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 – […]
The end of a year is already an introspective time, and now that Scott and I are officially empty-nesters, we are taking advantage of our slower, freed up schedule to dig even deeper. We are organizing our mementos, decluttering our stored items, updating our estate plan — various tasks which prompt us to get even […]
I am lucky to get dozens of free books each year since my consulting work includes writing advice columns, and publicists send me review copies to hopefully feature their clients in my columns. I try to read as many review books as I can, and I also pick up books on my own dime and […]
I recently posted a guest blog on Sisters For Financial Independence. This is personally exciting for me because the site is helmed by Filipina sisters like me (one of whom coincidentally has the same name as my sister!). It’s also professionally exciting to collaborate with fellow FIRE-fighters and see my writing published elsewhere. Finally, the […]
In May 2018, just over a year after our first visit to Costa Rica, I compiled a list of my favorite restaurants in Tamarindo. You can see the full roundup here, but in summary, I selected the following (in alphabetical order): Asian Fusion Breakfast Grinds Café Nordico Café Tico Enea’s La Baula La Bodega La […]
We received this reader question about whether to buy a small condo for a first investment: Hi guys, Thanks for all the really useful info! I’m thinking of buying a small condo as an income property. I am a single mum living in Vancouver, Canada at the moment. Do you think this would be a […]
Costa Rica real estate represents over 20% of our portfolio. While we are still bullish on the area, we prioritize diversification in our portfolio, including geographic diversification. While we continually view real estate listings in Costa Rica to stay informed about the market, we are looking for a new area to invest in. We have […]
One of our most frequent reader questions is how we picked our real estate investments, and how we are investing in real estate in today’s market. To start answering this question, I will first focus on what we are NOT doing – i.e., real estate investment options we considered but ruled out. We are not […]
As much as we love writing our own Costa Rica stories, we are only there part-time, and have only recently spent a full month. To get more diversity and insight, we have been on the hunt for ex-pats to interview. First up is Jim Reilly, a lawyer (and the lawyer on all of our real […]
Three new tax and corporation laws were introduced in Costa Rica in 2019. We weren’t planning on covering these because they are so new that it’s premature to measure the impact on our real estate. And more importantly, we’re not lawyers or accountants so didn’t want even the appearance of giving official advice. But that […]
