What’s it All About

We started planning our adventure about 15 years ago.  Our two boys were both in high school.  We knew that in 4 or 5 years they wouldn’t be living with us and would be pursuing their own lives and careers.  Up to this point, both Kathy and I had focused on our kids’ lives.  We went to all the sporting events, concerts and plays.  In addition, we each had our own busy careers.

But one day we asked ourselves, “What are we going to do after the kids leave home”?  We had our circle of friends and were well established in the community but after the kids left we knew that our lives would be very different.

We turned to a Life Coach and with her guidance, we worked on answering the question of what we wanted our lives to look like after the kids left and what we wanted to do in retirement.

As a family, we had traveled in the United States and abroad and we really enjoyed the experience of traveling.  Most importantly, we both enjoyed the same type of travel.  We were fascinated by learning about the people and cultures of different countries.  We enjoy poking around a foreign grocery store to learn more about what people eat, walking through a city, getting lost and the challenge of figuring out how to find our way around.

So, we decided that after retirement we would travel.  It sounded simple, but it required a fifteen-year plan. The plan included paying for our kid’s college educations, continuing to work in our high-pressure careers and interests, and investing wisely. Finally, after fifteen years we would be ready to move abroad.   Years ago, this was a very general plan and I don’t think we knew exactly what moving abroad would really mean for us.

Retirement’s Coming

With the plan in place, we began executing it.  Of course, there were challenges and hiccups along the way.  Both boys graduated from college and were now independent. Over the years, we worked with several financial planners but in the last 5 years, we settled on a financial planner who helped us reach our goal of having enough money to retire, travel abroad and live comfortably.

We started to make concrete plans for traveling and retirement.  We wanted to experience living in a foreign country; not as a tourist but to make it our home.  Not forever, of course.  We plan to travel for 1-3 years and re-evaluate every year to see if we are enjoying ourselves.  And, factors outside our control may force us to make changes in the plan.  One of us may become ill forcing a return to the U.S.  There may be changes in our families.  Our parents may become ill and require our care.  Our children may marry and have children.

We decided on a city and country to live in: Medellin, Colombia.  Our older son had lived and worked in Bogota, Colombia for almost 10 years. During that time, we visited him several times so we were familiar with the country.  It is beautiful and there aren’t many Americans living there.  Medellin would be our jumping-off destination and if we didn’t like it, we would move on.  We had no commitments, so we could move to any other country at any time.

We also agreed on a retirement date.  I planned to retire at the end of August 2018.  Kathy’s retirement date would be several weeks later.  For me, it was simply handing over the keys to my office to management, but Kathy needed to close her business.  It was not an easy process and it took far longer than we anticipated.  We used every day available before our departure date.

We also took Spanish classes.  Kathy had been taken classes for three years.  I had been taking classes for two years.  Two years didn’t feel like enough time and my Spanish was not as good as I would have liked it to be.  The older you get, the harder it is to remember.  But I am confident that once I am immersed in Spanish, I will progress more quickly than at home.

The Plan is in The Details

By the summer of our retirement date, we worked on the details of the plan.  We decided to sell everything.  We were not going to put anything in storage.  We felt it wasn’t worth the cost.

We first had to sell the house.  After preparation, the house went on the market in June.  Luckily for us, the house sold in one day.  We were very happy about that but we’re not ready to retire and move just yet.

We sold what we could, gave furniture to our kids and made multiple runs to a thrift store to donate our belongings. We planned to take two suitcases and one backpack each to Colombia. During this process, we had to make some hard decisions.  We parted with our bikes, two cars, computers, office equipment, lawn equipment, and furniture.

After the house sold, we rented a furnished apartment in downtown Minneapolis for three months until our departure date.

During the last three months, we researched and signed up for international health insurance, a traveling mailbox service to receive our mail, opened new bank accounts to make transferring money and paying bills easier.  We also had to do one last purge of items and clothes.  It came down to tough decisions.  But we limited ourselves to two suitcases because we wanted to be able to move around easily.

Final Month

The last month was a very emotional time for us.  We threw a party and invited our friends to help us celebrate our retirement, 40^th wedding anniversary and leaving Minneapolis.  Approximately one-hundred of our friends, co-workers, and family celebrated with us and said good-by.  There were other celebrations and get-togethers during the month.

Prior to leaving, we spent four days in Chicago to see our kids since we wouldn’t see them for a year.  We went to Iowa to visit my mother and two days later, we flew to Florida for four days to visit Kathy’s mother.

The next day we flew to Medellin because it’s never too late for adventure!