Buy a Portable Water Heater and Save Yourself Some Cash
How to get a coffee when the cafés are still closed:
Buy a portable water heater and make your own and save your self quite a bit of cash in the process.
Having rented a room and sourced a shop for refillable 19 litre water bottles, next on the agenda was buying a portable water heater.
Buy a portable water heater and make your own and save your self quite a bit of cash in the process.
Having rented a room and sourced a shop for refillable 19 litre water bottles, next on the agenda was buying a portable water heater.
A coffee at the 7-11 in Mexico City was costing me 19MXN, each time. About 1 US$. Quite a tidy sum if you drink 2 cups a day, every day. Here in Zipolite, I think it's around 25MXN.
I found a hardware store here in Zipolite that amazingly sold a portable water heater.
It is a mini emersion heater. I used them before in India and Sri Lanka. They have a habit of burning out.
Tips on using one: Fill the mug with water. Place the coil in the mug. Plug in and wait. When it's boiled, unplug and then remove the coil. DO NOT remove from the water, with the thing still plugged in.
It cost me 45MXN and the mug ( I now have my own Nomadic Backpacker Mug which I got through Office Depot) in the shop next door, 25MXN. A small jar of coffee cost me 28MXN and the sugar, 13MXN.
The beauty of this set up is, not only am I saving money, I can now have a coffee at 6:30 am, which is about an hour and a half or more earlier than I could get if I had to wait for the local cafe to open. Win-Win on all accounts for me.
Here is my coffee-making set up (in the Skippy peanut butter pot is my sugar):
I found a hardware store here in Zipolite that amazingly sold a portable water heater.
It is a mini emersion heater. I used them before in India and Sri Lanka. They have a habit of burning out.
Tips on using one: Fill the mug with water. Place the coil in the mug. Plug in and wait. When it's boiled, unplug and then remove the coil. DO NOT remove from the water, with the thing still plugged in.
It cost me 45MXN and the mug ( I now have my own Nomadic Backpacker Mug which I got through Office Depot) in the shop next door, 25MXN. A small jar of coffee cost me 28MXN and the sugar, 13MXN.
The beauty of this set up is, not only am I saving money, I can now have a coffee at 6:30 am, which is about an hour and a half or more earlier than I could get if I had to wait for the local cafe to open. Win-Win on all accounts for me.
Here is my coffee-making set up (in the Skippy peanut butter pot is my sugar):
Hardware store in Zipolite:
Renting a room buy the month, saves me 5$ a day, buying the 19-litre water bottle saves me 1.50$ a day and the portable water heater saves me 2$ a day. 8.50$ a day. I'll have some of that. That's 60$ a week, 255$ a month and 3000$ a year. These are essentials. Sleep coffee and water. Yes, I have to buy the coffee and sugar but 1.40$ worth lasts 10 days. And here 2 coffees a day at the cafe is a minimum of 2.50$. I was using CDMX prices. And the water cost just less than 1$ but is good for 5 days - sometimes the water, when you buy 1.5 litres is more than I quoted!