Travel and Vacation Archives

Our Return Trip to Panama – How We Saved Thousands

This return trip to Panama is well overdue. We had a blast, but we’re whupped and ready to get back home (we’re finally starting to get comfortable calling Panama “home”). We spent over a month in the U.S. enjoying time with friends and family. Then we took a roundtrip Caribbean cruise out of Miami. Who’da thunk that we’d be ready to go home after so much fun?! But we really are – it’s time to enjoy the holidays together and get back into our normal routine. Today, I’m going to tell you a little bit about what the trip was all about and how we managed to save thousands of dollars coming back. Why we left A lot of

We Got Turned Down for a Credit Card… Ok, Four!

Yeah, getting turned down for a credit card isn’t a good feeling. It doesn’t matter that Lisa and I each have credit scores of over 800. It doesn’t matter that we have plenty of credit cards already and don’t really need another. We also have more of an unused credit line spanned across all our cards than we’ll never need. And then, of course, there’s that little piece of info that we’ve saved up enough money that we never have to work again – we’d be very low-risk to default. But it doesn’t matter. It still sucks when you get turned down for a credit card. When the online application screen changes and tells you’ve been declined, it’s a small

We’re Now Living in Panama… Finally!!

It feels like we’ve been planning this for years (because we have!), but it’s finally happened… we’re now living in Panama! I wasn’t going to post about this yet since we’ve been here less than a week, but I figured a lot of you want to know the details about this adventure. Although I started this site in 2015 intending to focus mostly on personal finance, I feel like I’ve become known more for our plans to retire early and move to Panama more than anything. That’s not a bad thing at all – it was just a little unexpected. We were doing this just because it seemed interesting to us. It was initially “just” a plan to utilize geoarbitrage

Flexible Travel Can Yield Huge Benefits

One of the facets of early retirement I was looking forward to the most was flexible travel. I knew that we’d be able to save some money by not having to be so rigid in our plans. I didn’t realize the extent of how beneficial it could be though. We’ve been retired for less than eight months now and what we’re already experiencing is awesome! Between cheaper flights, hotels, and cruises, the price is definitely right. Then you throw in that the destinations are generally less crowded and that makes things even better. Mix in a little more hassle-free travel along the way like smaller lines through security screenings and life becomes a real winner! Vacations step up their game

Were We Spending Too Much in July? You Tell Me…

Our July adventure is officially over and now I’m wondering if we were spending too much throughout the month. As most of you already know, we’re moving to Panama later this month. When we booked our flight earlier this year, my wife, Lisa, wanted to wait until the end of summer to fly out so we could go on vacation with her side of the family first. Because of that, we were running a month-to-month lease on our apartment for the last few months. Well, Lisa had a brilliant thought to end our lease a month early and use that money to spend the month of July as vagabonds floating around the country. The idea was that without the cost

6 Months of Early Retirement… We’re Now Homeless

I left my management job in IT at the end of 2018 at the age of 43. The goal was to reach early retirement with my family so we could live a life of freedom and adventure… and now we’re homeless. This might sound unexpected, but here’s the thing – that was exactly the plan. Being homeless is something we’ve been working toward for a long time now. For those of you familiar with our path, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. But for my new readers, you might be a cringing a little bit. No need to fear though, we’re not homeless in the sense of sleeping on the streets. We’ve just decided to spend about a month and

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