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We Got Here With A LOT Of Help From Our Friends (And Family)
We have been living quite a whirlwind for at least a month and a half. From packing up our home on Sarah Way where we lived for 17 years, to saying our goodbyes to the familiar and trading it for the unknown, to getting our furry friends ready for a lengthy journey. Days blended, time…
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Chaos!
Sorry about the lack of updates, life is complete chaos. I’ll give a very brief update now, but we should be back on track next week. At our farewell party (which was a BLAST thanks to everyone who hung out with us) Michelle sprained her knee which put her on crutches for just about a…
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May Retirement Status
Retirement: I did it! It feels like it has been months since my last day as a 911 dispatcher (instead of just over three weeks). I’ve spent a large portion of that time doing first hand research into becoming an “international shipping and packing consultant”. Thanks to my great friends (and Michelle who stopped in)…
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A Calculated Risk Or A Risky Gamble?
One of our goals with FinazzoFun is to share our adventures in a realistic way; we don’t want to share the good things, the pretty pictures, and the laughs without also sharing the shitty days, dirty beaches, foibles and follies. Today I want to dig into some of the nitty gritty about the visa application…
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Plundering Our Pantry
Lately, we have been trying to hit two birds with one stone: increasing our home cooked meals and using up pantry stores prior to our international move. It has been fun and economical to find recipes that use multiple ingredients we want to get rid of. Andrew and I are both Minnesota natives and almost…
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The F Word
I am a sailor reincarnated. I have been known to use the four letter F word creatively, liberally, and at times superfluously. Some of it is genetics – my mother is also a feisty cursing wordsmith. This post, however, is about a different F word. One of the primary reasons we decided to retire several…
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2022: An Approximate Timeline
One of the most common questions people are asking right now is “when?!”, so, without further ado I present our estimated timeline for the rest of the year. All events are subject to change based on fate, whimsy, and the cascading effects of other changes. 5/5: We finally chose an international shipping company, signed our…
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Andrew’s Daily Puzzles
Michelle and I both have really gotten into puzzling during the last year. In July we even ordered a 40 pack of variety puzzle books from Penny Dell Puzzles and have been chipping away at the first few books. But now I’ve found myself working through some online puzzles on a semi daily basis. Daily…
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April Retirement Status
Car: One of the first things we did in April was sell our 2015 VW Convertible. It had pretty low mileage, about 45,000, and was in great condition. We used Carvana and the process was super easy. The only downside was that we had to drive it to Salem, which is a 3.5 hour drive…
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Why Portugal?
“How did you choose Portugal?” is one of the most common questions people ask about our upcoming move. When we started looking at early retirement options some of the major factors were: cost of living, location, cultural transition, weather, healthcare, and safety. Let’s go through those bits! Cost of Living For a variety of historical…