Travelling the world has always been a dream for us. Once we set it as one of our life-goals, along with establishing location-independent business ventures, we knew we would get there some day. We still have a long way to go to fulfill the dream, but we are on the path, the journey ahead is becoming clearer, and meditation has played a big role! A few years before Scott officially left his traditional office job, we started to at least plan for our around the world adventure, doing what we could while still tethered to his nine-to-five onsite schedule. Actual travel [...]

Last year, Caroline and I took a trip to England with our younger daughter over her spring break. We've been wanting to take a trip to Europe for quite some time, with the intent of exploring some countryside and sights outside the big cities and looking forward to going at our own pace and interest by renting a car and driving around. We settled on England because Manchester is where we found the cheapest flights during the holiday week to an area we wanted to visit in Europe. We knew we wanted to see Stonehenge, as well as hit a [...]

When we bought our first international rental property (Condo Boom in Tamarindo, Costa Rica), we decided to do a cash-out refi of another investment property to buy it all cash. Damn Millennial asked us a question on Twitter that we also asked ourselves: Out of curiosity why did you choose the cash out refi over the Heloc? The way I understand it the cash out is more expensive isn't it? As you must refinance the total amount and then pay fees on that. Vs. HELOC you just pay for appraisal and opening a line. Oh, Damn Millennial, I mulled over [...]

Flexibility to accommodate mid-week movies is one of my favorite perks of the FIRE lifestyle. This past Tuesday, I took my youngest daughter to an advance screening of “Crazy Rich Asians”, including an Asian-American business pre-show talk, by Nielsen, and an Asian food-themed after-party. A few years earlier, I took my oldest daughter to an advance screening of “Today’s Special” including a talkback with the movie’s star and creator, Aasif Mandvi. This was a mid-week adventure during a school night, but it was a unique opportunity (we were huge Daily Show fans at the time) and educational in a different [...]

This week Caroline is speaking at the AAJA conference in Houston, TX, leading sessions on negotiation and difficult conversations, which are areas of expertise for her. Since my schedule is flexible these days and public speaking is one of the seven skills that enables travel, I tagged along, planning to split my time between working and exploring the city. Texas is #85 on our list of 100 travel destinations, so it is nice to check off one of the destinations! Our trip started with a JetBlue flight from JFK to Hobby Airport, negatively notable because one of the nice features [...]

I had been reading business and personal finance books and news since college, but didn’t focus on real estate topics. Once we realized real estate could be the linchpin of our FIRE journey, I did start reading more real estate news and resources. Here are my favorites.

I love to see news that re-affirms our selection of Costa Rica as the country outside of the United States we have chosen to invest in, and the one that we intend to spend some of our time in, once we are location independent. This weekend I saw in Q Costa Rica that JetBlue has announced they are adding their "Mint" service in Costa Rica. "Costa Rica’s Liberia becomes JetBlue’s first Mint city in Latin America and JetBlue will be the only airline to operate regularly scheduled flights with a lie-flat premium seat between Costa Rica and the United States." [...]

In part 2 of our FIRE drill in Jacksonville, we looked at the different beaches we visited, the ways in which we were able to experience the arts, cheap deals we found, and lastly the weather, as we tested out Jacksonville as a location to spend lots of our time once we are able to be location independent.

I almost missed this news, but thankfully I noticed this mention in my newsfeed, from Q Costa Rica. Today is Guanacaste Day! "In 1824, the Central American Federal Republic passed the law and signed it on July 25, allowing the Guanacaste province to become part of Costa Rican territory. Nicoyans decided to be part of Costa Rica instead of Nicaragua." Guanacaste is the province where Tamarindo is located, which is where we have our AirBNB rental properties.  One of seven provinces in Costa Rica, Guanacaste is located the northwest corner of the country. In fact, a good portion of Costa Rican Pacific coastline in [...]