About
thirteen
years ago we produced this video:
Adventures in Financial
Independence where we listed our annual spending and daily
average.
We like to
keep up-to-date with our Readers as to what our current spending
is, and as of the end of 2023 we spent $57,647 or $157.94 per day.
An increase of $22,441 over last year. We have mentioned a few
times about loosening the purse strings and as you can see in
our numbers above, this is what we did. Our average spending for 33 years
of financial independence or
12,405 Days, is $24,969 annually or $68.41 per day.
At the same
time, our net worth has continued to climb outpacing inflation
even after spending. We are into our 4th decade of first-hand experience, living-without-a-job,
and I think we are getting the hang of this
lifestyle and
financial freedom.
Generally
speaking over these last 33 years, we have been utilizing
Geographical Arbitrage, living in cost beneficial countries such as
Guatemala,
Mexico,
Vietnam, and
Thailand, thus positively affecting our numbers. The
Peso-to-Dollar exchange right
now is still good, making
Mexico affordable compared to the US and Canada. However,
the Mexican Peso is gaining strength as Mexico is benefiting
from the US shifting manufacturing operations from China to
closer to home, known as "nearshoring".
Each year
Akaisha visits with her family in the States for a month, and in
2023 we not only continued to travel, but went to Europe twice,
and returned to the Caribbean after 33 years. Since we live in
Chapala, Mexico, an international airport is less than
half-an-hour away, making air travel very easy.
Billy's a
beach guy, and we visited
our current favorite beach, Chacala, 4 separate times.
Within Mexico we also went to
Manzanillo, Melaque and
Puerto Vallarta on the Pacific coast.
Flying to
Italy to visit
the village of Akaisha's family, we worked our way
through
southern Italy, spent about a month in Sicily then
returned to Mexico. We had so much fun on this trip we turned
around and flew back in the fall. This time we went to some of
the
same places in Italy, chartered a sailboat for the day and
returned to Sicily. This trip we flew to Malta, chartered
another sailboat for a day, then flew to Paris. Air France took
us to St. Maarten in the Caribbean where were took an island
hopper to spend a week in
Nevis,
WI. After a week back in
Chapala, friends visited from the States and we returned to Chacala beach. Whew!
As we begin a
New Year, we are looking forward to doing more extensive
traveling and are working out plans for that now.
We
continue to self-insure for health care, taking advantage of
medical services in the countries where we stay. Now, since
we are 71, we qualify for Medicare and no longer need to take
out a Traveler's Health Insurance
Policy from
World
Nomads to cover our time in the USA.
A few years ago at age 62, we decided to
begin taking our
Social Security. Billy has made some adjustments to our
portfolio using ETFs which allows him to buy and sell in
real time, and take advantage of
market downturns, as well as
market upswings.
We continue to eat well, live and travel comfortably and make visits to the States
regularly
to see
family.
It's a GREAT life
and we are truly blessed.
We say keep
focused on your Dream and live your best life.
If we can do it, you can too!
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