Do it all the time. We don't live in Monterrey, we live en el campo. I know all about tienditas and abarrotes, many are ripoffs as people buy at Sam's, City Club, Costco or belong to groups such as DIA that surtir productos and they just resell them at a high mark up.
Not sure what kind of life you think I have. We have a local street market every Tuesday, people come down from the hills. I don't live in a gated community with gringos, don't even know any here. Your life isn't any more special or different than anyone else's. All experiences count, all opinions count. That's why this forum is just about dead. A group of people who used to rv in Mexico and now just complain about it.
If people aren't happy where they live, they can always pick up and move. Nothing wrong with Mexico having big cities, big box stores, universities, and living life like others do in the rest of the world. Kind of silly for a kid to go to school and then have to hang out in a small town where there's no work or he has to do some crappy job. It's 2014 not 1975.
Like many of the other people who have posted lately, ADIOS.