Our Continued Adventures with Medical Tourism in Mexico

Why oh why would we head to Mexico in the middle of a pandemic?  Dental work, of course! How Mexico fits into our budget and medical plan This year, we made our third annual trip to Mexico for dental cleanings, x-rays, and exams.  In Mexico, we pay about 25% of what we’d pay in the …

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5 Things We Learned in Our 2nd Year of Early Retirement

1 It’s a marathon, not a sprint When we first retired, we felt like we needed to cross off all of our bucket list items as fast as we could.  We’re not sure if we thought we’d run out of time or we’d want/need to go back to work, but it just felt like we …

How long can we put off drafting our wills?

Q: How long can we put off drafting our wills? A: 6+ years. 😊 Our financial advisor asked us to draft our wills when we got married almost 7 years ago.  We kept putting it off and putting it off and putting it off.  Well, I guess it took a global pandemic for us to …

Living Tiny: Need to stay on top of it!

Oh no!  How did this happen?  Somehow, we accumulated a whole bunch of “stuff” and we're bursting at the seams.  Three years ago, we went through multiple rounds of downsizing from nearly 6,000 square feet to around 700 square feet.  We did so well with weeding out all of the stuff we didn’t need.  How …

Our (changing) summer travel plans

Like everyone else, we were super excited for summer to get here.  We were planning to head to Colorado for 5 months, hang out with family and friends, ATV a couple times a month, take in Red Rocks concerts, visit Rocky Mountain National Park, find new restaurants…we could go on and on. Well, our plans …

How to NOT freak out when you get an IRS audit notice

We all fear getting that dreaded letter from the IRS saying we’re being audited or owe additional taxes.  Well, we got one of those letters last summer while we were on the road last summer. We weren’t completely surprised by the IRS letter.  2017 was a complicated tax year for us.  We sold our home …

Emergency Dental Expenses on an Early Retirement Budget

I’ll start by saying Carter is 53 years old and doesn’t have a single cavity.  HOWEVER, he has managed to crack 4 teeth.  I guess he follows his own motto (DON’T DO ANYTHING HALFWAY) even when it comes to dental hygiene! We both clench and grind our teeth at night.  And, we both wear nightguards …

8 adjustments we’re making on a Coronavirus budget

A few weeks ago we went to Costco to buy paper towels since we were down to our last roll.  They were completely sold out!  We didn’t realize Coronavirus hysteria had already taken hold here in Mesa, Arizona.  Well…fast forward 2+ weeks and we’re making all kinds of adjustments to our budget and lifestyle and …

Working: how much do we miss it?

Do we miss working at all?  The obvious answer is HECK NO.  And, that answer would be 95% accurate.  But, we’ll be honest, there are a few aspects of work that we really do miss.  What we DON’T miss: Our cat used to like to "work" with us! Meetings and never-ending conference calls.  When we …

Our first year on an early retiree budget

We did pretty darn good living on a budget Assuming our budgeting positions! I had never really been on a budget before we started thinking about retiring early.  On the other hand, Carter was a budgeting guru.  He actually liked tracking expenses, balancing the books, and looking at trends.  Thank goodness!  We’ve also realized we’re …