[Cancertomnpdx]

I just opened a bank account in Orosi this past week. I ended up having to have four other documents notarized by my attorney to the tune of $60 plus I had to carry the originals of my documents for my corporation from the attorney’s office to the bank to be copied. Since I had the original of the approved filing, both my attorney were equally worried until I returned them to his office on Friday. He told me later none of the $60 notarized documents and the original document would have been necessary to open the same account in Cartago. At any rate, have five hours of waiting over two days, I have a bank account!

Thanks,
Tom in Portland on a budget!

[Cancertomnpdx]

Dear Scott:

I think you have a done an excellent job with the information you provide on your site. I am a bit concerned that very crazy people have tried to invade your life over this site. You books have help me very much in the purchase of my property last year. During my visit the past two weeks, I need to make some improvements to the way my property is being cared for. With the education I received here from both the input of members and the many articles I have read over the several years as a member, I was able to ask my lawyer the right questions to hire both work to be done on my property plus find someone to help watch my property while I am still in the United States.

I sincerely appreciate the efforts you have made to keep the information posted here clear, concise and honest by being diligent in managing the content of all our postings on this site. Your books, the observations and advice posted here has helped further my own education of how to make my move to Costa Rica over the next few years. Money is only energy, nothing more! If you need to have a subscription fee, I trust your business sense enough that you know best how to keep this site operational for future users. I will look forward to offering my support to keep the doors open for the future.

Again, I am very sorry so many crazy people could cause you such pain and suffer with both law enforce and slander on your own site. This is something nobody deserves in their own house!

I wait will to hear how you will move forward this site into the next level experience.

Thanks,
Tom on a budget in Portland, Oregon — Soon to be Tom in Orosi.

[Cancertomnpdx]

I also have services from the VA here in Portland. I would not in a thousand years think for one minute that I could move to Costa Rica, run up huge medical bills and think the VA would shell out the cash. You must find someone in the VA system who is both knowledgeable and can lead to the very person who will pay your bills or reimburse you. Off the top of my head, I would think that is probably someone in VA headquarters in Washington DC. Personally, I would call my congress person and see who they have as their office contact with the VA. I would explain what I am trying to do and see what they recommend. My Congressman’s person has been handling VA issues for him since his first election 12 years ago and she is a gem!

Also, if I understand the preliminary report I just received on the Immigration Law, every foreigner living in Costa Rica may have to join the CAJA period. I am waiting to hear from attorney since he is currently going through the text of the law. You may want to wait and see what shakes out about this provision. In the mean time however, I would start to talk to someone at the VA or your congress person’s office about your issues.

Tom on a budget in Portland, Oregon

[Cancertomnpdx]

My recent wire transfer from my credit union to the account of my Spanish School for a $225 deposit took 30 days to clear. I was a bit concerned that the transfer went missing that was destined for their Banco Nacional de Costa Rica account. But the upshot of our email communication was that the el Banco put a thirty day hold on my money as if it was my personal check that was being deposited.

I much more prefer my attorney’s way of handling the funds for my property payments. I take a cashier’s check to any branch of Bank of America in my hometown, deposit into his escrow account, and within in half hour or so, he knows in Costa Rica that I have deposited the necessary funds. How he gets the money to my seller I haven’t a clue but I mean to ask how that works when I visit in September.

Thanks,
Tom on a Budget in Portland, Oregon

[Cancertomnpdx]

Well now let me tell you another story! The attorney that sits near me went to Costa Rica last year early before I did in May. It was an aunt’s 65th, so the family gathered somewhere on the Pacific for this celebration. They were all over that part of Costa Rica for a week or so. He returns to work, reports a great trip, yada, yada! But he has the sniffles, can seem to shake them after about a week back. His doctor doesn’t have a clue, but only to blame it on excessive pollen in Portland, their usual comments when they can figure anything out with your nose in our neck of the woods. Well about two months pass, he now is having extremely bad pain in his nose which leads to a semi-emergency trip to his doctor, then into a surgeon down the hall because they discover a huge boil in his nose and don’t know why? It doesn’t like cancer, it doesn’t look like this and that, yada, yada. So the surgeon arranges day surgery for the next day to lance this boil-looking growth to see what is what. So the attorney gets knocked out the next morning, wakes up the surgeon is smiling. The doctor says to him you are not going to believe this but look, showing him a small dish, in it was larvae of some type they found when the lanced the boil object in his nose. To date he has not heard back from the state of Oregon lab that agreed to try to identify what it is.

Well the attorney and his wife plan a vacation back in Costa Rica and he is saying that will not only sleep surrounded by netting, but he plans to have his wife make him a netting mask to cover his face. This is an absolutely true story, my sympathies are with your poor dog!

Thanks,
Tom on a budget in Portland, Oregon

[Cancertomnpdx]

You don’t really need a Skype phone, just a headset with a mike will work if you already have one. Now I use a $28 cam with mike that I bought from Amazon.com which works very well. My friend in Florida are amazed how much better each of us sound through Skype then on our previous land/cell phone connection. I am working with my Buddhist group here in Portland to sit with them when I am in Costa Rica every other Sunday evening with Skype. How is that for using technology for a holy purpose?

[Cancertomnpdx]

Both of my Spanish teachers here in Portland, one from Cuba and one from Peru, say Latino or Latina are accepted by native Spanish speakers but not liked. They prefer Hispanic at best, but know that the American press won’t even bother learning the correct cultural avenue as what to call a Spanish speaking person from either North America, Central America or South America.

Thanks,
Tom

[Cancertomnpdx]

Thanks for the links Scott, they all are great! What fun for a rainy, stormy night in Portland, Oregon shopping for my toilet for my home in Costa Rica.

Again thanks,

Tom in Portland

[Cancertomnpdx]

Is 1820 Café also roasted with sugar?

Thanks,
Tom in Portland, Oregon

[Cancertomnpdx]

I can’t imagine you would ever impress a Costa Rica court or judge to hand you over some Pura Vida-born citizen’s land as the squatter/plaintiff! I would think the only would thing you would accomplish is the extreme expense of lawyer fees who very well might see you as a “cash cow” if they even would encouraged your idea in the first place. Also, I am not truly clear on all the fine points of litigation in Costa Rica, but compared to the USA, I understand in some litigation circumstances you may be required to post a bond in the amount of either your damages possibility or the amount of your perceived “taking” in cash to be held by their court system until all aspects of your lawsuit are finished. This could turn out to be years according to the way the legal process is constructed, it could very well turn out to be slower then the United States which is at a snail pace these days.

Why would you want to create so much ill will with your neighbors when you would be better off starting of small and creating growth for yourself on a smaller scale year by year? I would think you can finance your plans on an ongoing yearly basis that would create much more goodwill in the neighborhood you have settled into then I am reading in this post. You may not be thinking that being a good neighbor is all that important since this hardly exists anymore in the US. But I can assure you however that your neighbors will be watching you and what you do, so why not be a good friend for the very fact that Costa Rica is willing and helpful to allow you to come and join in their experiment in democracy? You in the end would undoubtedly leave a more compassionate legacy after you are dead then the one you are implying in this post.

I am in the same mind as Scott, is this truly what you are considering doing?

Tom in Portland

[Cancertomnpdx]

You may want to check out the reviews of any product you find on any of the sites that Scot has recommended on amazon.com. I always find the reviews very helpful in making a decision over which product has more happy users overs others.

Thanks,
Tom on a budget in Portland, Oregon.

[Cancertomnpdx]

You may want to check out a search on this website for George Lundquist. For my money and time, George’s tour is worth every penny! The other important thing to do is to make certain your read materials you can purchase from Scott. Also, come back here frequently to read all the postings because people post very helpful information. Personally, I often cut and paste posting I read into either a word document or list of contacts in Outlook for future reference I have discovered in the discussion board.

Just remember that Scott runs a very friendly website here where many details of moving to Costa Rica Vida are discussed here in great length. You will notice however that he is very hard on people doing their homework (do diligence) before the leap. Personally, the materials I purchased from him were very important in preparing me when I discovered the property I wanted to buy last May. What I wasn’t prepared for was how beautiful my view would end being since nothing in his books prepared me for that heart stopper. The materials available here were very important to me in laying the foundation that made it possible for me to jump quickly to buy my opportunity last May when I saw it!

¡Buena suerte!

Thanks,
Tom on a budget in Portland, Oregon

[Cancertomnpdx]

After you check out the links Scott offered look up Steve’s website on the Internet. I met Steve on tour with George Lundquist last May. After the tour ended, I went back to Orosi and spent three days checking everything out. You can’t go wrong with meeting Steve, his wonderful wife Nancy, the wonder dog Lola, and Steve’s office assistant, Yami. They are good people! I will be forever in their debit for the opportunity I was able to purchase.

Tom on a budget in Portland, Oregon

[Cancertomnpdx]

I started receiving my Social Security in February. I started five months early because Social Security made me an offer I couldn’t refuse! When I signed up for Medicare several months before my 65 birthday (July 10, 2008), my case worker asked how long I planned to continue to work. I said probably until my 68 birthday. She offered for me to call back in September and setup to receive my benefits five months early, in February 2009 instead of July 2009 at the time of 66 birthday. So now I now am continuing to while getting a nice little deposit from our Uncle Sam each. In July this year, as I stated before, when I turn 66 the earning threshold is off for me and I can earn as much income without fear of paying incomes taxes on my SS deposits. I will continue to pay social security taxes however on my earned income for each year I continue to work.

This is my point, don’t screwed around with Social Security. If you need to work a few more months or maybe even a year then you must be upfront with them. If you work from Costa Rica and an American company pays you miscellaneous income and issues a 1099 next January, they will eventually find you out. May not be next year but it will be found out since you will be in the Social Security system drawing your happy little checks. From my conversations with my Social Security caseworker, they know all the games we can dream up. If you want to continue to work for a while, then stop the Social Security from coming to you now if you don’t want to any pay income taxes because at 63 you will! Put it off until you are done working is the best advice I could possibility give. Do fool with Uncle Same, listen to the person mentioned a 11K “hello” letter they got from them.

What is the advantage of having to deal with them from such a long distance if you decided to go forward unless you think you can’t find anything more interesting to do in Costa Rica with your time. If you even mentioned to whoever you talked to in person or on the telephone at Social Security you are going to retire out of the country, I bet your file has a flag on it! Contrary to what many Americans may think of the government workers, they are not stupid by a long shot!

Remember a few months or year continuing to work will gain you additional Social Security income credits when you draw your checks if decide not to take them now.

Gracias y buena suerte!
Tom on a Budget in Portland, Oregon.

[Cancertomnpdx]

Dear Sue and Chris:

I would suggest that you drop by CIMA or call the next time your are in Costa Rica for a visit. Last May I was on George Lundquist’s tour and we went to the hospital. While taking the tour, their new director introduced herself to George and my fellow tour mates. She is from Texas and a very interesting woman. Her information, thoughts, and ideas on health care in Costa Rica were both excellent and very helpful. You may want to contact George through his website and get her name. She had previously managed two hospitals in the States that currently own CIMA also.

Thanks,
Tom in Portland on a budget.

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