The Month Of Costa Rica: February 2024 Recap

by A Purple Life, posted in Blogging, Early Retirement Updates, Film, Finance, Fitness, Food, Hobbies, Investing, Keto, Net Worth Update, Spending, Travel
This post may contain affiliate links. For more info read my disclosure.

What even is time 🙂 ? I feel like I just updated y’all about 2023 and here we are in the 3rd month of 2024. I keep waiting for time to make sense, but I think I’ve been having too much fun so it keeps flying by. I remember when months would drag on and feel like 100 years when I was working.

I guess I should just count my blessings instead of always being baffled by time passing so quickly these days. Lessons learned 🙂 . So let’s see what I got up to in February!

I Moved To San José, Costa Rica!

So I’ve been to the west coast of Costa Rica before, but never to the capital, San José…and I randomly decided to move here for 2.5 months. Luckily I love it here so that gamble paid off 🙂 .

Going from negative temperatures to 70F and sunny has been as lovely as I suspected it would be. Instead of huddling inside under a million blankets while chugging gallons of hot tea, I visit the pool every day, run three times a week and explore this beautifully green city.

San José is surrounded by lush mountains and waking up to them every morning has been a special treat. I thought I was a beach person instead of a mountain person, but maybe I’m both.

My Spanish has also been getting a lovely workout. I’ve been speaking it with everyone and in the whole month, only 2 people started speaking English to me: a new low record! I love it.

And I even saw one of those people again (they were a cashier at a local grocery store) and they stayed speaking Spanish to me that time. Progress 😉 ? I’m also happy to see that my Spanish skills are still easily accessible.

Anyway, I’m really excited to see all that this city has to offer and as always, I’ll be posting all that fun stuff on my Instagram in between these blog posts.

In between all that fun, I’m back to a very serious schedule that is reminiscent of my fall in Puerto Vallarta. In general, this is what I do daily:

  • Watch the sunrise
  • Do yoga while looking at the mountains
  • Run
  • Do post-run yoga
  • Eat
  • Swim/lounge by the pool
  • Eat
  • Write
  • Nap in the sun
  • Explore San José
  • Watch the sunset
  • Virtually hang with people and/or my partner
  • Read
  • Sleep
  • And then happily repeat 🙂

It’s not a bad schedule if I do say so myself.

I Played Video Games

As I’ve mentioned, I ‘accidentally’ bought more The Sims 4 packs during their Cyber Monday deal. Oops 🙂 . But I’m glad I did because I’ve been enjoying diving into new parts of that world, specifically the Island of Sulani with the Island Living Pack and the tiny houses in the Tiny Living Stuff Pack.

At the same time, I realized that I missed the open world of Sims 3 so I went to play it (I have it on my computer) and it no longer worked. Apparently it’s 32 bit and no longer supported, so I went to Reddit and people there said that the 64 bit version works for free on Origin if you already have 32 bit. So I downloaded that and…it didn’t work. I’m not sure what I did wrong, but that was a bit of a bummer after the hoops I went through. My open world dreams remain out of reach 🙂 .

In addition to the Sims, I’ve been playing Cities Skylines again. I was prompted because a civil engineer on YouTube who also plays, says that T-junctions are more efficient than a grid pattern, which is what I’ve been using since a city planner on YouTube who plays suggested it. So obviously I had to put this to the test 🙂 . It worked well for me until my city grew in size and then it was a bit of a mess. It was also way harder to make than a grid pattern so I’m going to stick to my tried and true method.

I also tried a new game this month (I know you’re shocked 🙂 ): Outer Wilds! I found it really cool until I had to do the actual solo space exploration and then I found it super stressful. I don’t like being alone in the emptiness of space or constantly crashing and dying…even in a game 🙂 . So I need to figure out a way to get over that and go farther in the game because it seems really cool…and terrifying.

I Hung Out With People

This month involved some of my usual virtual meetups, such as that weekly Spanish call with my Mom and Weekly Movie Nights where we watched the below. If you’re curious about my ratings of movies, I have a Letterboxd account here.

  1. They Cloned Tyrone
  2. Interceptor
  3. FOE
  4. Saltburn
  5. Megaboa

Rewatches

  1. The Lost City
  2. Jurassic Park
  3. Jurassic Park III
  4. Jurassic World

I Read 27 Books

Since I’ve been reading so many books lately, I’ve decided to stop writing out the entire list of books I read every month. The length is getting ridiculous 🙂 . So instead, I’m just going to list my favs from the month:

  1. Journey To Financial Freedom by Jamila Souffrant
  2. The Last Devil To Die: A Thursday Murder Club Mystery by Richard Osman
  3. The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley
  4. Bride by Ali Hazelwood
  5. Fangirl Down by Tessa Bailey

To see all the other books I read this month and my ratings of them, I have a Goodreads account here. Another fun thing that happened this month was that I signed up to be an ARC Reader for another author who I’ve loved reading lately.

Interestingly when I signed up, I saw there was a section that said that if I was going to rate a book of hers that I was ARC reading under 3 stars, that I should contact them first and see if they can fix my concerns before publication.

I hadn’t heard of that before. If I was a cynical person, I would say that that’s there to give an extra barrier to people giving a bad review, but I really hope that’s not the case and that she just is a small author who genuinely wants to fix issues if possible.

However, personally when I rate a book 1 or 2 stars, there’s nothing a quick fix could do. If I rate something that low it means that there’s something fundamentally lacking in the book that would require major rewrites. Anyway, I’m going to try and keep my hope alive that this is a good intentioned move from an indie writer.

Something else new this month is that I started listening to audiobooks while I lounge by the pool. The waitlist for Wool by Hugh Howey (which the awesome show Silo is based on) at the library literally said “Several Months” without an actual timeline and hasn’t changed for weeks, so I was a second from just buying the book when I saw that the Audiobook was available.

I’m usually not an audiobook person, but this has been a fun experience so I can look out at the lovely nature around me while also reading a book. When relaxing, I’ve been listening at 1.1x speed and when I’m feeling wild, I get up to 2x speed.

I Wrote 4 Posts

In case you missed it, this month I published the below posts:

  1. The Month Of Family: January 2024 Recap
  2. Review: Dashing Diva Gloss Nail Stickers – A Nomad Beauty Revelation
  3. Is The Prime Visa Credit Card Worth It?
  4. Review: Virgin Australia Business Class

In addition to that, multiple people asked me this month if I provide retirement consulting or financial services. I don’t 🙂 , but I told them I was honored to be asked.

As for fun and strange companies that reached out to work with me this month, here are the highlights:

  • A company that lets people rent their empty storage spaces to other people. This is kind of hilarious to me since I live out of a 40L backpack and have never used a storage space
  • A company that sells a proofreading course – I didn’t know such a thing existed
  • A wealth management company, which goes against my whole “learn everything so you understand what’s up and DIY it” approach

Physical

Sleep

I expected the capital city of San José to understandably have city noise, but I was shocked when the first night in our Airbnb was completely quiet. There were no new noises to get use to, just a quiet neighborhood. Wild 🙂 .

So this month I slept like a baby and often fell asleep happily before my Partner’s bedtime (that he keeps consistent for work) and awakened without an alarm at 5:30am to watch the sunrise and then do yoga while colors filter over the mountains. I never could have imagined I would be the type of person to happily awaken at sunrise, but retirement has changed me in a lot of surprising ways. I’m curious to see what the next one will be 🙂 .

Exercise

My Running is back on track! After freezing my ass off while running for the last month or so, I’m loving the warm temperatures, sunshine and wind that Costa Rica provides. I’m much happier running in warmer weather without a gaiter and the dread of getting out of a warm post-run shower to be hit with cold air.

So all was well until…I ate it while sprinting about a week after I got here. I scraped up my knees badly and it was hard to walk for a bit while I was healing, so running was sadly out of the picture. I tried to run with my partner anyway one day and he told me to rest. How dare he 🙂 ?

I found this turn of events more annoying than usual because I had just started doing running Yoga and was really enjoying it! And obviously these routines have you putting your weight on your knees a lot so that was out for a few days too. However, I’m all healed up and back to both running and yoga. For running, I made my new 1 mile PR after my Partner paced me for part of it.

As for yoga, I’ve been doing it 1-2 times a day since I healed up and I’m getting a lot better at it! My flexibility and balance have been improving a lot and I had the goal of doing all the moves without hobbling by the end of the month and I’ve done it! I’m excited to add yoga to my regular exercise routine and see how much more I can improve.

Now instead of just running if I feel stressed, (which often doesn’t align with a good time to run, such as at night) I do yoga! It still gets the heart pumping and helps calm me down so that’s a great unintentional consequence of this new hobby.

Food

My eating this month has been awesome. My new system of taking days off keto to eat non-keto foods while exploring new places is still going well! I expected that kind of freedom to lead me to taking days off all the time, but it’s kind of been the opposite. I only took 1 day off keto this month so I have been eating keto for 97% of the month. And I found myself getting excited to get back on it after that one day because of how much better I feel when I eat keto. Go figure 🙂 .

And now for some big news. After using MyFitnessPal for 12 years, we’ve finally parted ways. I’ve been getting more frustrated with MFP for a while now, especially when they put their barcode scanner (arguably their best feature) behind a paywall in 2022.

Well they recently put basically the whole homepage of the site behind a paywall and I was finally over it. So I looked around online and on Reddit for recos for other similar, but (hopefully) better tracking apps.

Through that process I found Cronometer and LOVE it! It includes a free barcode scanner and even more customization options than MFP. For example, MFP didn’t even let me specify my macros – only percentages instead of specific grams, but Cronometer makes that easy.

I can also easily edit a food if its information is not completely correct – MFP would make me create a whole new food and enter everything manually. Anyway, I’m in love and debating writing a whole review post about this awesome free app. Let me know if that’s something any of y’all would be interested in.

Mental

Learning

So it’s time for my favorite segment: Fun Facts Nobody Asked For! Here’s what I learned and explored this month:

Costa Rica

  • Costa Rica has a population of about 5 million and the country is way smaller than I thought:
Source
  • San José, the capital city, has a population of almost 350,000
  • Costa Rica takes up about .03% of the world’s landmass, but has 6% of the world’s biodiversity with 500,000 different species of wildlife including 900 different kinds of birds!
  • Costa Rican locals call themselves Ticos (Ticas for all women)
  • Instead of the standard “Hola” or “Buenos días” that I heard as a greeting in México, in Costa Rica they often say “Buenas”

Astronomy

The sunsets in Costa Rica are some of the best I’ve ever seen and they’re different every day. I’m going to do a whole collection in my Insta Stories showing the variations before we leave.

Anyway, the sunsets are so gorgeous that I have an event on my calendar each day just to remind me of the sunset so I won’t miss it. The sunrises here are also pretty, but less varied. Surprisingly the city is also dark enough that I can see the bright stars and planets below!

Jupiter, Orion Constellation, Sirius, Aldebaran

Birds

So of the 900 species of birds in Costa Rica, I have identified a grand total of: TWELVE! Wow – I really need to step up my game 🙂 . In my defense, I seem to have seen all the common ones that live in San José and can identify them by bird call now so that’s something!

Orange-Chinned Parakeet, Brown Jay, Rufous-Collared Sparrow, White-Winged Dove, Great Kiskadee, Social Flycatcher, Great-Tailed Grackle, Tropical Kingbird, Black Vulture, Costa Rican Swift, Melodious Blackbird

Orange-Chinned Parakeets. Look at their weird little feet! I love them 🙂

Of these birds, the Brown Jay is only seen on the east coast of Central America and I’ve never seen one before!

Flora

San José is beautifully green. It seems like I can’t go a few blocks without hitting a park that’s filled with singing birds and colorful flowers. Here are a few I identified:

Cortez Amarillo, Bauhinia Variegata, Bougainvillea, Bird of Paradise, Otholobium Pubescens

Source

This Cortez Amarillo tree is wild – its bright yellow blooms apparently only last a few days. Beautiful, but fleeting.

Creativity

My creativity has been flowing lately! There’s nothing like relaxing with gorgeous views that helps words pour out of me. I guess the idea behind writer retreats might be onto something 😉 .

Emotional

My emotions were good this month! I think the 70 degree temperatures and sunny weather definitely help as well as lots of time outside, in the pool and gazing at gorgeous green mountains that surround this awesome city. Those gorgeous sunsets also don’t hurt 😉 . On top of that natural beauty, my Partner and I also celebrated 15 years together this month, which blows my mind, but is definitely a reason to smile.

Money

Ah money. I’m still surprised about how little I think about money in retirement after it seemed like it was all I thought about for the 5 years leading up to quitting my job. I guess that’s just it though: money is important until you have enough of it.

I still pay attention when I’m booking monthly Airbnbs to make sure that my costs are averaging out to hit my budget, but outside of that large expense, I just do whatever I want without thinking about it or checking price tags and that’s wild to me 🙂 .

It does help that after the HCOL fun I had in Australia and New Zealand in the fall, that I’m now in the relatively LCOL country of Costa Rica, but just in general, it’s interesting how little I think about money when it used to be my main hobby. Sometimes I lament that there aren’t any spreadsheets to fiddle with, but I know I’m being ridiculous 🙂 .

Anyway, despite not thinking about money much, my money hasn’t forgotten about me and has been quietly working in the background making me richer.

In fact, this month I hit a new all time net worth high of $764,174 before the market went down a little to close out the month.

The power of these little green workers of mine was really driven home when I had this revelation this month:

Wild 🙂 . So all is good and I’m curious if once I pass the main sequence of returns risk window in about a year (where I can basically guarantee a successful retirement), if I’ll think about money even less and not consult my budget for any purchase, no matter how large. I guess we’ll see 😉 .

Conclusion

And that’s what I got up to in February! Basking in the sun instead of the cold cloudiness that described my January definitely suits me. The “lady of leisure” schedule I’ve been following is actually very close to the ideal retirement schedule I dreamed of years ago so it’s wonderful to see that it actually does make me very happy. Until next time!

If you’re interested in the other weekly and monthly retirement updates I’ve written, they’re all here:

Weekly (2020)

  1. Early Retirement Week 1: The Freak Out
  2. Early Retirement Week 2: The Vacation
  3. Early Retirement Week 3: The Whiplash
  4. Early Retirement Week 4: The Heartbeat
  5. Early Retirement Week 5: The Election
  6. Early Retirement Week 6: The Trophy
  7. Early Retirement Week 7: The Train
  8. Early Retirement Week 8: The Challenge
  9. Early Retirement Week 9: The Question
  10. Early Retirement Week 10: The Game
  11. Early Retirement Week 11: The Recharge
  12. Early Retirement Week 12: The Holiday

Monthly (2021)

  1. The Month Of Rest: Early Retirement Month 4 (January 2021)
  2. The Month Of Birds: Early Retirement Month 5 (February 2021)
  3. The Month of Change: Early Retirement Month 6 (March 2021)
  4. The Month of Atlanta: Early Retirement Month 7 (April 2021)
  5. The Month of Portland, Maine: Early Retirement Month 8 (May 2021)
  6. The Month Of New Hampshire: Early Retirement Month 9 (June 2021)
  7. The Month Of The Northeast: Early Retirement Month 10 (July 2021)
  8. The Month Of New York State: Early Retirement Month 11 (August 2021)
  9. The Month Of City Hopping: Early Retirement Month 12 (September 2021)
  10. The Month Of The Southwest USA: October 2021
  11. The Month Of Santa Fe: November 2021
  12. The Month Of Family: December 2021

Monthly (2022)

  1. The Month Of Freezing My Balls Off: January 2022
  2. The Month Of Thailand: February 2022
  3. The Month Of Spring(?): March 2022
  4. The Month Of México: April 2022
  5. The Month of Mérida: May 2022
  6. The Month of Seattle: June 2022
  7. The Month of Washington State: July 2022
  8. The Month Of New Hampshire: August 2022
  9. The Month Of Maine: September 2022
  10. The Month Of Acadia: October 2022
  11. The Month Of Argentina: November 2022
  12. The Month Of Holiday Cheer: December 2022

Monthly (2023)

  1. The Month Of Snow: January 2023
  2. The Month Of New Hampshire: February 2023
  3. The Month Of Sea: March 2023
  4. The Month Of California: April 2023
  5. The Month Of Seattle: May 2023
  6. The Month Of Chicago: June 2023
  7. The Month Of Montréal: July 2023
  8. The Month Of Troy, NY: August 2023
  9. The Month Of Australia: September 2023
  10. The Month Of New Zealand: October 2023
  11. The Month Of Puerto Vallarta: November 2023
  12. The Month Of Warmth: December 2023

Monthly (2024)

  1. The Month Of Family: January 2024 Recap

What’s a fun fact you learned this month?

34 thoughts on “The Month Of Costa Rica: February 2024 Recap”

    1. Thanks! Life is indeed good. And there’s even more food pics in my Costa Rica Insta Highlights if you want more lol.

      Reply

  2. Amazing bird pic Purple, thanks for posting! I keep reading your posts and sometimes wonder if I would find motivation to somehow indirectly give myself permission to treat and spend on myself more. I’m probably still saving and depriving myself more than I want. Maybe it’s something I enjoy at this point having being habituated to it. I love that you retired. Haha didn’t mean to talk in circles but a friend of mine said it’s not difficult, “just spend it” (the money)…but evidently it’s not easy for me lol. I’m sure you’ve posted about this topic on the blog

    Reply

    1. Thanks! I can’t take credit for that bird pic though – the people I linked in the caption took that, not me. I’m not that good of a wild life photographer 🙂 .

      Actually, I haven’t had that problem before. I was warned about it in a post by the Mad FIentist when I was still working and he realized he went too far into frugality/deprivation/saving. So I made sure to always spend money if I wanted to. I’ve never felt deprived for that reason or struggled to spend money. I hope you can find the balance you want.

      Reply

      1. Oh haha so much for my attention to detail. Thanks for sharing that insight as I wasn’t too aware of your take or stance on it. Maybe I was superimposing my thought processes and that you’re in the fire movement etc. But yes thank you, working on that balance which you def have figured out!

        Reply

  3. Waking up to the sunrise every day sounds AMAZING!! I love the mountains, so although I’ll be sad to leave Mérida in two weeks I’m excited to get some mountain time in Oaxaca.

    Recommending Ebird again if you want to see more species! I’ve been in Mérida almost a month and have seen 85 lifers and 155 total species. Of course, a huge part of the new lifers is due to hiring a private bird guide for 2 different half day tours, but I’ve also gone out birding by myself a number of times. Ebird will help you find so many cool local parks that you wouldn’t otherwise know about and they’re usually quite beautiful if they attract a lot of birds. It’s also helpful to get a sense of all the species that people have seen recently in a particular park.

    I’m always shocked by how low your spending on entertainment is when you’re traveling! Last month we spent over $125 each on fun things around Mérida, though the bulk of it was a full day tour to Uxmal, a cenote, and a hacienda. It was organized by La Calle so the guide spoke in slow Spanish to us the whole 10 hours and it was a great way to practice – but definitely not cheap! Then there’s the several hundred I’ve spent on private birding tours on top of that 😋

    $20 for a full meal including appetizer, dessert, and alcohol is so cheap! We ended up going to one of the very fancy restaurants in Mérida’s gastronomy corridor and paid almost $40/person for an app, two entrees, a coffee, a lemonade, a dessert, and the bottle of water we forgot we had to pay for. It was definitely sticker shock since even back in the US we don’t usually pay that much for dinner, though we also don’t usually ball out with apps and dessert. And the bottle of water cost more than the lunches at school 😅 But it balances out with cooking meals at home or buying the school lunches that cost $6.50 USD each. I think because eating out is so cheap, we’re doing way more of it than usual, but our grocery spending is down too so I think we’ll do okay. We intentionally saved A LOT so we would have a lot of freedom to spend on whatever we wanted while here, within reason (no luxury hotels lol). Cheers to our first successful sabbatical month!

    Also, La Calle is AMAZING! We’re on our fourth week of classes and feel conversational in Spanish (I am at level A2.3 and my partner started at level A2.1 but this week moved up to my class). We were able to use our Spanish to get help when we were almost stranded at Chuburná Puerto, a secluded beach about 25 minutes away from Progreso 😅 Also, the first week we were here, there was another queer couple at the school who’d heard of it from your blog! They were already FIRE’d and spent a month there, though we only overlapped for a week. Thanks for the amazing rec!

    Reply

    1. That’s awesome! I’ve never been to Oaxaca and would love to hear your thoughts after you go.

      I actually have eBird and do enjoy that feature. And that’s a lot of birds!! Great job. And yeah I’m still recovering from all the family time over the holidays so my entertainment budget is minuscule while I lounge the pool and read all day in between walking adventures lol. It was higher in Mérida when I was doing similar excursions to the ones you mentioned.

      That’s so cool you went on a La Calle adventure! And oh wow y’all are fancy in Mérida – I was over there with my $0.50 paletas and cheap fresh fruit haha. I hope the meal was lovely though! And that’s wonderful you saved a lot so you can spend whatever you want there. Cheers to a successful sabbatical month indeed!

      I’m SOOO happy you love La Calle! That’s very cool about the other couple as well. I never would have thought a random Instagram post I wrote about my experience would spark all that. Wow. And that’s amazing your Spanish has improved so much and that it got you out of that situation – absolutely wonderful! Enjoy your last 2 weeks in Mérida 🙂 .

      Reply

  4. Fantastic blog post! I was fortunate enough to visit Costa Rica twice in 2023. I would 100% recommend going to Arenal volcano. Check out Baldi Hot Springs and try the waterslides! Also go to Arenal Observatory Lodge & Trails and do some hiking. A Tica showed me these places and I was blown away. Keep up the blog posts, they serve as a great motivation towards FIRE or FINE (Next Endeavor)!

    Reply

    1. Thank you and also thank you for these wonderful recommendations! I’ll keep writing 🙂 .

      Reply

  5. Costa Rica has been on my bucket list for a long time! I’m taking notes. Your daily schedule sounds idyllic.

    I used to use MyFitnessPal too, but like you, I’ve given up on it. It sucks that they’re adding paywalls and subtracting features. I’m right around the weight I want to be, so I don’t track my food religiously, but it’s nice to have an idea of how much I’m eating. I’ve been trying out the Lose It app, which has the same features.

    Reply

    1. It’s great 🙂 . And surprisingly affordable to fly to. I didn’t understand how it cost as much as flying within the US, but it did (about $200 one-way). And yeah I’m loving this schedule and going back to Airbnbs without pools is going to be an adjustment after we leave CR 😉 .

      I’m sorry you’ve had that experience with MFP too, but I’m glad I’m not the only one annoyed by it. That’s cool you use Lose It – I downloaded that one and a few others along with Cronometer and found that Cronometer had the largest database and customization features that met my needs. I think I used Lose It in college at one point though. Good app.

      Reply

  6. I’m curious about Cronometer as I too was aghast when myfitnesspal wanted me to start paying to use the barcode scanner!

    Reply

  7. WonderFULL post, as usual, Purple, but popping in specifically to say, “Congratulations on 15 years with your partner!” 🎈💞🎈Wishing you continued happiness as you travel & live your best life in financial freedom, togetherness, abundance and love! ✨️💞✨️

    Reply

  8. That’s a nice extra return even after inflation! Costa Rica was one of the most gorgeous places I’ve visited, it’s been over 20 years but the images are still very vivid in my head. I’m sorry to hear about myfitnesspal, I’ve still got the barcode lookup but I have noticed that it’s more annoying to navigate to the features and they also deleted some of my personal food items, sigh. I do like looking back three years in the graphs, I’d hate to lose that reality check if I switched apps…. I wonder if I can import the data into a new app?

    Reply

    1. Indeed it is 🙂 . That’s so wonderful about Costa Rica! I’m sorry about MFP – I didn’t even know they could delete personal food items – ugh! I suspect you can import the data – they seem to have an option to do anything.

      Reply

  9. Wow, your typical day sounds very pleasant! It seems like you’ve had great luck with airbnb. Have you ever had any bad experiences/encounters?

    Reply

    1. Thanks! I’ve never had a bad experience and am about to enter my 4th year of living in Airbnbs. However, I have an extensive process to vet places that I don’t deviate from and I think that’s helped as well. I’ve written about that on here a few times, but basically the Airbnb has to at least have a Superhost, 4.75+ rating and over 100 reviews before I will consider it and look further to see if it has the amenities and location I’m looking for.

      Reply

  10. Congratulations on your anniversary! Here’s to continued happiness!
    Costa Rica sounds wonderful – I’ve been wanting to go for a while as well.

    Reply

    1. is there a reason why you are 100% VTSAX and don’t have any VTIAX (Vanguard Total International Index Fund)?

      Also, I love Cronometer! I had used My fitnessPal for 6 years and the user experience got really frustrating. Cronometer is so much better!

      Reply

  11. I also had several months wait for Wool on Kindle at my library. My sister suggested I try looking for the omnibus version which is called the Silo Series and it was immediately available to borrow. Evidently people don’t think to look for the omnibus versions often, so the hack works for other books too. Love the blog, thanks for all the posts!

    Reply

    1. That’s a great idea! Sadly my library doesn’t have a copy of the omnibus yet, but I’ll definitely try that in the future with books that become collections like that. Thank you for reading!

      Reply

  13. So after reading all about your life (awesome!) one sentence got me curious about how your partner is doing. That was the sentence about how his sleep schedule is different than yours, and adapted to his work schedule.

    I might at some point work abroad for a few months at the time, so I’m very curious how he experiences working while traveling?

    Reply

    1. Thanks! I wasn’t clear in my sentence – he keeps set sleeping hours to be up for work and I go to sleep when he does (though sometimes I accidentally stay up later reading and then take a nap later in the day). He answered a question like this during his Q&A (link below) and here’s what he said:

      Q: How do you cope mentally with the monthly change of environment? Does it affect you?

      A: Regarding still working during it: I was concerned about how it’d go while working full time, whether it’d be really distracting or tiring and either really hurt my ability to get work done, or work would ruin my ability to experience the places we were staying. But aiming for a minimum of a month at a time has been going remarkably smoothly in both directions.Outside of work, I’ve been loving it. I’ve always enjoyed changes of scenery. I liked rearranging furniture just for something new.

      https://apurplelife.com/2022/08/09/purples-partner-answers-your-questions/

      Reply

  15. It has been amazing to follow your journey. I remember reading those posts when you were just about to quit your job and if I recall correctly you were trying to reach 500K to call it quits. That looked at the time like such a far away number for me; I was in the negative.
    I am still working, not retired yet, but very much on track to get where I want.
    It’s nice to read your perspective and experience about Costa Rica. I should be there in June with my oldest daughter. We are thinking about the Guanacaste area and visiting some friends in San Jose.
    I can’t wait to experience that Pura Vida vibe!
    Safe travels!!!

    Reply

    1. Oh wow – thank you for being here! And yep my goal was $500K invested. Congratulations on making so much progress!!! That’s amazing.

      And I’m happy my Costa Rica musings are helpful. Guanacaste is lovely – I went there on my previous (and first) trip to Costa Rica. Safe travels to you as well!!

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *