Thought I would try and write down some of my experiences since FIRE just a bit over a month ago.
At the ripe old age of 44 and a ― my last day of work in Texas was December 6th 2019, after that DW and I started to get ready for our move to Mexico. We were lucky enough to see some good friends that had moved away from the area or had been deployed in the armed forces just before we left, so it was a good send off.
Divesting ourselves of our accumulated worldly possessions was both easier and harder than I thought it would be (we were only bringing what would fit into a Toyota Prius with a roof bag for the trip, everything else had to go!).
We had purchased our home in the Lake Chapla area of Mexico about 2 years ago so we knew where would would land at the end of our journey. Crossing the border at Laredo was a lot more confusing than I thought it would be. I had expected a bit more formalized of a process, but it was pretty much a free-for-all. I think we were supposed to self-declare on our entrance to Mexico, but I just drove through the check-point and even though we had a Prius stuffed to the gills with stuff we got a green light so the border agents just shrugged and let us through. For those of you that think U.S. public workers donīt give a shit let me tell you Mexican public workers could teach a masterīs class :)
The drive through Mexico from the border to our home took two days. If you have never experienced a 3 lane (1 ― each way) road you are not missing anything joyful unless one of your bucket list items is to play chicken with an oncoming semi. Aside from aging 3 months each time I needed to pass a slow moving vehicle the trip was fairly uneventful. Only had one gas station try the scam of not zeroing out the pump before they start pumping your gas, but we caught the attendant before he could pull it off.
The transition to living in a foreign country has been hard. We had no illusions going in that it would be easy (neither DW or I are fully fluent in Spanish), but we had a few issues right off the bat that if spread out over a couple of months would have been no problem, but in the span of about 2 weeks was rather daunting, these included: our fridge dying late Christmas Eve, something in our electric meter burning out the following week and the electric company taking their sweet time getting it fixed, a blackout just a few days later due to a large truck hitting an electric pole in our neighborhood. As a side note when we donīt have electricity we donīt have water or the ability to get our car out of its parking space, so you really learn to appreciate stable power!
On a personal level Iīm still trying to find my groove in this new reality. What day is the best day to go grocery shopping? When should I try to add weight lifting back into exercise plan? Should I devote a morning or two to my writing instead of going to play pickleball? What outdoor or indoor project should I tackle at the house next? Like many before me I donīt know how I had time for a job before early retirement. Although I will say waking up naturally and not to an alarm is pretty damn nice, and sitting here watching my two cats lounge on our patio that overlooks the lake and Mount Garcia in the distance isnīt bad either.