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I live on the Pacific coast….Guanacaste, fantastic place to live, if you like the beach. Great fishing, and Tahiti is only 12-14 sailing days away!
On the surface, it sounds interesting. One must calculate the risk and reward. And, last but not least, Costa Rican and U.S. income taxes. During my 30 years of investing, saving and other financial ventures, I remembered what advice a wealthy friend once gave me. “The secret to accumulating wealth, is not how much you make, rather how much you keep!)
I can relate. I am also military retired, and traveled to places most people cannot spell. I got tired of going on important missions no one ever knew about, or cared about once it was over.
I also have a home in Guancaste. I look forward to doing nothing but sailing, fishing, and chasing my wife around the house!
Like you, I would rather eat Gallo Pinto, I don’t eat junk food.
Pura Vida.
Our solution to this problem….My wife and I have been using the duty free import law. Each year that we return to our home in Guancaste, for the last three years, we each carry a new Toshiba Qosmio laptop, tablet, unlocked cell phones, and a flat screen TV. The Costa Rican customs officials at the Liberia airport, are accustomed to our electronic load, and do not even bother to look anymore.
I currently use the private Costa Rican Bank BCT. I have VA disability compensation, military retirement, and federal civilian retirement direct deposited.
The IRS is going after the low hanging fruit. Meanwhile, the wealth and smart money is flowing into precious metals and diamonds! Some in the expat middle class are finally waking up! The IRS and Treasury can attempt to track the worthless paper money that the fed prints, however, they cannot track precious metal and diamond ownership or deposits. As a wealthy friend once told me, “You have to know the game, and you have to know the players.”
I only have one question! I pay the new corporate tax, and the property luxury tax, on two properties; in Guanacaste. Where the hell is the money going! I have friends who relocated from Costa Rica to Panama, who constantly send me their sympathies!
I bought the unlocked Samsung Galaxy Ace S5830. And, the unlocked Samsung Galaxy Note II, from Amazon. They both work well, with a Costa Rican purchased SIM card. You should go with a quad band GSM 850/900/1800/1900 GSM frequency cell phone. REMEMBER: Costa Rica utilizes the 1800 GSM frequency.
I also did an internet search, for cell phones frequencies used by countries throughout the world, including Costa Rica.
I would also concur with David, check, check and recheck the specs for the phone you want to buy. I found Amazon to be very helpful, especially the reviews of customers, who used the various unlocked phones overseas.Think bigger, in terms of clean water. Coming to a nation near you soon, clean water will be more valuable than gold. My solution, invest in the four major international global purification and water providers. You can live longer without food, than you can without clean water.
Left or right, some of us came to Costa Rica to escape the U.S. political dog-and-pony show. Pura Vida.
elindermuller,
You will be surprised, what a boat, not money can attract. To keep my 44′ sailboat from sinking, I have to throw some of the lovely sting bikini Ticas, off the boat; while at the marina.Because of my many trips to Brazil, I have been declared legally blind. Heaven help the males of the species, if Ticas adopt the same sting attire.
In terms of airline return tickets, we will also be in a similar situation, in the near future. We plan on having our CR attorney (she once worked for Costa Rican Immigration)process our application for legal residency in April 2014. We plan on staying in Costa Rica, a month during that time. We plan on returning to the U.S. May 2014, and staying in the U.S. until our May 2015 permanent relocation to Costa Rica. Am I safe in assuming that we should acquire the residency card, during the year we are back in the U.S.? Is the Temp Residency the receipt you obtain when you have filed for permanent residency?
