I love my flexible consulting work and don’t plan on changing careers any time soon. That said, there are advantages to a traditional, full-time job, such as easier mortgage approval, subsidized healthcare and the camaraderie of an ongoing community. Now that we have moved to Florida, a traditional job would help us integrate. Healthcare off the Florida state exchange is cheaper than in New York, but health insurance is still [...]
“I am learning a lot about myself. It's exhilarating and horrible at exactly the same time.” Tricia, aspiring career changer I am a career coach, and one of my clients emailed me that sentiment to describe the mental gymnastics of trying to change careers after 10+ years in an area that no longer excited her. She was excited at the prospect of change, but the change itself felt really hard. I [...]
We get a lot of questions about how to get started in real estate investing. We’re not financial advisers so do not give financial advice, especially specific buy (or sell) recommendations. Besides, investment criteria for a first (or subsequent) investment should vary based on multiple, very personal factors, such as life circumstance, goals and priorities, risk appetite and your talents and expertise. Click to pin me! Instead of making specific [...]
We recently took a five-day trip, Thursday to Monday, to Tamarindo, which seemed a perfect example of bleisure (business + leisure) travel. We timed the trip around the annual homeowners’ association meeting at our condo complex, so it was first and foremost a business trip. Once we had the dates for the trip, we lined up other business meetings and errands since many things are best handled live - in [...]
A few months ago, we moved into one of our Florida rentals and have made Florida our primary residence as of 2020. The rental needed a lot of work, as we had a tenant in place for six years. A longtime tenant is great financially because there is no lost rent due to vacancy or turnover costs in-between move-ins. However, when you do turn over the unit, there is a [...]
We posted before about how we are targeting FIRE in stages of increasing spending levels: Our stage 1 is relocating full-time to Costa Rica and a level of spending that can easily be covered by our current income streams. This first stage is also purely hypothetical -- a Plan B option we set up just in case we need to drastically reduce our spending. As of now, the longest time [...]
With the upcoming tax season comes the inevitable reckoning with our numbers and seeing how we are doing with our businesses, mutual fund accounts and investing in real estate. We had no new acquisitions but still had six real estate closings in 2019! We did a cash-out refinance on our Florida duplex to pay back a private loan we took from a friend. We also sold our entire portfolio in [...]
During the morning of Christmas Eve, our family of four was in midtown New York City, but not for the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. Instead, we were at a law office signing important documents everyone should have (and more paperwork than a typical real estate closing!). Our daughters signed their power of attorney documents, which name who can take over their financial accounts and decisions if they are unable to [...]
Our trip to Arizona was split almost equally among Tucson, Phoenix and Sedona. It was our first “real” trip out there other than a handful of days across the years on quick in-and-outs to Phoenix. We LOVED it and can see ourselves returning again and again. Best of all, there is so much to do for free. In fact, most of our activities turned out to be free. 10 free [...]
I LOVE movies and easily watch over a hundred movies each year. My favorite aspect of air travel is getting to watch movie marathons – I watched 15 movies in flight on our last trip to the Philippines. More time for movies is also one of my favorite aspects of the flexible FIRE lifestyle – I’m still giddy over seeing Rowan Atkinson live at a screening of his latest Johnny [...]
