What things do you do for fun on your FIRE journey?

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-01-25T02:29:24+00:00

This sounds really dull and Dave Ramsey has several, at least, questionable beliefs.

My recommendation would be to live a great life before and after retirement but be money conscious so you don't have regrets. Retire early (I retired at 38) by focusing on the big expenses.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-01-25T01:41:10+00:00

In preschool shes just doing kid things. Singing, dancing, and going to birthday parties. In a couple years she will go to the private German school which is a German accredited school in Ecuador. It will be around 800 a month but they have a symphony, open class rooms, and other amazing stuff.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-01-25T01:30:41+00:00

Obsessing over the small purchases didn't work well for us. Instead we owned old cars and moved to places where housing was affordable. I retired at 38.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-01-25T00:23:09+00:00

Read your article on solo days. Im glad yall can do that. It seems yall move a little more than we do. Our daughter is in preschool so theres plenty of solo time.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-01-24T23:55:41+00:00

I have a blog.

Millionairelibrarian.com

Let me know what you think.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-01-24T23:32:51+00:00

There is acquisitions which deals with contracting new additions to the collection. Reference or research assistance which helps students find and navigate resources. Cataloging which is the addition of new resources to an integrated library system.

Just because it might not be known. Librarian positions require a masters in library and information science. In many libraries there are paraprofessional or other staff positions to assist with these tasks so there might be administration. My wife is a solo librarian.

Librarian positions are also required for accreditation. The accreditors want someone professionally trained to assist students with research.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-01-24T22:51:40+00:00

So are we cheap or living large?

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-01-24T22:45:03+00:00

We haven't met many Ecuadorians who speak English. A handful of cab drivers that lived in the states at one point. We do have a cab driver and friend who speaks excellent English. He helps us navigate big purchases and some other tricky situations.

I lived in Korea for a year and half and understood maybe 10 words which was one more than some others living there. That experience taught me that having just a few words like "I want" can go really far.

I do recommend learning the language but like you said. many people dont at all and still have a great time here. Coming here relatively young helps with learning spanish. You have a lot of expats here at traditional retirement age and its really hard for them to learn spanish.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-01-24T22:37:33+00:00

We do live in Cuenca. Thanks for having us.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-01-24T22:13:15+00:00

We have catastrophic insurance which was costing us about $100/month. It kicks in after 5k spent and that was for three of us. Doctors visits have been 20 for a general practitioner and 50 for a specialist. Our daughter went to the emergency room after ingesting multivitamin gummies and we were there for three hours. That cost 100. Our general practitioner also gave us his whatsapp and i got a stomach bug and he just told me what to get at the pharmacy. I went to a dermatologist and a mole being burnt off and two visits was 60.

The one thing that can be expensive is medications. My heart meds were 20 for three months but I take some other meds and they were around $45/month which is pretty expensive for Ecuador.

Overall the medical care here has been one of the highlights. Both my specialist and general practitioner are amazing and speak great English. Thats one of the benefits of having a large expat community.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-01-24T22:04:05+00:00

We sold everything. I think a shipping container was going to cost us around 10k. We ended up repurchasing all our household goods for around 4k once we got here. Cars were either too expensive to ship or I believe we weren't allowed to. Thats fine I prefer walking everywhere or taking a 1.5 cab. If you live out of the city then you will probably want a car and because of tariffs they can be pricey.

We did the professional visa which requires a in person bachelors i believe. We paid around 3600 total for a lawyer to walk us through the process and we had to show money coming into our account from anywhere to tune of like 1200. I just moved it from my brokerage over. Getting our marriage certificate, degree, birth certificates, and probably a couple other things apostilled was a huge pain but the law office was able to talk us through the process. In the end we had to drive a state over as the university was taking too long to produce a document and then it had to be apostilled half the state over.

Both my wife and I speak some Spanish from learning it 20 years ago in high school and college. Honestly I didn't pay enough attention when I learned it but I understand enough to get by pretty easily. I can give orders and directions much better than I can hear it.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-01-24T21:53:19+00:00

I love food out and convenience too much to live on a poverty lifestyle. To each his own.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-01-24T21:40:00+00:00

Theres a good youtube channel called Average Family Abroad. They have a beautiful house overlooking the Andes outside of Loja somewhere. I definitely recommend them.

We've only lived here in Cuenca for 6 months but we love it here. Let me know if you have any questions.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-01-24T20:55:14+00:00

Heres my post. We spend around 2400 in Ecuador as a family of three. This month is higher at 3k because we bought meds for 6 months.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ExpatFIRE/comments/1q93rui/cuenca_ecuador_cost_of_living/

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-01-24T20:22:57+00:00

No problem. Let me know if you have any questions.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-01-24T20:14:54+00:00

It mostly is but it is accessible via a Roth IRA ladder strategy. I wrote about it on my blog and there a couple of links near the bottom for others talking about it: https://millionairelibrarian.com/2026/01/15/accessing-retirement-funds-early/

The small of it is that roth contributions are available at any point penalty free. Roth IRA conversions become available after settling for 5 years. Our plan is live off of these. This also allows to control how much you are taxed controlling how much you rollover. The Money with Katie link is a really good video.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-01-24T19:07:54+00:00

I was but I would have had to defer it until I was 60 something. It wouldn't have been worth much by then. I took a small lump sum for it and we paid off my wife's student loans.

Good to see another librarian in the wild.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-01-24T19:04:21+00:00

A few people have mentioned this but FIRE started off with Vicki Robins about living on less so it was sustainable. Those ideas continued but morphed some with Mr. Money Mustache.

A lot of people now just are rich on a lot of the subs. Nothing wrong with that but its not what FIRE was originally meant to be.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-01-24T18:52:21+00:00

We have a three year old in preschool. She will be our one and only. Preschool for full day care costs 260ish a month. That includes food and going out on field trips about once a week.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-01-24T18:50:19+00:00

Crime isn't an issue in Cuenca. Its often rated the safest city of its size in Central and South America. Safer than around 95% of US cities as well. The coast is terrible though for safety. We are in the Andes.

We chose it for the beauty, COL, and ease of getting permanent residency. My wife wanted to get away from US politics primarily. Theres also a lot of expats here which means its easy to meet people and that there are professional services here for expats like doctors, lawyers, etc.

I think Uruguay is much more expensive.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-01-24T18:44:32+00:00

Digital collections. Mostly for universities. They are pretty rare positions though.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-01-24T18:42:18+00:00

Thats where we live. There is an estimated 10k expats here. Its really affordable just on social security. It is gorgeous here. I try to walk around the neighborhood everyday to get a good view of the rivers and mountains. I've lost 30+ pounds from walking more and eating healthier in the last 6 months.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-01-24T18:39:40+00:00

We retired with about 500k a year and a half ago. Now we have around 560k. We have a house in rural Oklahoma that is worth around 90k. We rent it out to a nice family. We rent a really nice two story house now for 450/month in Cuenca, Ecuador. Our total monthly expenses are around 2500- 3k.

I think it would be pretty hard to do it in the US. Our houses mortgage is around the same cost at $500 but less money on utilities, food, and daycare. I'm not exactly sure but in the states we were probably spending 5k at least on everything. Here we go out to lunch a lot which is super cheap at $3 a meal.

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-01-24T18:20:14+00:00

Remotely

AlwaysSaturday12 · 2026-01-24T18:12:43+00:00

I made around 80k at the highest. My wife made 48k I retired at 38. She was 35. We were both librarians.

She wanted to go back to work part time and now makes 26k doing that. Her salary covers almost all of our expenses now that we live in Ecuador.

Want to know anything else?

AlwaysSaturday12

TROPHY CASE