A few months ago, Scott and I updated our estate plans to switch from a will to revocable living trust structure, as well as update key documents to reflect that both of our kids are legal adults (i.e., age 18 and over) and that our primary residence is now Florida. We are almost done with all the moving parts, but it will still likely be a couple of months before finishing everything. It has been an adventure and taken a lot longer than expected, so if you haven’t yet done any estate planning and you have kids or other people [...]
This is part of an ongoing series where we highlight things that we love about Costa Rica. Despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Costa Rica has become the first country in Central America to allow same-sex marriage. This process has been a long time coming - it was back in January 2018 that Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that all of it's signatory countries (which includes Costa Rica) must grant same-sex couples the same rights as opposite-sex ones. In August 2018, Costa Rica gave themselves 18 months to act. No new laws have been put into effect, but the laws [...]
We are not financial advisors so nothing in this post should be construed as specific financial advice. However, with $3 million being the new recommended retirement target, I was intrigued by a reader’s retirement plans. Stephanie, currently a US resident in her early 50’s, wrote to us with questions about Costa Rica, as she is investigating possibly retiring there and on much less than millions of dollars: We own our home, it currently has a mortgage but we have about $130-150k in equity… I do have a small 401K with about $27k in it now, that will increase to about [...]
I have never been a fan of budgets. I don’t like budgets because I already am risk averse and hard on myself. Budgeting plays into scarcity thinking -- no, thank you, I can do that so well on my own! It helps that I’m naturally attuned to looking for deals – e.g., waiting for sales, aware of discount policies – so I didn’t need a budget to save money. My big splurge is live entertainment, which can be reasonably priced with the right discounting strategies. Click to pin me! I have a TDF membership to get discounted theater tickets. I [...]
This post is inspired by a back-and-forth I had with Accidental FIRE about his post on Earning More and Spending Less. Accidental Fire wrote about the tendency to spend more as income rises, which causes a surprising amount of credit card debt among high-net-worth households. I then commented about how dual-career couples with kids often experience increased costs, not just because of lifestyle inflation, but also the steep costs associated with outsourcing more of the household, to which Accidental FIRE replied: "The dual income thing needing additional services is a huge topic and deserving of blog posts on it’s own. [...]
If you don’t know about Jeff Bezos’ take on decision-making – specifically what he calls Type 1 v. Type 2 decisions – it is definitely worth checking out. There are good summaries in Inc, Business Insider and Forbes. To quote Bezos directly from a letter to Amazon shareholders: Some decisions are consequential and irreversible or nearly irreversible – one-way doors – and these decisions must be made methodically, carefully, slowly, with great deliberation and consultation. If you walk through and don’t like what you see on the other side, you can’t get back to where you were before. We can [...]
I have worked from home for 12+ years now, so the shelter-in-place orders didn’t change my work routine too much. The biggest change is a more crowded household -- our empty nest stage was short-lived, as our youngest is now attending college virtually. That said, I do find myself on many more video calls than before. Click to pin me! Now that everyone else is #WFH, even a typical phone call has become a video meeting. I have to remember to change out of my exercise wear before my first meeting of the day. If it’s an important meeting, I [...]
Even though I left a lucrative corporate career in my mid-30’s for the unknown of going into business for myself, I’m actually a risk-averse person. My risk aversion just means that I don’t like taking risks – I still take risks, as long as I can manage them. Going into business for myself was a manageable risk because I was making money from something I already knew. I had been in HR and was starting a career consulting business -- essentially in the same area as before, but this time working for myself. Making money from what you already know [...]
Our business income (mainly income from my HR consulting activities) is the first money we tap to fund our day-to-day living expenses. Other streams include our long-term rentals in the US, vacation rentals in Costa Rica and our paper assets. However, with the stock market volatility, Costa Rica border closures and a slowing economy potentially impacting our tenants, we see the business income as our most reliable income stream right now. Using that to float us also lets our other investments grow (or recover) in the background. Click to pin me! However, some of my consulting work involves speaking at [...]
We recently received a reader question asking if now is the time to buy real estate in Costa Rica: Do you think that based on everything that is happening right now, it may be a good time to buy? Are there more properties on the market now in light of the pandemic? I know that this is a broad and likely unanswerable question, just wondering your thoughts on the timing.- John Yes, the question is broad, and it’s unanswerable because an important investment decision, like real estate (or stocks or any other type of investment), needs to be customized to your [...]
