Still thinking

Although I have put off further travel until I have the house on the market, that hasn’t kept me from continuing to research, read and think about the future.  I have reached several conclusions:

1.   I need to live on or very close to the beach.  I love the water and since I have a choice I can’t imagine not being as close as possible.

2.   I don’t want to live in a big city.  So if the best options involve large cities, I will at least live a small town some distance away.

3.   I know myself well enough to know that in addition to returning to Belize, I need to check out a few other countries.

4.   High on my list for further research and possible exploration are Mexico (it is close and familiar), Ecuador (it’s currently “hot” and intriguing) and Panama.

If I have the urge to go to the opera (I don’t see that happening any time soon!) or a large museum or any of the other things offered by large cities I can make a special trip.  These are not amenities I will use often and I just don’t like living in a big city… been there, done that.  I grew up in a town of about 50,000 and loved living in Key West, which was about 30,000.

Based on the above, I have resisted all of the hoopla about Panama.  I don’t want to live in the hills surrounding Boquette and I don’t want to live in Panama City with its nearly one million people.  At the same time I know there are coastal areas that have strong appeal and Panama is a gateway to both Central and South America with good airline connections to the US.  At the very least, I will do more reading before discounting it as a place for me; there may be smaller coastal towns that might be just right.

I love Mexico; always have.  The people are friendly and the infrastructure is good.  There may be areas of the west coast that are affordable and attractive, but my first draw is towards the southern Yucatan (Tulum and points south) and maybe the area around Merida.  Another advantage to Mexico is that the economy is growing, albeit not as quickly or strongly as Panama.

Get your money off shore!

I just finished re-reading the dismal “budget” speech by our Demagogue-in-Chief. 

I am more committed than ever before to get the hell out of Dodge.

He truly doesn’t have a clue.  He spent twenty minutes establishing the underpinnings of his plan to not cut the budget in any meaningful way, use class warfare to further divide the country, and promote enlarging a government that already consumes more than 25% of GDP.  Either he has no understanding of history, or he intentionally tried to deceive the American people.  There is no other answer.

It is already starkly apparent he does not understand how the economy works and that government does not “invest” – it spends.  Government does not create jobs; it siphons off the earnings of individuals and business at the point of a gun to spend the money on programs and schemes that ultimately only serve to make its citizens more dependent on the nanny state.

It’s time to move money and investments off shore.

I’ve already opened accounts in Belize where I am getting over 6% on my money.  I think my next move is to put more money into emerging market ETFs and purchase real estate in a country that will not be caught up in the coming hyperinflation of the US dollar.  If you thought the Carter years were fun, just wait and see what Obama will do to the economy.  I had a mortgage for almost a year at 16.25% when Jimmy was in office.  I remember waiting in line for over an hour to be able to buy ten gallons of gas at a time.  Obama is Carter without the administrative experience and keen understanding of economics… yikes.  I wish I were retiring tomorrow.

Making plans to sell...

I just had a couple of days off from work and set up a meeting with a real estate agent.  Mo had done his research, had a good list of comps and if I can sell for the price he is suggesting, I will walk away with about $30K above what I put down initially and the cost of my improvements.  That’s certainly not what I had in mind when I bought the house, but in this market it’s not bad.  I would be happy with half of that; it’s just time to move on – start the next chapter of my life before my move abroad.  Sure, I would like my profit to be more but as I have mentioned before, I hope to make up some of what I will not make on the sale of the house by buying on the cheap for a condo.

I will miss my house… not because the house itself is so wonderful, but it is full of memories of Andrea.  May 19 will mark one year since Andrea passed away.  This is not a day I am looking forward to.  I am thinking of going to Key West for a few days around that time both to see friends and to place some of her ashes at Duval Gardens, the B&B we owned there.  I think she would be happy knowing that part of her will remain there.

I need to make a list of repairs so that I can do this in an orderly fashion.  Fortunately, most of the repairs will be relatively inexpensive.  I have made good progress on going through boxes of records so I can get rid of that mountain of paper, as well as deciding what trinkets, kitchen  supplies, books, etc., etc. that I can get rid of in a series of garage sales.  I’ve never done this before, so I am unsure how to price things.  I am going online to get prices of items as they would be if new, and then comparing that to what I think I might pay for it used.  This is not an exact science, but it is capitalism at its most basic level – an item is worth what someone is willing to pay.

I’m thinking of selling the china on eBay; I seriously doubt I would get a decent price via garage sale for high end Noritake.  I also have several dozen Lladro, Herend and Nao china collectibles.  Some of the Herends have been passed down within Andrea’s family so I will likely give those to my sister-in-law.  Since all of these items together don’t take up that much space, I will just pack them up when the time comes and sell them over time.  We also inherited quite a few paintings from my in-laws so I will have to talk to them to get an idea of what they feel comfortable with.  Many of them are very nice, but not what I would have picked out for myself, so this will have to be handled very diplomatically.  Good times.

I also need to get rid of a lot of furniture.  None of what I own is expensive, so I will just try to get rid of it as best I can and pare down to what I need for a two bedroom condo.  I just want to get through these next few months so I can get on with my search for a retirement spot. 

...and even more on Sapphire Beach

I am getting the Ambergris Daily email delivered to my in-box each morning.  While I have come to take their ramblings with a grain of salt (would it kill them to use spell check once in a while?), I assume there is occasionally a kernel of truth to this daily dispatch.

Today they report more problems at the now infamous Sapphire Beach resort.  This is the group that was supposed to have paid for my stay in San Pedro.  The last few emails I traded with them were from Sam Gomez because the principals of the project were enjoying the hospitality offered by the Florida penal system.

Ambergris Daily reports that Dan Keeler, who was head of sales at Sapphire Beach, has been fired along with his assistant. These two reportedly sunk around $80,000 USD into the project but due to poor sales they have been removed leaving Sam Gomez and a Mr. Cochrane in charge of the whole resort (or what there is of the resort).

I just want to get this over with...

I just had a couple of days off from work and set up a meeting with a real estate agent.  Mo had done his research, had a good list of comps and if I can sell for the price he is suggesting, I will walk away with about $30K above what I put down initially and the cost of my improvements.  That’s certainly not what I had in mind when I bought the house, but in this market it’s not bad.  I would be happy with half of that; it’s just time to move on – start the chapter of my life before my move abroad.  Sure, I would like my profit to be more but as I have mentioned before, I hope to make up some of what I will not make on the sale of the house by buying on the cheap for a condo.

I will miss my house… not because the house itself is so wonderful, but it is full of memories of Andrea.  May 19 will mark one year since Andrea passed away.  This is not a day I am looking forward to.  I am thinking of going to Key West for a few days around that time both to see friends and to place some of her ashes at Duval Gardens, the B&B we owned there.  I think she would be happy knowing that part of her will remain there.

I need to make a list of repairs so that I can do this in an orderly fashion.  Fortunately, most of the repairs will be relatively inexpensive.  I have made good progress on going through boxes of records so I can get rid of that mountain of paper, as well as deciding what trinkets, kitchen  supplies, books, etc., etc. that I can get rid of in a series of garage sales.  I’ve never done this before, so I am unsure how to price things.  I am going online to get prices of items as they would be if new, and then comparing that to what I think I might pay for it used.  This is not an exact science, but it is capitalism at its most basic level – an item is worth what someone is willing to pay.

I’m thinking of selling the china on eBay; I seriously doubt I would get a decent price via garage sale for high end Noritake.  I also have several dozen Lladro, Herend and Nao china collectibles.  Some of the Herends have been passed down within Andrea’s family so I will likely give those to my sister-in-law.  Since all of these items together don’t take up that much space, I will just pack them up when the time comes and sell them over time.  We also inherited quite a few paintings from my in-laws so I will have to talk to them to get an idea of what they feel comfortable with.  Many of them are very nice, but not what I would have picked out for myself, so this will have to be handled very diplomatically.  Good times.

I also need to get rid of a lot of furniture.  None of what I own is expensive, so I will just try to get rid of it as best I can and pare down to what I need for a two bedroom condo.  I just want to get through these next few months so I can get on with my search for a retirement spot. 

More on Sapphire Beach...

The Ambergris Daily online news feed refers to the Sapphire Beach project as a Ponzi Scheme.  According to the Daily, it appears that Sapphire Beach owes $1,000,000 on phase two of the project.  The Daily suggests that this means that anyone who has invested is almost bound to lose money.