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Guam Expat Family Budget: The Cost Of Living In Paradise
My family of four lived in Guam for a total of 45 days recently, and during that time we closely tracked our spending to determine what an expat family budget would look like. Guam is a special destination because my parents were stationed there in the Air Force. It’s a location that has fascinated me
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November International Travel FIRE Budget
For the month of November international travel FIRE budget, we were almost entirely in Guam. Only the final three days of the month were not in Guam. Those final three days were in Manila Philippines which is a sharp drop in spending compared to Guam. This budget shares similarities with the October budget in that
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October International Travel FIRE Budget
October was a chaotic month with two extremely long haul flights (first, second), round-tripping to Denver from Guam twice to pick up and drop off my mom. In all of that planning, traveling, and spending time with my mom, I completely forgot to document the October international travel FIRE budget. The month of October was
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Costa Rica Expat Family Budget: A Family of Four’s Budget Revealed
Costa Rica is a popular expat destination due to a variety of appealing factors. These include easy entry requirements, beautiful surroundings, friendly people and low cost (allegedly). We spent two months in Costa Rica and would highly recommend it to anyone seeking an expat living situation. I have done posts recapping our budget and reflections
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September Travel Budget In The Red
I always get excited when budget time rolls around, and I was particularly interested in this month. September is the first full month we have spent in Japan, which is our most expensive location (not counting Guam). If I had been allowed to peek ahead to the result of any one month’s budget before the
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August Gap Year Budget Review
We have concluded another budget month while slow traveling internationally on our family gap year. I’m excited to crunch the numbers and see how our projections are matching reality. It’s the chance to prove or disprove that this approach of slow travel is sustainable over the long haul. Either way it’s useful data. The month
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International Cell Phone – Simple Verified Approach
A small but critical part of the research for international travel surrounded how to manage our cell phones. Our phone numbers are critical for all sorts of things. The least important of those is staying in contact with family friends. We could find ways to get in contact with them without our phones. The most
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July Gap Year Budget
July is our first full month of travel and is our first chance to see if the financial aspects of this trip are going according to plan. We projected expenses for the places we are traveling using numbeo, but the accuracy of that in practice is a complete unknown to us. Being in Costa Rica
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Did We Just Achieve FIRE?
Market Runup The US and international stock markets have been on a great run following the lows seen following the tariff announcement. With new record highs I began asking myself, did we just achieve fire? In this post I will check in on our progress toward at-home FIRE. At the time we left on our
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The Best Things In Life Are Free
Travel Log: Day 12 (7/9), Costa Rica Today was the undisputed best day so far in Costa Rica, thanks to a completely free activity (aside from a $3 Uber ride). This is exactly the antidote to yesterday’s failures. The place we went to is called “El Salto” or “The Jump”. It’s a small waterfall with
Traveling Toward Fire
A Premature FI Experiment
