Category Archives: Fun

Money Matters: How We Live On Just $1000/Month

Some people have asked for more specifics about how we were able to up and move to Puerto Rico and essentially retire before either of us turned 35. Well, let me first start this series with our budget. Your budget is sort of like your diet. It can be healthy or not, but it certainly does reflect what’s important to you. For us, living a bit more wild and free choosing how we wanted to spend our time was far more important than a lot of consumer items we could buy. Obviously not everyone wants to live like we do. But it certainly IS possible. And I would say having more freedom is worth every penny we don’t spend. If you are interested in the cost of living in general in Puerto Rico, check out this post: Cost of Living in PR.

Money Tree
Don’t we all wish we had a money tree?!

We live on only about $1000 a month. This is probably a shockingly low amount for most people, but it’s really just fine for us and it is very close to the amount we spent in Colorado except that we had a mortgage there. Less really is more and we still have a lot of fun and this is a pretty loose budget. If we needed to live on less I could probably get this down to about $700/month or $8,000/year if needed. So how does that $1000/month break down for us?

BUDGET BREAKDOWN

$500 -Food/alcohol. Approximately $100-$130/week grocery bill equates to about $500/month. While we grow a good 50% of our food it still costs a lot to buy food and alcohol. I value good, nutritious food, so this might be more than someone who just buys cheap junk processed food. Still eating in is by far cheaper (and way healthier) than eating out. This breaks down to less than $3 per meal per person (3 meals a day). If you counted the snacks/beer/coffee that we don’t go out to buy it’s even less!

Bananas
A banana tree is pretty close!

$100- Vehicle. Travel. Truck gas, marbete and maintenance like tires. We try not to drive too much and this is probably closer to $75/month but also gives some room for long distance travel or a random large mechanical problem.

$75- Going out for food. We don’t eat out much, but just a light lunch for two is about $20. Let alone a dinner. So we only go out to eat about 3 or 4 times a month.

Taco Food
Living in a tourist town can be expensive if you eat like a tourist very often! $8 for a couple of tacos is pretty common

$75 – Partying/hanging out. Hard to admit, but yah, going out once or twice a month to a bar or whatever is expensive when you start buying drinks/rounds! At least we get paid a little when we do it with the band!

$50- Clothing. We don’t buy this monthly but this would probably be an average of about $500-600/year.

$50 -Random household goods/repairs. Kitchen items, Kitty food, makeup, cleaning supplies, small tools, Rx. Stuff like that.

$50- Farm Expenses. Bird food, new plants, plant care, yard tools. Though some of this is capital improvements and/or comes back in the sale of eggs/produce or in that we don’t have to buy as much food at the store.

$50 -Utilities. Water, electricity and internet. Appx $15 each. We don’t have air conditioning or a clothes dryer and although we sometimes water our plants or mix concrete it still doesn’t seem to jump up much. Sharing is caring when it comes to internet and many other things.

$25- Medical. Doctor/Dentist -Rarely needed. Probably not even this much.

$25- Other miscellaneous expenses that inevitably pop up. Also gifts/donations.

What’s missing?
A mortgage/rent. We have no mortgage on this property. Living expenses are generally the largest expense most people have. So to be free from this is incredibly important in being able to live simply/inexpensively.
Other debt. We have no other personal debt. No student loans. No credit card balance. No home equity lines. No car payments. We live simply and don’t like debt unless it earns us money directly above and beyond what it costs to service the debt and even then I don’t really like it.
Costs related to investments in CO. Those go back into the business so aren’t counted as part of living expenses.
Most insurances. We self insure, so I suppose in a way our savings pays for this but it’s not a monthly or yearly expense.
Taxes. We pay very little taxes except sales tax. One big benefit of making less money is not having to pay much in income taxes! Property tax is $40/year or less than $4/month. Counted in other misc.
Costs related to construction. This was saved for prior to the move.
Many utilities. We don’t pay for a cell phone. We don’t have cable or even a TV. We don’t pay heating (there is no need for heating). No one pays for garbage service in PR.
Hair cuts, landscaping, car and house maintenance and other stuff we can do ourselves.
Costs related to children or divorces (like child support/alimony). Keepin’ it simple!
Very many dumb purchases. Sorry to say but some things like cigarettes, lottery tickets or bottled water are just not smart for a variety of reasons including your health, the environment and of course your budget. Alcohol is our one dumb purchase and we limit it to about $50-100/month. If we needed to save more it would be the first thing to go.
Retirement payments. We are already living it!
Most Entertainment. Most of our screen audio/visual entertainment comes from the internet.
Savings. We still save each month, but this budget list is only for expenses that are not recouped.
Travel/Vacations. This is captured under vehicle somewhat, but we can also use savings. Though I haven’t left the island in over two years, so it’s not really an expense currently. Traveling is super expensive in general!

Guajataca tunnel BK CK
Livin’ it up in Puerto Rico!

So that’s it! That’s what we spend our money on. We took a huge pay cut to move to Puerto Rico, but it didn’t really hurt because we lived on this basic budget in Colorado even when we were making a LOT more.  Though a lot of focus is on salary or pay, it doesn’t really matter what you make. It matters much more what you spend. Again to compare a diet, just as you can’t outexercise a bad diet (if you are eating more than you burn), you can’t outearn a bad spending habit (if you are spending more than you earn). You may be making a million dollars a day, but if you are spending two million you’re doing much worse than someone like us who makes maybe $1200/month but only spends $1000.

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Day Trip to Patillas

We took a day trip up to Patillas to visit our friends Richard and Mary Jane.

Pineapple fields
Pineapple fields on the drive

It was quite a drive from Rincón to Patillas, but so beautiful to watch the landscapes change. Once we go around the southwestern corner to the Caribbean side, the waters turn majestically turquoise blue, the plant life is much different and drier and it seems to be quite a bit windier than what we experience at our place.

Lake Patillas
Lake Patillas

We drove past large Lake Patillas and into his finca. It is very private and secluded up a long steep road.

Road
Long private road

When we arrived the party was in full swing. People were eating fish soup and drinking beer in anticipation of the main event: lechón, but of course!

Cassie and Lechon
Roasting up the pig on a spit

Dominoes
Enjoying one of Puerto Rico’s pasttimes: dominoes!

We enjoyed our time and even saw our east coast friends Fran and Steve!

Group photo
Group photo: Steve, Parrot, Fran, BK, me, and our gracious hosts Mary Jane and Rick

But the biggest hit of all was when someone showed up to the party with parrots. Even Richard didn’t know who this person was, but it was pretty cool to see and hold his birds. One of them caused a kerfuffle when he would crawl onto our shoulders, get tangled in our hair and then scream into our ears. So funny.

Fun with a parrot
A hit with kids and adults alike! Green Amazon parrot

Paraiso with a parrot
As I took this photo a little girl told me in Spanish: “¡Es como un paraíso!” I couldn’t agree more

Close up parrot
Such cool creatures! Blue and gold macaw (like in Rio said another girl)

Cassie and parrot
¡Hola!

It was a beautiful day. Richard said it had been raining hard every day prior so we really lucked out with a sunny warm afternoon party. We are so grateful for these magical moments in paradise.

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Bee Removal From a House -The Easiest Way

Bee removal 2

Bees are a way of life here and like many things we were initially freaked out about when moving here (have you seen the rats?! haha) we have taken them on as a learning opportunity. We love bees and all the work they do. They pollinate so many of our beautiful flowers and fruit trees that there is no doubt that we want to help them as much as possible.

Tropical gardens flowers
Some of the beautiful flora we grow here

Pomarrosa flowerFlor de Pomarrosa

Bilimbe flower
Our first bilimbe flowers!

Berry thingsA wild currently unknown tree with beautiful red berries (anyone venture a guess?)

However, we really don’t want them to be living inside our walls. I wasn’t too surprised when I walked past the shed and saw a few bees entering the drain area of the wall. I knew exactly what was happening. We have had so many bees building homes in the cavities of the wood house that this was kind of expected. We have in the past hired people to come and take the bees away. And some people will use poison, but there is one other way to get the bees out of your house without actually touching them or harming them! And it is by far the easiest and cheapest!

Cassie and Kitty crop
Kitty and I are on a bee safari!

Bee time
Britton (and Kitty) getting down to bzzzzness

Cover yourself so that the bees can’t sting you and then just simply open up the cavity and walk away! In one day they will be gone. Bees need to have protection on both sides, so if one side is open, they will have no choice but to leave. And that is exactly what happened with this hive.

Bee time hiveIEmpty cavity
Lots of bees! And then one day later they are gone! Easy peasy!

The next level in this game would be to actually handle the bees and put them into a beehive where we could then harvest some of their honey. But for now we are pretty proud to be able to do this ourselves! We’ve come a long way since our first house bee hives!

Here’s a funky fun video of this easiest of bee removals. (Check out 2:45 for a close up of all the bees)

 

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How to Make a Floral Crown Head Wreath

For our gig at the Beach House, since it was the Saturday before Easter and it was at such a tropical locale with thatched roofing and tiki torches, I decided to make floral wreaths, crowns and leis as part of the costuming for the band. There are a variety of ways to do this and I made a few types.

Girls in flowers
Three of the floral head wreaths for the show

Materials needed:
Floral tape
Floral wire (or other wire)
Wire cutter
Various Flowers and Leaves/Vines
Needle/Thread
Bobby Pins

wire head wreath wire
Wire that I wrapped in floral tape found at a florist shop

All of the flowers and plant material I just collected from around the property.

Basket of flowers
Basket full of the goods

Some of the head wreaths like the one I wore were very light because they were mainly made out of bougainvillea and taberna flowers. Because of this I was able to actually just use a woody vine and attach the flowers, ferns and leaves to it with the floral tape.

Beach House
Strong enough for some heavy-duty dancing! (Notice Britton AKA Mr. Von Funk has his lei in his afro)

For the heavier head wreaths like the one little Isabella wore that featured shell ginger and Caitlin’s that featured a canna flower I used the thick floral tape covered wire as the base and then used a thinner wire and floral tape to attach and hold the large flowers and leaves.

The final, easiest method of floral crown is to simply make a smaller version of a lei and have it rest on top of the head. For a lei/soft wreath just find some flowers and/or greenery that you would like and string it with the needle and thread like you would popcorn garland.

Floral head wreath
So simple that this one was strung by this little darling four year old!

You can add ribbons and other touches as desired.

Another type of crown that I made was just to take some heavy stemmed fern leaves and wrap them around the heads of the guys. Some of them I made into a circle that was attached in the back with the floral tape, others I just attached to their hair with the bobby pins. It gave a great Roman Emperor look.

Fern crowns
Kevin and Dave with fern crowns!

These were such hits at our show that I had random people asking if they were for sale! I wouldn’t mind making and selling these occasionally for weddings and such. Ideas, ideas!

Singing starsIt was a fun, floral night and the Rincón Continentals rocked it


One of our original surf jams! She Hit Me

 

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