In a pinch, I could do it alone on fifty pesos a day, but here in Mazatlán a family of four can live as cheaply as one*, so that gives us two hundred bolas (morlacos) to work with, if you follow my math. Of course, the unspoken key to frugality is to lodge for free. In our case, the house is paid for. As for you, cherished reader, you’re on your own. (Keep in mind: nobody has ever died of frostbite on a Mazatlán beach.) OK, first of all, there’s breakfast: Sra B makes tortillas the old fashioned way: she starts by grinding her own homegrown maize by hand—just kidding! We, like everyone in the colonia, send our oldest and/or most responsible child to the nearest tortilleria for a half kilo (they may not taste like homemade traditional tortillas a la mother in law, but what the hay, they’re hot and toasty and we’re a modern Mexican family on the go!). There goes five pesos, right off the top. Unfortunately, against all my parental instincts, los Bradycitos are way too picky about what to accompany a tortilla with, so one day it’s two sunny side up egg whites and catsup for one, a spoonful of chorizo sausage and mayonesa for another, and a sliver of cheese and salsa for Mama Bear, then the next day they all want something different again. I just eat up all the leftovers, and with a half quart of milk and a couple of spoonfuls of Nescafe gone I figure I’m another twenty five pesos in the hole, at least, leaving a hundred and seventy smackers in the ol’ kitty. In the event that we get the kids ready for school on time, there’s bus fare to consider (keeping mind that any kid you can physically carry aboard customarily rides for free). Therefore: on an average weekday we’re still talking transportation costs approaching three, four or more bucks a day just tryin’ to git where we gotta go (so we’ve already blown almost maybe a third of our daily allotment well before noon). Late lunch is the big meal of the day, but not so late that the leftover tortillas from breakfast have had time to harden much. Toss each one individually over a fiery stove burner ‘til blackened and tender, then flip. Dress them up with: 1. Smoked marlin/ tuna 2.

Beans 3. Refried beans with chorizo sausage 4. Queso Chihuahua (it’s a cheese, not a dog!) 5. Salsa brava (so even if your tummy isn’t even close to full, at least your mouth has a satisfying sting to it) 6. Shredded (and I mean shredded, and more: fluffed, puffed and expanded like cotton candy) beef/ chicken/ pork/ duck/ maybe splurge on shrimp early in the season of a bumper crop but be prepared to fall back on and make do with squid (which tastes just like lobster, only better) the rest of the year 7. And on the seventh day, the mother in law created menudo 8. Repeat above Well, there goes most of your hard scrabbled lana (dough)before you even start drinking, but not to worry! Jose Sixpack sez: 2 Qts = 6 cans. At the bargain price that the local deposito is currently pushing the dusky Victoria ale, 2 Qts adds up to less than a coupla-bucksaday so fuggetaboutit! Just don’t fuggetabout the empty bottle you must offer as deposit on a full one, make sure to have exact change, and that’s all the math you really need to know. Oh, yeah, and a fifteen peso five gallon carboy of purified water should last a couple of days or more, keeping the rest of the family well quenched. Which leaves nearly fifty pesos for what they call “cena” (rhymes with “antenna”). Fortunately, we live in Sinaloa (rhymes, coincidentally, with both Mona Loa and boa), which is, statistically speaking, by far the number one agricultural state in the entire Republica Mexicana. Anything, (anything!) that the locals grow here is affordably cheap, even tuna fruit, mangos and avocados! Thus, if it were only possible to convince one’s children to eat vegetables, one could easily live within one’s means. Then again, on the other hand, even if you factor in such optional cost factors as water & lights, taxes, taxis, administrative sops and the usual mandatory gifts for Xmas, anniversaries, birthdays, holidays (and other Hallmark scams too numerous to mention) it is still theoretically possible to spend more than five ducats per family member in Mazatlán without even trying. Nevertheless (and you may quote me on this): spending more than five buckaroos a day is not mandatory. *pppd