Four million US workers quit their job in July 2021 alone. So many employees are quitting that the phenomenon has been dubbed the Great Resignation all over the media (Harvard Business Review, NPR, the BBC and more). The dearth of employees makes this a great time to earn more money and jumpstart your FIRE goals. Here are four ways to make the Great Resignation work for you, whether you are a consultant or employee and whether you plan to stay where you are or quit for greener pastures: Whether you have an existing consulting business or have been thinking about [...]

October is Filipino American History Month in the US. I’m a Fil-Am, and apparently Fil-Ams are the second largest Asian American group in the US! Though Scott is not Filipino, we have been a couple for over 30 years, and he is an honorary Fil-Am, having attended many large and loud family events. We both love traveling to the Philippines and have done three trips in just the last five years – 2017, 2018 and 2020. With the pandemic still an obstacle to international travel, we’ll have to get our fix in the US. There are several Filipino eateries in [...]

Maybe it’s turning 50 or maybe it’s the pandemic upending things, but whatever the root cause, I’ve become more introspective. I have been rethinking my perfect day (turning 50, part 1) and what that means for the next few years (turning 50, part 2). I feel like I’m ready for big changes to my business and maybe even our real estate investing, but the specifics I don’t know yet. In the meantime, I have been focusing a lot on this concept of abundance – feeling gratitude or at the very least, feeling less worry and scarcity. If I’m being honest, [...]

A recent Twitter conversation reminded us about how we often refer to our rental properties birthing babies, when we tap the equity in them to buy more houses. We used a cash-out refinance of our two North Carolina rentals to buy our condo in Costa Rica. Essentially, our Asheville places birthed Condo Boom. You can also access your property’s equity with a home equity line of credit. We used a HELOC on our first property in New Jersey to buy our first investment property in North Carolina -- the first rental baby! That Twitter conversation was about someone looking to [...]

Wondering how should one start if I am looking to buy a single family in Costa Rica. I have been there a couple of years back and would look to have a place that we can use when travel and then rest of the time can use as vacation rentals. – Sushil We are not financial advisors or real estate agents, so we don’t give advice. However, we have written in detail about what worked for us, and then you can take what applies to you and discard the rest.  We have written multiple posts with the details of how [...]

We recently moved into a condo that we had owned as a rental for 7 years. While the tenant was great (e.g., paid on time, low maintenance), the place still needs a lot of work. We also have very different tastes. I think the tenant had migraines or otherwise didn’t like light (vampire?) because the floor and walls were kept very dark. One of the first things we did upon moving was to draw a list of home renovations, updates and other projects. We came up with 78 items! Here is a snapshot of some of them: Some of the [...]

When the pandemic upended our travel plans, I threw myself back into work so seamlessly that I figured that’s what I would do until normalcy resumed. However, as we are well into year two of the pandemic, and things seem to be getting worse, not better, I find myself rethinking my initial assumption. If travel isn’t on the horizon for years, not just months, will I simply double down on my consulting work or do something else? Perhaps my introspection is part of the Great Resignation phenomenon, in which people are quitting their jobs at a much higher rate. Admittedly [...]

Both Scott and I turned 50 this year. Neither of us are into celebrating birthdays, and we are still in the midst of a pandemic, so we didn’t throw a big party or anything else extraordinary. I also wasn’t anticipating a mid-life crisis or other inflection point. In fact, I felt that turning age 48 was a bigger turning point for us. In the fall of that year, we became empty-nesters, spent a month in Costa Rica (our longest trip to date) and were set up to embark on a stretch of travel. We did squeeze in trips to Arizona [...]

I live in Costa Rica also and I read a few of your articles.  I was wondering, Instead of investing in Costa Rica real estate, Why not become private hard money lenders yourselves?  That is what I do and it is pretty much a no-lose deal if you do it right.  Any reason why you prefer Real estate?- Dan We actually are private lenders, but only on deals in the US. In Costa Rica, our investments are strictly in real property, both of which are used as vacation rentals. I’m not sure how Dan structures his loans, but in our [...]