Category Archives: Your Stories

Pretirement story: Leaving work for good at age 33

Hey folks, I want to introduce you to a new blogger on the scene! Justin decided he was leaving work for good at 33 years old and has been writing some terrific content over at Root of Good for just a few weeks. He was kind enough to host a guest post of mine on his site earlier this week. Be sure to check it out and let me know what you think! 

Justin and I share a similar mind-set about pretirement and about focusing our respective web sites on giving you real information straight from the heart. You won’t find a lot of boring lists of regurgitated financial “tips” on either of our sites. And neither of us are afraid of offending anyone. Justin wants to show you how easy it is to leave the corporate world behind for good and he’s off to a great start. I predict big things for his site. He has a great story and is a great writer on top of it. I am honored to be the first site to host a guest post of his anywhere! I hope you enjoy it!

Goodbye work, hello blogging!

Photo courtesy Root of Good blog.

Photo courtesy Root of Good blog.

I started Root of Good not long after I retired from full time work.  I found myself sitting at home with a lot of free time and an interest in finances, early retirement, writing, computers, coding, and technology. I was able to “retire” at the tender age of 33, and I figured I could share my story and provide insight into how I accomplished this feat of financial engineering. One day a couple of weeks into my retirement, one of those crazy ideas crept into my head — I’ll start a blog!

Some people have nagging thoughts like “I really want a pick-up truck, a new boat, and a vacation house on the lake where I can store my new boat”. The nagging thought in my head was “I’m going to start a blog!”. I couldn’t get it out of my head. I resigned myself to spending the next few days investigating “how to blog” to figure out the basics. I had no clue where to even start with blogging.

You have to have a server that provides your carefully written blog posts to all your thousands of readers. You need software that makes your blog look beautiful and helps you manage your content. You’ll have to tweak the appearance of your site to make it conform to your wants and needs. Once you get your site up and running and offering readers the aesthetic experience you are aiming for, you still aren’t done. Unless you are particularly fond of writing soliloquies, you have to figure out how to get readers to surf over to your awesome new blog.

One way to attract readers to your blog is to read other blogs and comment on these other blogs, with the hopes that someone will like your comment and click on your name to find out more about this really clever and interesting commentator. Some aspiring bloggers prefer to carpet bomb the blogosphere with rather shallow comments that lead back to their own blogs in order to get as many clicks as possible.

I took a different approach and focused on finding the most relevant bloggers in my little niche of expertise — financial independence and early retirement. I read these blogs and engaged with the bloggers and their other readers. Since I’m not running my blog like a business (although I love making money!), I prefer to have genuine conversations with interesting people where we can all benefit mutually from sharing knowledge while entertaining each other in the process.

Enter Pretired.org. I was looking around the internet and I found dozens, perhaps hundreds of personal finance blogs of varying quality and usefulness. Nick’s writing sucked me in. I liked his philosophy of “pretirement” since I struggled a bit with defining myself.

One of the first pages at Root of Good was my “About” page. I realized I had to give myself a title in the very first paragraph of the “About” page.  Here is what I came up with:

Through careful saving and planning, I managed to accumulate enough wealth to make me financially independent by age 33.  I could also be variously described as unemployed, in between jobs, a stay at home dad, retired, or a kept man with a sweet sugar momma.  Call me what you want!

“Retired” is a strange word — a sort of verbal shorthand for “financially independent and not working”. “Retired” for a 33 year old is a really strange word. I see many of my friends from high school and college posting on Facebook about how excited they are to be finally finishing up their PhD dissertations or completing their medical residencies. And here I am retired.

Retired or Pretired?

When I composed my “About” page, I had never heard of the concept of “pretirement”. It makes so much sense though. When you retire in your 30s or 40s, you aren’t heading off into the sunset to a life of sitting on the porch in your rocking chair.  You probably won’t play any shuffleboard or bingo for at least a few more decades. You are still 15+ years too young for an “active adult” retirement community that frowns on those under age 55.

And let’s face the facts.  If you manage to work hard and accumulate enough wealth to retire at a very early age, you probably aren’t cut out for sitting around twiddling your thumbs all day anyway.

Pretirement is a perfect word to describe that period of time after you reach financial independence but before you hit the traditional retirement age of 65. It is one of the few periods of your life that you get to choose what you want to do. You are still healthy enough to climb mountains (in a figurative or literal sense). You still have enough energy to pursue side projects and hobbies, and try out volunteer opportunities that you put off during your working life.

In my situation (as well as Pretired Nick’s), leaving full time work has meant a big increase in how much time we spend with our families. We both have toddlers running around the house, and they take a lot of time and energy. I was busy working a full time job and making money when my other two kids were toddlers. This time around, I won’t miss my kid’s childhood because I was too busy working, or too busy de-stressing from work to give them my undivided attention.

I also view pretirement (or early retirement) as a renaissance of your life. A chance to reinvent your life in whatever form you want it to be. I decided to pursue blogging, which has led to hours of fulfilling work writing blog posts about topics I find interesting. It also led me into the world of coding and tweaking WordPress blog software. I’m currently a novice, which means I have a lot to learn.

I recently spent a few hours reading tutorials and modifying code to enable a certain kind of automated functionality at Root of Good. At first I had trouble getting the code to work like I wanted. After some trial and error and learning the basics of WordPress programming, I eventually got the program to output the web page with the desired appearance. A small victory, but a rewarding feeling to accomplish something new. Now I have a new skill and can build on that skill by taking on more challenging and complex coding issues to tweak Root of Good.

Who knows what these skills will lead to? I may develop my WordPress and PHP skills enough to be able to take on freelance programming work a few hours per week to make some easy cash. I don’t really need the money, but if the money comes easily, why not try to earn a little bit? It’s hard to call it “work” if you make a couple hundred dollars in exchange for a few hours of your time and you are doing something you like.

If that sounds really boring to you, wait till you hear about my other interests! Since retiring, I don’t feel guilty about spending hours watching, reading, or learning about the things that happen to interest me. So far this has included an interest in 16th century Europe. Lately I have been watching period drama TV shows and reading fiction and non-fiction works set in that period.

I also spent a lot of time studying the French language using a free online language instruction program (Duolingo.com for the curious). Lately I have been too busy (imagine that!) to spend much time learning French, but it will be there waiting for me if I find myself wallowing in boredom. Like that will ever happen.

During my full time career, it was difficult to do very much of anything recreational during the work week. My job and my three kids required most of my attention during the week. This left little unscheduled free time to pursue other interests. Now my job is no longer, but I have picked up full time child care duties for our one year old. That still leaves me with a lot of free time during the day, and also allows me to live life more intentionally at a slower pace. I walk the kids to and from school every day, and bring the little one to weekly story times and toddler play times at the community center.

Working for the Man

I have always regarded “work” as an instrumentally valuable activity that provides an income sufficient to fund my wants and needs. Work should also pay well enough to leave a surplus (after my expenses are paid) that I can invest for future use. It is great when work is interesting and provides happiness and satisfaction, as that is an added bonus on top of the paycheck.

Some find work intrinsically valuable — that is, work in and of itself provides value, meaning, and validation to their lives. I suppose I was unlucky during my short career since I never found a position that I considered to be intrinsically valuable. Maybe I should have chosen social work or the medical field instead of engineering. Not that I want to take a mulligan on life at this point!

Work provides money. Money buys freedom. It is a simple transaction in my mind. But the only money that can be put toward your future freedom is the money that you don’t spend.

How much money you spend depends on your wants and your needs. Needs tend to be relatively fixed in price (basic food, water, and shelter). Wants can be highly variable. The trick to being able to retire early is to pay attention to your “wants” and figure out how much value you get out of the “wants”. Some may prefer a shiny new car and a McMansion over the equivalent value invested at an 8-10% rate of return. I’m satisfied driving a 13-year-old compact car and living in a moderately priced house. For others, they may derive great unimaginable value out of living in a fancy car. Whoops, Freudian slip! Living in a fancy car is what you do when you can’t pay your fancy mortgage on your fancy house and it goes back to the fancy bank.

Living Well

The Root of Good family spends around $2,000 per month on our core expenses. Some people are shocked we can keep food on the table let alone live well on this amount of money. We aren’t eating Kobe steaks stuffed with caviar encrusted lobsters every night for dinner. But we eat well enough. Being retired means I have plenty of free time to try new experiments recipes and procure high quality ingredients at low prices. Our house keeps us safe and comfortable. Our cars get us where we need to go. Our minds are occupied with a variety of entertainment and educational options. Our friends (and our kids’ friends) are treated well at social events frequently hosted at our house. We are simply very value conscious consumers living well on a low budget.

By focusing our spending on the things that bring the most value to us while cutting costs in other places that aren’t very important, we have managed to live well and save a significant portion of our earnings each year. These turbocharged savings led to early retirement at 33 for me.

Pretired Nick here again. Well, what do you all think? Does Justin’s story get you dreaming at all? What will you do when you’re done working for good? Are you just bouncing along for the ride or are you deciding what you want to do every day and choosing to do that?  

Pretirement story: Planning a move to Spain

Hey, everybody, today I’m sharing a guest post from Buck, the writer behind one of my favorite blogs, Bucking the Trend. One of my favorite things to do on Pretired.org is share interesting stories of pretirement, such as the recent story of my friend Rebecca who gave up her fancy corporate job to move to Mexico

Buck is planning to pack up his family and move to Spain and is well into the planning and preparation stage. Read on for his story and be sure to share your thoughts and advice for Buck in the comments! 

Introduction

buck-spain

Earlier this summer, Pretired Nick and I were comparing notes.  We share a goal of living abroad with our families and he asked if I’d do a guest post.  This is the latest on our story.

The tagline on my blog says “Save. Invest. Retire @ 42. Move family to Spain.”  If everything were to go exactly as planned, we would reach our goal in the year 2017 or thereabouts.  We all know things rarely go “as planned” but it’s good to set goals, right?

This was the plan up until about a month ago when my wife and I decided to turn everything on its ear.  The tagline should now read “Save. Invest. Pretire in 2014. Move family to Spain.”

The Goal

For as long as my wife and I have been married, we’ve had a goal of living abroad.  We tried to navigate our careers so that we could live and work in a place other than the U.S. but the stars just never aligned to allow us to do it.

Our plans were put on hold with the birth of our twin boys a little over 8 years ago. Now that they’ve grown and we have some money in the bank, we’ve been able to rekindle our dream to include the entire family.

Our goal is to move and immerse ourselves in a Spanish-speaking country for at least one year starting in June 2014. The following are some of the questions we’ve asked ourselves that have led us to this decision.

Why?

I went on my first trip abroad during my sophomore year in college. And while it was only a month-long whirlwind tour through some parts of Western Europe, I returned with a new appreciation of different cultures.  It also struck me how most everyone we met that was close to my age was able to speak English – at worst in a conversational way, at best with an authentic British accent.

I learned that many countries teach English at very young ages, most at the start of any sort of formal schooling around age 5. I thought this was wonderful and vowed to give my kids the gift of bilingualism and the time to take in a different culture and all the things that go with that (language, food, people, sites, etc.) I think this experience will go a long way into making our sons more well-rounded.

Why Now?

Like many big decisions in life, there is rarely the perfect time to do something like this.  The more relevant question when I first brought it up with the wife was why not now?

As we evaluated our original plan of waiting another 4 years to move, we started seeing bigger issues that would potentially be roadblocks. Two of the bigger considerations were:

  • Age of our boys. The twins just started 2nd grade and the thought of waiting until they were nearly teenagers seemed like it would be more impactful both from a schooling and social perspective.
  • Age of our boys’ grandparents. We are very fortunate to have both sets of grandparents with us. Everyone is in relatively good health but with ages already in their early-to-mid 70s, no one is getting any younger. To wait another 4 years to make this move would push the elder grandparents closer to their 80s. Besides, I think they are excited to have a new place to visit their kids and grandchildren as well.

Why Spain?

Because our twins are in their third year of a Spanish-English dual language immersion program at their school, it’s only logical that we seek out living in a Spanish-speaking country. This experience should cement their fluency in the language.

While we have several target countries in mind (most of which are in South America), Spain remains #1 on our list.  I spent some time studying and working in Madrid nearly two decades ago and my wife and I have been back a couple of times since. There is something about the Spanish lifestyle that appeals to us and I suspect it has something to do with siestas, jamón serrano, and the nearly 3,000 hours of sunshine that pours down on southern Spain every year.

How?

You know how most personal finance blogs at one point or another always mention the word ‘freedom’ that financial independence brings?

While we aren’t yet financially independent, we’re taking advantage of the freedom that our savings has enabled. We’ve fully funded our tax-advantaged retirement and are diligently saving almost everything going forward in cash to be able to qualify for the needed visa. More on this in the next section.

To get into some specifics, we have about $90K in taxable investments and another $50K in cash that is more than enough float us for a year or two while abroad.

As long as we don’t end up in one of Spain’s larger cities (Madrid or Barcelona), it appears that living in Spain may actually be cheaper than our current location in the U.S. Rents in Andalucía appear to be reasonable and my goal is to live in a town/city center where we can walk or bike as part of our daily routine without the need for a car.

Next Steps

At this point, we have a lot more questions than answers and are glad to have the better part of 9 months to put a plan in place and make it a reality. The following are the most immediate to-dos at the moment.

  • Visas – Figuring out the needed visas is the first priority. We’re leaning toward applying for a non-lucrative visa. This is a one-year visa typically granted to retirees who have ample savings (or passive income) to support themselves.  This visa does not allow you to work in Spain. We’ve done our best to save enough money to live on for a period of time that I’m hoping we can qualify.

While I haven’t found it spelled out in black and white, it seems the magic number is around $85K in savings plus an additional $15K needed for each dependent. If my math is correct, that means our family will need to prove a savings of around $130K to be able to qualify for this type of visa.

  • Schools – Apparently there are three main options when it comes to schooling in Spain:  public, semi-private, and private. We need to determine which option we can afford and which is going to be best for our boys given our goals (to learn the language and culture).
  • Immersion – Even though we have the luxury of not working, I still think it is important that my wife and I find ways to become part of the community. To this end, I’ve found several programs that hire native English speakers to be part-time language assistants in schools around the country. I’m thinking this may help us get some immediate contacts in the area that may be more difficult to obtain on our own.
  • Stuff – What are we going to do with our house and all the stuff it contains? Since we plan to return back to the U.S. at some point, the current thought is to rent out our house and put anything we want to keep in storage.

Fears

As with anything new, we have our list of fears and unknowns. Will we miss our friends? Will we hate it? Will we love it? Will we ever come back? (That last one is my mom’s fear and not necessarily mine).

Admittedly, this prospect “terrifies the bejeezus” out of my wife (her words). But at the same time she is up for the challenge and equates her fear to the nerves and anxiety that our children regularly have to face, but which we avoid as adults. It seems only fair that we should also be put in uncomfortable situations in the name of growth and new experiences.

Thanks for reading. If there is anyone out there who may have a bit of advice for us about Spain or any other Spanish-speaking country that you think should warrant our time in research, please comment or reach out to me directly via the Contact form on my blog. ¡Muchas gracias!

Pretired Nick here again. Well, what do you all think? Is Buck on the right track? Any advice for him as he plans this move? I was in Spain a couple years ago and also fell in love with the country. When I researched a move to Spain I found very challenging visa issues and a barely functioning bureaucracy to complicate matters even further. Buck has a lot of these issues figured out already and I know I can’t wait to read the posts when he packs up and makes his move to Spain!

Also, for anyone else considering a move to Spain, I do highly recommend the book Moon Living Abroad in Spain (affiliate link). I read it from cover-to-cover when I was seriously looking at making the same move. Although my plans to move to Spain are on hold, I still highly recommend this book.

Guest Post: A millennial’s pretirement plan

Today I wanted to share yet another guest post from a favorite fellow blogger. I figure by now you’re a bit tired of listening to an old guy like me whine about all my dumb financial blunders. So today I’m welcoming someone much younger to the stage. She is by far the savviest financial Latina I know and has been tearing it up on her blog lately. Savvy Financial Latina is a 20-something woman learning to manage life, career and money in Dallas, Tex. She has a Bachelor’s in Global Business, a Master’s in Supply Chain Management, and an MBA, all without any debt. She now works for a Global 500 company as a sourcing analyst. Savvy Financial Latina is, also, a member of the Dimespring 30, a community of bloggers sharing their thoughts, experiences and perspectives on personal finance.

What financial independence means to me:
Savvy Financial Latina

This is a totally different financial Latina.

This is a totally different financial Latina.

I’m 23 years old. I graduated with a Bachelor’s in Global Business, Master’s in Supply Chain Management, and M.B.A. I’m married to a wonderful man and we are searching for a nice, affordable home to live in Dallas, Texas. We try to have a frugal lifestyle and invest in our future.

Pretired Nick and I have been commenting on each other’s blogs for a couple months now. I think I have pretty much read every article he’s written. I find the topics stimulating and the possibilities endless. When he asked me to write about pretirement from a Gen Y’s perspective, I jumped at the opportunity.

Retirement in Corporate America

I started blogging when I was 21 while I was in graduate school and in my first year of marriage. We were pretty broke, and money was tight, and often a topic of stress. Blogging was an outlet at a point in my life where I was stressed out over everything. Soon after graduating in May 2012, I started working in Corporate America. Financial and lifestyle choices have always interested me, and thus, I started asking older workers about their retirement plans. I have found only one person who has a set date for retirement. Everybody else balks at the word retirement, and says “no way!”

I ran into Guy X one day leaving the building. He was really cheery, and so was I! Surprise! He mentioned he had just finished talking to his daughter who was helping him build his home in Hawaii. He quickly delved into how he had less than 2 years to retire fully. At which point he was going to split his time between Hawaii and Colorado. He deserved it. He had spent 30 years working at a manufacturing company, and another 10 years working for our company. Dang… if you count the other two years of work he has left, he has worked a total of 42 years. Astonishing! The guy had a calendar counting down day by day, minute by minute!

Most people don’t have a plan for their retirement. They think retirement is scary. If you think about it, retirement is a fairly new concept. Prior to the 20th century, you either died early or you worked until you no longer could, and then your kids took care of you. The baby boomers will be the generation that takes advantage of social security and/or pensions. And please, if you say social security and your pension will not be enough to fund your lifestyle, please think before you speak. My generation will have no pensions or social security to rely on. I truly believe social security will no longer be in existence by the time I qualify.

What’s wrong with this picture? Just because something is scary does not mean there should not be a plan.

My definition of financial independence

Retirement: Sitting on a recliner watching TV. I could do this for one week before I would start going crazy. Not my cup of tea.

Financial Independence – Not having to rely on the corporate paycheck to fund your lifestyle. Not having to care about politics at work, impressing anyone, tied to a set schedule, etc. Freedom is what I want. This is what Pretired Nick defines as pretirement.

Do I have a number?

So, I can’t say I have a number yet. I do know my husband and I want to have the freedom to do whatever we want earlier rather than later. We don’t want to be in our sixties and stuck because we have too much debt, etc.

I once saw an episode on House Hunters International of a couple looking for a home in South America. The couple was in their 40s, and had “retired” early. This seems like a very lovely idea!

Our plan is to:

  • Max out my 401K (So we have income when we’re old and wrinkly).
  • Max out ROTH IRAs (Again, our old and wrinkly selves will thank me!).
  • Invest in a taxable brokerage account. (Passive income for our not so old selves)
  • Develop side hustles that bring extra money.

I want us to save/invest 50% of our income. I know our plan is not very definitive, but I do feel we are trying to invest toward our future. It’s extremely hard to put a net worth goal when you are so young. Any thoughts?

Personal finance blogosphere

I feel so lucky having an entire troop of personal finance bloggers talking about their financial choices and how that has affected their lifestyles. It is extremely encouraging to maintain a financial conscious, yet comfortable lifestyle.

Pretired Nick here again. Well, what do you all think? Savvy Financial Latina is building her retirement fund and a nice pretirement fund at the same time. And she’s working toward saving 50% of her income. Sounds pretty good to me. Let us know what you think in the comments! 

Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici via FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Pretirement story: Making the move to Mexico

Today I am delighted to share the first guest post on Pretired.org. It’s a wonderful pretirement story from my good friend, Rebecca Smith Hurd. Rebecca and I are old college buddies who share a craving for exploration and adventure. While I left my fancy corporate job to take care of Pretired Baby, Rebecca decided to bail on her corporate job to move to Mexico. There she found a new life, language, culture, husband and founded All About Puebla, the leading English-language resource on Mexico’s fourth largest city. I hope you enjoy her story! 

Why I Outsourced Myself to Mexico

By Rebecca Smith Hurd

Rebecca and her husband, Pablo

Rebecca and her husband, Pablo

What happens when you realize that your dream job is no longer as dreamy as you’d like it to be? You quit. Or at least that’s what I did back in March 2006, when, after 20 years in journalism, I resigned my post (and gave up a six-figure salary) as an editor of an award-winning national magazine. My departure did not make headlines, but it altered the course of my career—and my life—for good.

At the time, I didn’t think of myself as pretired. After working for two decades in the U.S. media business, I was just plain tiredtired of stressing over deadlines, tired of lying awake at night fretting about possible errors, tired of saying “no” to friends and family because I had professional obligations, and tired of having to, er, strap on a pair to get taken seriously. I needed a break, stat!

So, I took one. I went skiing, ran a 10K, camped out at Coachella, and rafted the whitewaters at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. I spent two months using my 37-year-old body instead of my brain, as one colleague observed, and it was fantastic. But it wasn’t enough.

Shortly thereafter, I started freelancing to pay the bills while I figured out what came next. To drum up clients, I printed business cards with the title “word nerd” (because it rhymes with “Hurd” and pretty much sums up my skill set), and I emailed former colleagues. Whenever I didn’t have to go to someone’s office, I worked at my coffee table in my pajamas. I took random afternoons off to run errands or hang out with friends. I drank wine on Tuesday nights. I was, as the saying goes, the boss of me.

But I was also still paying nearly $2,000 per month in San Francisco rent, plus other standard living expenses, which meant I was working as much as ever, occasionally on the weekends. Sigh. This wasn’t the break I needed. Could I afford to take a sabbatical? I couldn’t just do nothing for six months, could I?

Puebla's picturesque Cathedral, located on the city's the main square

Puebla’s picturesque Cathedral, located on the city’s the main square

As the year drew to a close, I flew to Spain to visit a friend—and found the answers. My aha moment came as I was sitting in a bar in Madrid, chatting with him and two other Europeans. Each of them spoke several languages and, as the conversation flowed, it dawned on me that they were using English exclusively for my benefit. You know, me, the stereotypical American who, despite calling herself a “word nerd,” had mastered only one language. So humbling.

I returned to the States in mid-January, determined to become bilingual. I would take that sabbatical and study Spanish! I researched language programs in various countries—and ultimately came up with a plan to spend the last six months of the year in Mexico. I enrolled in the intensive summer program at the Monterey Institute for International Study in California, followed by 16 weeks of immersive study at the Spanish Institute of Puebla. Why these schools? Because they were serious, affordable*, and highly recommended by former students. Beyond that, friends of the family kindly agreed to put me up for free near Monterey, which sealed the deal. That June, I gave up my apartment, put my belongings in storage, and hit the road.

Many of my friends and relatives thought I was taking a huge risk. But they were nonetheless supportive; a few even commended me for being “brave.” Personally, I thought the move made perfect sense: I’d not only get the break from routine that I sorely needed, but also learn a new skill that would make me more marketable as a word nerd. I’d return to San Francisco with a second language on my resume, ready to land my next full-time job. ¡Andale! Sounds entirely practical, right?

A plateful of mole poblano, perhaps Mexico's most iconic dish, which was invented by nuns in Puebla

A plateful of mole poblano, perhaps Mexico’s most iconic dish, which was invented by nuns in Puebla

Except that things didn’t turn out as I’d planned. While spending four months in Mexico’s fourth-largest city, I fell in love with the place and a Poblano. I reached out to a few colleagues in the U.S. to see whether they had any freelance jobs I could do 100% remotely. They did! And so began my pretirement.

Six years later, I’m still in Puebla. I’ve effectively outsourced myself. My husband and I could relocate to the States, but financially we’re better off here. My freelance clients—all of whom are in the U.S.—don’t care where I am, as long as I meet their expectations. I’ve also been able to take on new projects, including minor translations, because I speak English and Spanish. My language investment is paying off.

Lucy the cat asleep on my desk in Rebecca's home office, a near daily occurrence

Lucy the cat asleep on my desk in Rebecca’s home office, a near daily occurrence

What’s more, because my overhead is 30 percent of what it was in San Francisco, I can charge competitive rates (in dollars) and work fewer hours (about 35 per week) than I could otherwise. Of course, I could do more, and I’ve had a few lean months along the way. But the work-life balance is worth it. I now have enough time, flexibility, and mental space to focus on personal projects, such as running a local travel website, putting out a monthly expat newsletter, and writing posts like this one, for my college buddy Pretired Nick.

Best of all, my job is dreamy again, and I’m rarely tired anymore.

*The cost of the 2007 program in Puebla, which included all instruction plus room and board was $100 per month less than my rent in San Francisco.

 

Thanks for sharing, Rebecca! It’s so inspiring to hear about someone deciding to give up the big salary for a better life! Anyone else considered moving overseas to bring their pretirement dreams closer? Or considering a move to Mexico? Tell us about it in the comments! And be sure to visit All About Puebla to learn about Rebecca’s fascinating city. 

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