Playa del Carmen, Mexico - June, 2015

After our 3 days in Cancun, we got back to our life reality by taking a local bus from the Cancun strip into Cancun Centro and the bus station. Our tickets using our Mexican Senior INAPAM discount card only cost us a whole $6US for the 1.5 hour bus ride. Now that's the kind of budget saver I like a lot!

Our hotel, which we also got a great deal on, was in a terrific location to walk everywhere. La Tortuga is a quaint, thatched roof hotel with a beautiful courtyard and wandering swimming pool in a jungle.  Our room was very spacious and had it's own quiet terrace on the 3rd floor. Breakfast was included, which ran from 7am to 1pm. Perfect for us since we never eat breakfast until late.

Our first day there, Mike joined a friend of ours, Marty Kramer, who relocated from Cuenca, Ecuador to Playa del Carmen to go swim with the whale sharks off the coast of Cancun. So, yes, he had the pleasure of going back to whence we came from and a bit further north to do this. But so worth it! He really got to swim with them!!  10 meters in length is quite impressive! They followed that with a nice snorkel on a reef. While enroute they got to observe mating green sea turtles. A very fun trip.

I spent the day with Michele, his wife, on the beach people watching and taking a quick dip in the ocean. What was quite disappointing was that the water was not crystal clear and aqua, it was brown and murky. I couldn't see 2 inches down. The area is having a terrible time with brown sea weed. Because of the amount of it, I never went into the ocean again during our whole week there. This could become a very big problem for them if people can't get into the water because of all the seaweed.

A trip to Chizen Itza is a must when in this area so off we went on a wonderful day trip/tour! It included a stop at the Cenote Palomitas where we were the only ones there swimming in the beautiful blue pool, lunch at a nice "tourist" restaurant, and on to the ruins. The day was hot, hot, hot...just like home in PV.

Chizen Itza:

On our way back to Playa, we made a short stop in the town of Valladolid .  It was definitely not enough time to explore what appears to be quite a nice place to venture into.

Another "must do" attraction while in the area was to swim with the sea turtles in Akumal. Our friends, Don & Diane, drove down from Cancun and we went together. If you ever have the chance, DO IT!!!  These beautiful creatures are outstanding! What fun to be so close to them and watch their grace.

The other days we enjoyed walking along 5th Avenue with all the other tourists. Eating out with our friends or having a nice meal at their home.

A few observations from our point of view about Playa del Carmen.

We found it WAY more expensive than PV in the tourist areas. In PV there is quite a mix of different price points for bars and restaurants ON and off the beach. We didn't find anything remotely reasonably priced on or off the beach. And, the beach was quite expensive - US prices! $10US for a glass of ok wine.

There is no Malecon. The beach edge is lined with bars and restaurants and you must walk on the beach to get to them. Their "tourist" street, 5th Avenue, is lined on both sides with shops and bars/restaurants for a couple of miles. A lot of high end shops that charge even more because it's all tourists. We passed them all up since we could buy the same things in PV for much less. Playa is now advertising that it's a "high end" destination.

And, for us, it's way too flat, great for bicycles, but not beauty.. Our "must have" was lush green hills or mountains, which we have in PV.

Our friends who settled there did so because he is a  diver. Both, our friends who settled in Cancun and Playa wanted to be very close to Florida for medical reasons as they are both veterns. I totally understand, no judgement here. It's just not for us.

After a nice relaxing week with more exploring of Mexico under our wings, we were ready to fly to the US for our annual trip.

Stay tuned for our adventures stateside! Hope your summer is going as well as ours!!!

Our Presentation at the 10th International Living Retire OverseasConference

We were extremely honored to be invited to speak again this year at the International Living Conference held in Cancun, Mexico June 3-6. Last year was our first invitation to speak when it was held in PV at the Sheraton.

Our topic was again as the Roving Expats "Country Shopping: The Process for Having No Regrets". We were allowed 20 minutes to convey our journey that began with events that started in 2008 to our decision in December, 2011 to sell everything back in Northeast Washington, become debt free, salvage what savings we had left, and moving to a foreign country. 

Our Story:

We hit the road on July 29, 2012 and haven't looked back since. After a 3 month cross country road trip where we visited every family member and many friends in the US & Canada, we landed in Panama on November 11, 2012. We lived in 5 different Latin American countries and 11 different towns/villages along the way before choosing to call Puerto Vallarta home. 

Since the beginning, I have written entries into this blog. I also began publishing our monthly expenditures once we began our true "country shopping". This feature has truly become the "signature" of the blog. To date, there have been 4.5 million and counting views of the blog. It's also a big reason that we were approached by IL to speak. 

Mike and I flew from PV to Cancun on June 2. At the Cancun Airport, we met up with two other speakers we had met last year and were whisked away by van to be deposited at our hotel and conference location at the J.W. Marriott located on the Carribean. 

I was truly excited for Mike because he'd never been to this part of Mexico. The last time I had been there was in 1998 for an award trip I had earned as a Realtor. Being there continued to expand our travels within Mexico this past year. 

Once checking in, we had to quickly change and meet in the lobby.  We had been invited to a party being held at our friends, Don & Diane Murray, who actually live on the Cancun strip. We had first met them when we lived in Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador. They were living there then but decided to move to Cancun in the Soring of 2014. We are delighted that our good friends are now a bit more accessible. 

A great evening in their home.  We were able to witness a beautiful sunset, as well, while enjoying the company of expats from around the world along with many IL staff that have become friends. Yup, retirement does NOT suck, as my good friend, Don Murray, always says!

Our room was quite comfortable and had a beautiful view of the ocean from our balcony. We enjoyed our coffee and juice every morning outside while catching up with the world. 

After meeting up with Don & Diane for lunch on Wednesday, it was time to get ready for our presentation. The Conference started at 4pm with Dan Prescher, the IL mc, doing the opening honors. At 4:25pm it was our turn to be center stage as the first expat speakers.  

With 250+ people attending the conference, we certainly had to have our wits about us. Our power point presentation had 19 slides that we used as our visual props. Our timing was perfect and with ease, we finished at 19 minutes. 

After a few more presentations, the opening day came to an end followed by a cocktail party. It seemed once again that we did well based on all of the feedback we received from attendees. It was non stop questions from attendees until the party was over. It's certainly nice to be able to give value!

The evening ended with a dinner at the Japanese restaurant, The Merkado, with friends who are expats in Costa Rica. The life of a Roving Expat means having friends who live all over the world. We are truly fortunate.

It was a great feeling to have our presentation behind us! We could now sit back and enjoy the conference and be available for questions without the anxiety. Mike and I had practiced twice to three times a day for several weeks before the conference because other than the slides, which were more pictures than writing, we were not allowed to have any notes. So we needed to know this by heart. 

On Thursday, Mike and I had the opportunity to spend a bit of time at the beach and pool. A truly beautiful spot even though the ocean waves were pretty fierce.

After another successful day of presentations, our evening ended with a large group of us at dinner at Gustino's for a most delicious Italian dinner. Love being able to spend such quality time with these fine people!

Since we are guest speakers, our attendance at the conference was limited. So on Friday the 5th, we strolled out of our hotel and back into our world of taking local busses. We had planned to spend a week in Playa del Carmen because Mike had never been to the Yucatan and we wanted to do some comparing and site seeing. 

A bus ride into the center of Cancun, a walk over the overpass walkway, and into the Centro bus station to catch the next bus to Playa del Carmen. Showing our INAPAM cards (senior discount) our tickets cost us a whole $6US for our 1.5 hour ride. Gotta love it!

So our time in Cancun came and went with a successful presentation once again. Time to move on down the road and enjoy a week in Playa del Carmen. Here's hoping that we get an invitation to speak again next year wherever it is.  We love being good Ambassadors for not only Puerto Vallarta but all of Mexico. 

I've been having computer issues, which is why these posts are so delayed. Hope to have them fixed in the next day or so. We're in WA now on our last leg of our US trip. Sitting in a coffee shop because my computer will for some reason connect to this internet but not at our daughter's home.

Hope everyone is having a great summer! Talk soon.....

BUDGET UPDATE - June, 2015

In 2014, we showed that you could live a very good life style for $25,000/year, if you weren't lavish and chose where you eat and drink out.  We took advantage of Cupocity discounts on meals, tours, massages, etc. We also determined where we get the best bang for our buck, which allows us to eat and drink out with our friends. We are social people and gathering with friends is very important to us. (See Year End Budget posted in mid December, 2014 located in Archives) Living Expenses are broken out separately from Discretionary Spending. We are fortunate that we have some discretionary income and make no apology for spending it.

As we also knew would happen, our family and friends would start visiting us and the winter months would see us eating out and going on excursions more with them. My daughter and her family were here for 16 days in January, and several friends came to town to spend time with us. It definitely shows in our expenditures for these 2 month!

We also had the opportunity to meet up with friends from Nicaragua in Mexico City for a week in February and while we were already up in the "highlands" of Mexico, we decided to come back by bus and visit San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, and Leon. A beautiful part of this wonderful country!

The month of January also brought us the expenditures of washing machine repair ($232), camera repairs ($10), more of Mike's dental woes (a new crown, reconstruction of previous crown preparation performed in Costa Rica,  & a tooth pulled = $742), and Mike needing to visit a chiropractor twice for adjustments that couldn't be dealt with in a massage ($73). We also took a 3 day side excursion to Yelapa with family and incurred hotel expenses and a more expensive water taxi ride plus all meals out.

But, we are extremely happy that everyone wants to come see us!!  This was part of our decision to live here. We knew it was easier and more alluring for them to come here to PV than any other location we considered. So it is what it is and we make no apologies for enjoying our family and friends.

In March, our expenditures went back to normal. EXCEPT we had decided back in December, 2014 to purchase excellent seat tickets ($300) to the Santana/Journey concert in Guadalajara for March 26. The total of the expenditures including the tickets, tours of Guadalajara, meals out, our stay in a B&B, gas, taxes, busses, etc. are all accounted for.

April shows we have come out of high season and back to well below our goal budget for Living Expenses. This was also due to our renegotiating our lease here in our apartment. Because we have been an asset to our landlord, which allows him to spend more time with his family in the states, he agreed to allow us to sign a 15 month lease with 3 months of free rent during the low season so we could travel a bit more without moving. We all agreed to a steady cash flow over the 15 months of $800/month.

Restaurant Week(s) are held in May. This is where many restaurants have a special set 3 course meal for well below the cost of a normal meal at their establishment. We took advantage of eating at several restaurants that would normally be well out of our budget. We also attended a charity function called The International Altruism Festival, which had 35 restaurants represented there. Also as a result of several friends coming to town, we ate out way above normal for a whopping 18 times!

In May, we also took advantage of the low cost medical clinics that are provided by Pam Thompson-Webb of www.healthcareresourcespv.com. So Mike and I both had our ears checked for a cost of $46US for both of us. Mike had an ear infection, so we had medication to purchase for $3US. I also took advantage of getting a Shingles Vaccine at a local hospital for the low cost of $157US (it's about $400-$500 in the US).

In June, we traveled the whole month, which is why there aren't any expenses accept our rent in the Living Expenses category. Our journey took us to Cancun, where we spoke at the 10th Annual International Living Retire Overseas Conference; then on to Playa del Carmen for a week; then to MA & CT to visit family and friends; and down to Raleigh, NC to visit with family. On June 30, we flew to WA, which is where we are now until mid July. This is our annual US visit from coast to coast. An expensive trip but with family spread out all over the US, it's very necessary.

Our Trip Expenses include air fare, hotel, car rental, meals & drinks out, clothes, electronics, entertainment, cell phone, etc.

I'm continually asked how can we do all we do on what we actually show in our posted budget. I must admit, that those we meet with as a result of my blog, have been very gracious in treating us as their guests for meals and drinks in appreciation for our time and sharing of our experiences. We do this gladly without expectation of this!!

The Living Expenses are our true living expenses and we could easily have a good life on just this amount. However, we are fortunate and do have some discretionary income, which we gladly use to have an even better life. So just because you might not have this additional income, doesn't mean you can't enjoy life here in PV.

Living Expenses:	January	February	March	April	May	June
Rent w/util	$    1,000	$      1,000	$      1,000	$          800	$          800	$          800
Electric	$          24	$               -	$            23	$               -	$            45
Cell Phone	$          42	$            40	$            39	$               -	$            14
Groceries	$       227	$          219	$          249	$          143	$          231
Meals Out	$       448	$          292	$          240	$          183	$          420
Drinks Only	$       161	$          154	$            95	$          238	$          144
Entertainment	$          60	$            57	$          105	$            33	$               -
Massages	$       101	$            20	$            40	$            33	$            33
Bus/Taxi	$          64	$            55	$            15	$            25	$            50
Dental Cleaning	$          33	$            80		$               -	$            33
Incidentals	$          25	$            18	$            82	$            25	$            78
TOTAL	$    2,185	$      1,935	$      1,888	$      1,480	$      1,848	$          800
TOTAL W/O RENT	$    1,185	$          935	$          888	$          680	$      1,048	$               -
Discr Spending:
Visas/Legal	$             -	$               -
Clothes/Shoes/Gifts	$          13	$            32	$            27	$          162	$            63
Medical/Life Ins.	$       211	$          211	$          211	$          211	$          211	$          211
Tours	$          87	$            60
Home Improve	$       420	$          171	$            57	$            75	$            65
Medical	$       237				$          221
Dental	$       742
Air Travel
Trips/Vacations	$       180	$      2,459	$          684			$      3,132
Car Rental/Gas
Spanish Lessons
TOTAL Discr.	$    1,890	$      2,933	$          979	$          448	$          560	$      3,343
TOTAL ALL	$    4,075	$      4,868	$      2,867	$      1,928	$      2,408	$      4,143

*Drinks Only (in PV only): January 11x; February 9x; March 7x; April 15x; May 11x
*Meals Out (in PV only): January 12x; February 10x; March 9x; April 8x; May 18x
*Our Rent includes 1br/1ba; dipping pool; view of Bay; fully furnished with everything you need; cable TV, internet, water; excludes electric.
*I do not include health insurance as a Living Expense because many expats choose not to have insurance. It was our choice to have it.