Geoarbitrage Archives - Page 2 of 2

Strategies We’re Using in Our Early Retirement Planning

Early retirement planning. You’d think the closer we get to our FIRE date, the simpler things would become. I mean really – I’m leaving my job in just a few months so as I continue to train my replacement, my workload should start to diminish over time. Plus, we’re downsizing to an apartment soon (if we could ever sell our house!). What else could there be, Jim? How much early retirement planning do you really need? Didn’t you already get these plans laid out months or years ago? I’ll tell you what – I read a lot of personal finance blogs with folks who’ve already left their jobs and it seems like the majority of what I read is: 1) Reach

Considerations for Planning to Retire Abroad

With our recent announcement of us moving up our early retirement date to the end of 2018, the pressure’s now on. We’re now planning to retire abroad to Panama in the summer of 2019. The news was exciting for us to share, but now reality’s setting in. Although a year seems like a lot of time, there’s really a lot that needs to be done. It would be one thing if we were just moving to another country for a couple of years. However, we’re planning to actually retire abroad for the long haul. And with that, comes the need to sell everything. Not only our house, but our cars, furniture, TVs, books – you name it! We’re planning to walk

The #1 Question We’re Asked About Moving to Panama…

My loyal readers know that we’re planning on moving to Panama in 2020. We’re quitting our jobs at the end of 2019. We’ll then let our daughter finish out her school year (fourth grade). And then, yeah, we’re moving to Panama. Sounds crazy, right? You can say it – you won’t hurt my feelings. What’s funny is that most of our friends don’t have the heart to tell us what they’re really thinking. We know what they’re really thinking is “What the #$%^ is wrong with you? Panama? Are you insane?!” Instead, they aim for a more diplomatic approach and the first question is always the same… Why Panama? It seems like no one wants to ask us why we’re

What if Moving to Panama Sucks?

If you’re a regular follower of my blog, you know we’re moving to Panama in 2020 – Boquete, Panama to be specific. I’ll be quitting my job at the end of 2019 and then getting everything prepared and ready to go while my daughter finishes her fourth-grade year of school. To say we’re excited would be an understatement. In the blink of an eye, everything’s changing. We’ll have vast new territory to explore and no 9-5 jobs getting in the way of making it happen. I have that perfect vision in my head about us all having breakfast together in the morning before my daughter heads off to school. Then my wife and I spend some time taking a nice

The Cost of Living in Panama… Geoarbitrage at Work!

Ah, the cost of living in Panama… something I should have posted about months ago. As my long-time readers know, the Route to Retire family has decided to move to Panama in a couple years as part of our FIRE plans. I’ve also talked about how inexpensive it can be to retire to a place like this. It’s interesting that you can actually take advantage of the difference in living costs between two locations to help you financially. And there’s actually a term for this – geoarbitrage. It might be done to live on less money. Alternatively, it might be to have the ability to afford the “greater things in life” you otherwise couldn’t afford. You see that used quite a bit on

If Tomorrow Never Comes…

I’ve been thinking a lot about tomorrow lately and any regrets I would have if that day never arrived. There was a touchy-feely show on back in the 80’s called Highway to Heaven. I was only a kid back then, but I used to watch it all the time and I loved it. I’ll wait while you laugh at me. Yeah, well, it gets worse. I was pretty excited to see that it showed up on Netflix at some point so now I’ve been watching the series all over again. Um, yeah, I have problems. For some reason, I decided to look up Michael Landon and find out some of his background. If you aren’t familiar with him, he, unfortunately,