Category: Uncategorized
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I want to mentally withstand the urge to take my money out if the market drops 30%. I’m 100% stocks, but that means I’m entirely in index funds because I trust the future of the world — or things are so bad that I don’t care. It is easy to invest in single stocks or…
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Cut early in your life and invest to build your nest egg. When you retire with, say, $750k invested, in median market years you’ll earn around 10%, or $75k, from your investments. If your base needs cost $30k, you have plenty of room. In good years, spend more — $40k or so — and set…
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Part of the reason we chose Ecuador as our home is the language. Spanish is a Romance language, and English has some Latin roots, so many words between the two are similar. This was a welcome change from my time in Korea, where almost no words overlapped with English. I had also taken some Spanish…
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One challenge you will face having children in Ecuador is education. Some families homeschool their children. I know there is a large homeschooling community in Vilcabamba. There is a small homeschool meetup here in Cuenca that we have attended — we went bowling. There is a great Facebook group called Expat Parents in Cuenca that…
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One of my hobbies is reading and writing on Reddit. Over the years, I have developed my own pet peeves. One is people writing on FIRE who are retiring at a traditional age or just showing off their high net worth accounts. Maybe it is just hearing the same things over and over that gets…
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March Budget: $2440.40 Rent $450 Health: 397.78 Preschool: $265 Food: $254.88 Household: $231.90 Beauty: 200.34 Restaurant: 149.50 Alcohol 90 Pets: 87.50 (We got a dog!) Apparel: 70 Other: 68 Utilities and Phone 66 Culture: $48 (Spanish lessons) Transport: 41.50
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This is a question I hear all too often. Someone retires—frequently earlier than expected—only to find themselves bored and restless. Perhaps they miss the status and power of their previous career, or maybe their budget is a bit tighter than anticipated. There is also a notably high rate of medical issues following retirement. In my…
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We funded our 529 early—even before our daughter was born. My father-in-law vowed to contribute half of her college costs through his own 529, which left us with about $10,000 to contribute. Our portion should grow to around $55,000 by the time she starts college. We were living in Oklahoma at the time, which had…
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I often discuss the benefits of moving to Cuenca—of which there are many—but it’s not for everyone. Here are a few reasons why you might think twice about making the move. The first is a reluctance to learn Spanish. Unlike some expat hubs in Southeast Asia, Cuencanos generally expect you to speak the local language.…
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I read about an interesting spending rule the other day that helps limit how much you spend on spontaneous purchases. You could call it the “$10 a day rule.” It is fairly simple but quite powerful. The rule states that when making a purchase, you must wait $10 worth of days toward that purchase until…
Millionaire Librarian 