We go a little bit crazy with our road trips. We bought a new car in December 2016 and have already put 88,000 miles on it! Even crazier, I don’t drive, so Scott has driven the entire 88,000 miles all by himself. Last week, we spent six days on a road trip from New York City to Fargo, ND for the Fargo marathon (Scott’s 16th state in his quest to run marathons in all 50 states). Total round trip was 3111 miles! Five of the six days were actually on the road. We spent Wednesday to Friday driving by way [...]
I think of achieving FIRE in stages based on the lifestyle we’d like to live. At a minimum, we have achieved FIRE if we decamp to Costa Rica full-time – that’s why I think of Costa Rica as our FIRE escape plan B. However, we are still working on our ideal FIRE escape, which would include part-time living in a variety of places, including Costa Rica, Jacksonville, and New York City, with time and money to spare for substantial international travel. (Since we married and started a family right out of college, we didn’t travel much before, so there is [...]
Since cutting the cable cord a few years ago, we don’t keep up much with the latest TV shows. However, I remember Million Dollar Listing from before because it was quite the spectacle. Apparently, it’s still going strong with Season 11. One of its stars, Josh Altman, recently released a book, The Altman Close: Million Dollar Negotiating Tactics From America’s Top Selling Real Estate Agent. Altman has a fascinating, Type-A background from playing college football at Syracuse to co-founding a real estate firm with his brother, Matt, that has since sold over $3 billion in real estate. Yes, that’s billion. [...]
Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. We may receive compensation if you click one of those links and purchase a product. May 1 was decision day for college enrollment (or deposit day, if you’re like me and all about money). As I mentioned in a previous post, our youngest was considering two public colleges and two private colleges. The extra expense of private college (~$25,000 per year, or $100,000 for a four-year degree)* is enough to fund a multi-million-dollar retirement fund for our youngest, given the power of compounding. *The $100,000 difference we would pay is [...]
This reader is thinking of making a real estate investment in Costa Rica but is also considering options closer to home: I LOVE what you guys are doing! I stumbled across your blog a couple weeks back and have been reading various articles that you've published. You two are my heroes!My wife and I are in a similar situation to you (although we met and had kids a bit later than you). We are a family of four with both my wife and myself in our mid 40's. Our oldest is starting high school next year and our youngest will [...]
Caroline and I recently had a quick getaway for a family wedding. My cousin who lives in Sanford, North Carolina, was getting married, and the wedding was held there. This was a solo trip for myself and Caroline because our younger daughter was performing in a musical Saturday and Sunday of that same weekend, and our older daughter was finishing up her yoga certification and couldn't commit to the date. While we thoroughly enjoyed seeing my cousin get married, (she was the flower girl at our wedding, which will be 25 years ago in July!) seeing my extended family, and [...]
Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. We may receive compensation if you click one of those links and purchase a product. This reader is shopping for a Costa Rica vacation rental that yields a 10% return on investment: Hi, I wonder if you were able to get the 10% net that you were looking for. My husband and I are interested in investing in a rental property for cash flow in Guanacaste but, after running the numbers and some sensitivity analysis for several properties, we only get 7% net max. Getting data from the sellers and [...]
High season for our Guanacaste vacation rentals is mid-December through Easter. We are already getting some reservation requests for the 2019/2020 high season. In fact, we recently received a request to reserve our Condo Reeves for six weeks from late January to early March 2020. However, after much deliberation, we turned it down. Here’s why. We definitely thought long and hard about the request before turning it down because long vacation stays have their advantages: With shorter bookings, you’re more likely to have gaps between bookings that don’t get filled. We have had some success dropping our rate to fill [...]
As we build our FIRE escape plan, health insurance continues to bedevil us. Our health insurance premiums went up several percentage points for 2019, and that was enough to put us over the $3,000 mark for coverage PER MONTH. Health insurance is our single highest line item. It is higher than our monthly housing and car payments combined! If we’re going to feel secure in our FIRE escape plan, we’ll need to solve for the health insurance issue. The problem is that we have no idea what health insurance will look like in the coming years. That health insurance will [...]
I wrote previously about how 2019 is going to be a big travel year for us, after our younger child goes off to college in August. One of our trips is expected to be to Spain, Portugal and France in September and October, and we are starting now to think about an itinerary. Our intent is to 'slow travel' and stay at reasonably priced AirBNB's off the beaten path, so the airfare is really the most expensive part of this kind of travel. With the proliferation of budget airlines (including those serving Europe), and our potential flexibility to travel based [...]
