Then I began thinking…

I always had a dream to retire early.

Playing golf all day, laying poolside or enjoying a mid-day nap on the beach of some tropical island was my idea of retirement…at least when I was 20.

The concept of early retirement for a 20 year old kid is vague at best; I just knew that the thought of working 5 days a week, with a couple of week’s vacation each year, was not appealing.

Early retirement with school aged kids still living in the house is a bit of an oxymoron.  Even if you had accumulated enough assets to quit working, raising children is not what I had envisioned my retirement years to look like.  I love my kids but they would put a damper on my plans to lay by a pool all day, or spend my time listening to crashing waves on some Caribbean island.

Besides the “inconvenience” kids are downright expensive!  Because we had a late start with the baby making thing, our daughter would not go off to college until I was in my mid 50′s…I figured that this could still be considered “early” and this is when I would retire.

Then I began thinking…

My wife gets nervous when this happens.

Maybe I could retire after the first kid left the house.  Let’s see…I would be 50 years old when we kicked him out tearfully said goodbye to Grant.  50 is certainly early…isn’t it?

Then I began thinking…

I asked myself “what would have to be true for me to retire today?”

The answer was obviously that we would need passive income greater than our expenses, shows you what degrees in Accounting and Finance can do for you!

So, at 43 and with 2 school-aged kids maybe retirement was not the answer.

We were doing well financially, but we certainly did not have the assets that would generate the passive income needed to cover our living expenses.  I could get a job I supposed, but that would defeat the whole purpose of retirement.

Then I began thinking…

I had read many articles about the Baby Boomers retiring overseas to maintain, or in many cases improve, their standard of living.  Our family had travelled to Mexico and saw firsthand how inexpensive many things were compared to prices we found in the states.  If they could do it why couldn’t we do the same thing?

Portland, Oregon is an expensive place to live.  There are only a handful of cities in the U.S. that are more expensive, the majority of them are located on either the West Coast or East Coast.  For example, the cost of living in Memphis Tennessee is 22% less than Portland.  Now I have never been to Memphis and so maybe it is not somewhere I would choose to live, but it sounds like an interesting place (I read a lot about it just in case) and if it made the difference between retiring at 43 or not…I am sure I could grow to LOVE it!

So if comparing states within the U.S. reveals these large variances in the cost of living, how does the U.S. compare to other countries?  I found that there are many countries that have a lower cost of living.  Many of these countries I would not choose to live, but there are others that offer beauty, safety, and income opportunities not available in the U.S.

We have settled on Ecuador as our first stop.  My estimates and research indicate that we will reduce our expenses by more than 50%, but be able to more than maintain our standard of living.  You can read about a couple of the Real Estate projects we visited during our visit in March.

Then I began thinking…

Why can’t we share our experiences with others?  We hope you enjoy reading our blog.  We encourage any comments, feedback, or question you may have.