipal water where it reaches, trucked delivery (the pipa) where it doesn't, plus stationary propane tanks refilled a few times a year. Neither will be a headline number in your budget; both are things your neighbors will explain in your first week.

Phone. Telcel prepaid plans are cheap by US standards, and coverage on Highway 19 is solid.

06Household help you can actually afford

This is the line item that changes daily life the most. A good housekeeper runs 200 to 250 MXN per hour ($11 to $14), a gardener from about 150 MXN per hour. Help that costs $50+ an hour in California costs a fifth of that here, which means the median expat household has weekly cleaning and someone tending the property, and it's unremarkable.

The unwritten rules: pay fairly and on time, keep the same people, and treat it like the long-term relationship it is. Good help in a small town is found through neighbors, kept through respect, and lost through cheapness. (Also: aguinaldo, the year-end bonus, is customary and in formal arrangements it's the law. Budget for it.)

07Eating out, drinks & staying fit

From the receipts, a night out in the corridor, 2026 edition:

The corridor has real fitness culture for a town this size: Pilates at Estudio 52 in Todos Santos, Pilates and Lagree at Aureo Baja in Pescadero, yoga at Cuatro Vientos, plus the free stuff (the ocean, the beach volleyball I play year-round, and hiking the Sierra when it cools). Classes run 200 to 300 MXN, roughly a third of a comparable US boutique class.

The high end exists too. The corridor has $$$$ hotel restaurants that charge honest Californian prices for excellent food. The difference from California: here that's a choice, and the 370-peso taco night is always waiting.

08The car

Gas. Premium ran 29.49 MXN per liter on my last fill, which put 55 liters at 1,635 MXN, about $90 to fill a truck. Per gallon that's roughly $6.20, so fuel is a real line item if you drive a lot; the upside is everything here is 20 minutes away.

Insurance. Your US policy is void in Mexico, full annual Mexican coverage is mandatory in practice, and it's not expensive: the annual policy on my F-250 through Discover Baja ran about $890 USD a few years back, and I'd budget around $1,000 a year for a truck today. Baja Bound and Lewis & Lewis quote instantly online if you want to price it before you move.

Maintenance. Labor is affordable and the mechanics are resourceful; parts for US-market vehicles sometimes take a week to arrive. Baja is hard on cars (dirt, dust, washboard), so budget for tires and suspension like a rancher, not a commuter.

09Housing: the number that moved

Here's the honest part nobody puts in the brochure: housing is the line where BCS stopped being cheap in absolute terms. This corridor has been discovered, prices have climbed for a decade, and coastal homes under $200K are now genuinely scarce. Solid 2-bedroom rentals run roughly $1,500 to $3,000 USD a month, and at that price you're typically getting newer construction within walking distance of the beach. More in high season when snowbird demand eats the supply; the best deals still travel by word of mouth rather than listings.

Below that tier, the market keeps going. Local-style places (older construction, in town or east of the highway, no ocean view) rent for a lot less, and plenty of people live well in them. The $1,500-to-$3,000 band is the expat-standard product; it's a choice, and it's the top of the market, and both cheaper and better exist.

Now the context that makes those numbers make sense: that $1,500 to $3,000 gets you a real house minutes from the Pacific, often with an ocean view. I spent decades in San Diego real estate, and a comparable 2-bedroom within walking distance of the water in Encinitas or Carlsbad starts around $4,500 and climbs fast from there. Like-for-like on ocean proximity, the corridor is still half price or better. What ended is the era of $600 beach shacks, and honestly, it ended everywhere.

Buying is its own article (fideicomisos, ejido land, the works): read it here. The short version: real property here costs real money now, and the value case rests on what you get for it (the beach, the climate we covered in the weather guide, and land that coastal California priced out of reach a generation ago). If you want actual current inventory instead of internet folklore, that's my day job at Selling Sur.

10What it adds up to

A realistic monthly picture for a couple renting a good 2-bedroom and living well (eating local, eating out weekly, help around the house, Starlink, one Costco run, a full tank or two):

Roughly $3,500 to $5,500 USD a month, all in. Lean households do it for less; villa-and-daily-restaurant households blow past it. The same life in coastal California, if you can even rent it, starts at double.

And that's the honest math. Parts of this corridor stopped being cheap years ago. You move here because the dollar-for-dollar trade (what a morning costs versus what a morning is) works out heavily in your favor anyway.

11Quick answers

Is Todos Santos cheaper than Cabo? For daily life, somewhat: fewer tourist-priced venues, more local options. For real estate, they're different markets entirely; the corridor trades on scarcity and character rather than resort volume.

Can I live on $1,500 a month? In a local-style place in town, cooking at home: people do it. In the newer beach-walkable tier, rent alone eats it. $2,500 to $3,000 solo is the comfortable floor for the expat-standard setup.

Do prices go up in high season? Rentals, yes, meaningfully (November through April). Groceries and services, barely.

Tipping? 10 to 15% at restaurants, 10 to 20 pesos for baggers and gas attendants. Cash tips reach the person.

What surprised you most? That the money math was the boring part. The real trade was traffic for dirt roads, and I'd sign that contract again today.