Caroline

I thought that when we reached a base level of financial independence (living in Florida is Stage 2, where we can pay our minimum living expenses by moving to a cheaper location), I would gain more clarity about how to spend my time. I have always been money-focused – not driven to make a lot of money, but I equated money with security and had a high bar to feel [...]

We celebrated our 28-year anniversary with a week in Tamarindo. It was a true bleisure trip (business + leisure) because we booked the trip to renew our Costa Rican bank card and jumpstart a kitchen renovation. As luck would have it, the best airfares and the most opportune time in-between other commitments turned out to be our anniversary week! So, we were able to bookend very unromantic trips to the [...]

This reader is looking to buy in Tamarindo, Costa Rica, and wants to know how much anxiety is too much when embarking on a real estate purchase. What would you advise? I just happened to come across your blog post from 2018 on why you decided not to purchase in Langosta. I am literally about to put in a purchase offer on a property in Tamarindo…and am having second thoughts. I think [...]

We sold three of our real estate properties in the last year, just so we could have a more liquid and balanced portfolio. Yet, we recently closed on a new purchase – a studio apartment in Jacksonville, FL with a view of downtown. We had been looking at units in this particular downtown building for a couple of years now. We even bid on a penthouse studio late last year [...]

Multiple companies, such as Tesla, Coinbase and Redfin, are announcing layoffs. Some companies have rescinded previously made offers (Coinbase again! also Twitter), while some are decreasing hiring (Netflix, Peloton, Facebook). You also can’t visit any news site without seeing a post on crypto winter, which impacts not just crypto values but also the job market at crypto firms. At the same time, we’re facing the highest inflation rate in recent [...]

In my very first job post-college, I worked as a management consultant. This involved working onsite at clients around the US, and for one project, in Toronto Canada. I spent March/ April 1995 in Toronto, and while I was working too long hours to enjoy the city, I remember liking Toronto very much. Fast forward 27 years later, and we were back in Toronto for a quick overnight. The trip [...]

On a recent road trip from Florida to New York, we had rain the whole way, and as we drove north, we hit colder temperatures, more wind, then sleet and sometimes even snow! The week before our trip, we had an internet outage in our service area, exactly at the time I was presenting a training webinar, Scott had a client meeting and our oldest happened to be at our [...]

The two most influential teachers in my financial literacy journey were also my piano teachers. My first financial literacy teacher was my first piano teacher and also my mom. Many people probably learned about money from their parents. My mom didn’t talk about money management or investing directly, but I learned by watching. My parents separated right after I was born, so my mom raised two kids on a single [...]

Last month we closed on the sale of Casa Salita, the second property we purchased in Costa Rica. Though we bought it only in December 2017 (just over four years ago), we started thinking about selling it in the midst of the pandemic because we weren’t sure where rentals were heading, and the market for selling Costa Rica real estate was hot. However, we didn’t put the home on the [...]