Speaker 1: 0:02

Hello and welcome to Inside Marci's Mind. My name is Marci Backus and I'm your host. Well, it's nice to talk to you guys again. I'm sorry, I missed last week and I have a good reason. My son came into town last and his girlfriend sorry last Wednesday and they came in early in the morning and I just didn't get it done and they were here for a week. They both have left now and had a great week.

Speaker 1: 0:31

Had a great week and I just did not get to my podcast. And you know what? That's the beauty of having your own podcast and your own business. You don't have to do it if you don't want to. And right now I don't have any advertisers, so nobody cares whether I do it or not. How am I doing? Doing good? I have just today is the last day of week two of round two. So each round of chemotherapy is three weeks. So today is last day of round two. And then I get a week of less medication Because again I'm doing oral chemotherapy, which means I poison myself on a daily basis all by myself. I don't have someone put anything in a port, I have to do it to myself and sometimes I'm going to tell you it's not that easy. It sounds great taking a pill but, man, when those pills make you sick it's hard to get them down sometimes. But we're doing good, I'm doing really good.

Speaker 1: 1:23

It was a great week with Sharon and Alec here. I rested but I also did things. They did things here in the city with Craig, without me. They took care of me Mentally. It was the best thing for me Yesterday.

Speaker 1: 1:38

Alec did a bunch of meal prep for me, so he made me a bunch of egg bites that are in my freezer. So he made me a bunch of egg bites that are in my freezer. He made me my favorite bean and cheese burritos and he's a really good cook and he did a great job. And I laid on the couch. They cooked a couple of dinners while they were here, a couple of my recipes. So I did the, the tootling and they did the cooking and under my tutelage they made great dinners. Not that I eat ate all of them, but we ate out.

Speaker 1: 2:10

Alex, aunt Deb came to dinner with us at Gino's East, which is, if you're not familiar with Chicago, there's Gino's East, there's Due Uno. Oh my gosh, I can't think there's like five famous pizza places, but Alec's favorite is Gino's East and it happens to be just a block away from us. So we had that. We did all kinds of things. We just had a really, really good time. Alec went to my water aerobics class twice with me, went to coffee four times I think, yeah, four times, because Saturday Sharon and he came and had coffee with the ladies after workout and then yesterday Alec went to the climbing gym and then he had coffee. He really enjoyed my friends. He understands why I find them to be just the most fascinating group of women and a wonderful group of women. He had a great time and it was good having them here. It's also nice to have my home back to myself, but they will be missed. They said they will be back.

Speaker 1: 3:22

So one of the things I wanted to talk about was last time I did my podcast. I had a note, if you remember, I take notes during the week of things to talk about and I had written box, jar bag. Couldn't remember why, could not remember for the life of me and that same day I had done my podcast. I'd gone to the gym and I my gym is in the 900 Michigan, which is a big mall with the fancy stores in it, and I was walking and I thought a woman was walking with her lunch from the lunch place there and it had a really good bag. I went oh, that's what it was. Why is it? When we become a certain age, we box boxes, jars and bags become oh, that's a really good bag. Oh, that's a really good jar. I can't throw that out. Oh, that box is so good, I know I could use it for something. When the hell does that happen? Cause it's happened to me a long time ago. Well, even when we were in California, I started saving jars. Well, this is a good jar, like. I just don't know when that happened. So for those of you that have been sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for me to remember what box jar bag meant it meant, when do we become these people that admire a bag and have to save it? And let me tell you, in my place here we don't have a lot of room. So, box jar bag, if you get saved, you are very special. I wanted to talk about something else. So this is really bothering me and I'm seeing it in the news a lot, and since this is my podcast and I get to talk about whatever I want. That's on my mind. I'm going to talk about it.

Speaker 1: 5:02

What the hell is with people asking you to change your seat on a plane? No, the answer is going to be 90% of the time. For me, it's going to be no unless you're upgrading me. No, I pick my seat specifically, I, craig and I have status on planes. We get to pick the best seats right when we. There are seats that are blocked out that you don't realize are for only people with status, which is I didn't know until I had status and and well, I knew through Craig, but nonetheless, no, if you don't have your family together, that's your fault.

Speaker 1: 5:37

Craig and I flew thousands of miles as a family. Our children are very well-traveled. There were four of us. We never had to ask anybody ever to change a seat. So if you're getting on a flight at a last minute, are you about a last minute ticket for your family? Too bad, so sad. You don't get to ask people to change seats, or you can ask, and if they say no, then accept it, but don't be mean, and then that person has to feel uncomfortable. The rest of the flight no, we all pick our seats. You with families, get your shit together and if you're not sitting with your husband for a two hour flight, oh, wah, wah, wah. It just is really irritating me, because we never as a family flew and had to ask anybody to change a seat. We made sure we were together. I just it. Just honestly, as you can tell, it really irks me If you're upgrading me to first class now. I had that happen.

Speaker 1: 6:35

I was flying when I was working for Clairol. I was going back to New York for the annual meeting and a man came up to me. He said you're sitting with my family, would you mind taking my seat in first class? And I'm going to sit back with my family? Now that's a man, right? I'm like, oh no, no, I absolutely, I was 27. I don't know, I'd never sat in first class. It was awesome. Then I got used to it and then I met Craig and Craig always flew first class. So it became a thing but yeah, don't ask me to change my seat, because the answer is going to be no, I don't care, I just don't care. There's a very rare reason that I would change a seat. So that's my thoughts about that.

Speaker 1: 7:24

Weather here in Chicago has been a roller coaster. What day was it Today is, oh, on Monday. On Monday it was 70 degrees here. We went to Al's Beef Sharon had never had Italian beef and if you come to Chicago there's things that are popular Pizza Chicago Dog, which is my favorite, that's what I had had Italian beef. And if you come to Chicago there's things that are popular Pizza Chicago dog, which is my favorite, that's what I had, and Italian beef. And if you watch the bear you understand the Italian beef. And the bear is just right up the street from my house, the restaurant they use. But that's not the best Italian beef in Chicago. Al's is, and that's where Alec wanted to go. So we went up there and did the Italian district in little Italy and we got to sit outside in March and have lunch. It did my soul so much good and then, of course, it went down. Yesterday woke up, it was 52 degrees at 5am. By lunchtime it was in the 30s. So the funny thing about Chicago is your high could be in the middle of the night, it could be in the morning and the whole day could just change. But I hear Friday is coming and we have another 70 degree day and I'll take it. So we did some walking, we did some ice cream eating. We did all kinds of things here in the city.

Speaker 1: 8:42

What else did I want to talk about? Want to talk about the weather. That's about it. That's about what's going on. I've got a doctor's appointment this morning. Right now, I'm doing this at 6.30 am. I have to leave at 7.15 for a doctor's appointment Today. On the other part, on my informational part of the podcast, we're going to talk about retiring in other countries.

Speaker 1: 9:06

Part of the podcast we're going to talk about retiring in other countries. Craig and I are back on the thoughts of when we're done here, in a few years, possibly going back, going down to Mexico to retire. What that means is I need to get on the stick. I can't remember I started to take Spanish at the college and then oh I know, I ended up in the hospital and I had to quit and then I never picked it up again. But it's time for me to pick up Spanish. So, diane, if you're listening, we're going to have to start having our morning phone conversations in Spanish. I've got to get it together. I've got so that and I think it'll be good for me. I think you know that's something we can talk about right now is continue it, continue.

Speaker 1: 9:44

And when you're older, a lot of my girlfriends here in Chicago take extra classes and take learning opportunities, and so I think mine's going to be Spanish. Alex said that I should find a Spanish club. You know, take Spanish, get Rosetta Stone from the library, whatever I'm going to do. And then he said, find a Spanish club. That's a beginner's and they meet for coffee and everybody has to speak in Spanish only and everybody's struggling and learning and it's a great way to do that. So I'm going to look for that as well. So my new thing is going to be learning Spanish. It's about time.

Speaker 1: 10:18

I think it'd be good for my brain too. I do have a little bit of chemo brain, so that could be an issue. That could be an issue. Finding words right now sometimes is a real, is really hard and it's scary, and I know it's the chemotherapy and I'm not getting Alzheimer's. I just have to relax my brain and it comes to me, but it does freak me out a little bit. Let's see anything else. Nope, I think that's it.

Speaker 1: 10:47

So let's sit back and we'll talk about some countries to retire in and what you need to know about going to another country for retirement. Hang in there. Oh, my goodness, okay, had a little little glitch there. Um, why would you want to retire in another country? Quality of life, financial stability, many things. There's many reasons that people might want to retire and Craig and I have gone back and forth talking about retiring in Mexico and I think it's back on the table Sorry, I needed a sip of my coffee there why Our money would go a lot further and I think that's a big part of it and I think a nice way of life. I love Chicago and I love everybody here, but this is definitely not going to be a long-term place for us.

Speaker 1: 11:47

Property taxes I was just talking to my friend Lynn about this and I even quoted it wrong. Our property taxes for this condo one-bedroom condo are close to $8,000 a year. Property taxes here are just prohibitive and things like that. It's like our money is going to be finite. It's got to last us. I don't want to live with my kids. So Mexico is an option. We have some friends there that own a lot of property. They're Mexican. They have some in Nayarit, which is beautiful on the coast. They have some property there. We may build something, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 12:24

There's some options, but nonetheless, why? What are the things you might need? So, depending on the countries that you go to, you may need a retirement visa. You'll have to also consider taxes, healthcare, how you can get your social security when you're in other countries, having an American address. So if you have kids, you may need to use their address as your home address here in the States, things like that. So visas some countries offer retirement visas to people with enough money to live abroad. Long term Residency programs and visas vary by country. So what does that mean? It means that they will have a certain stipulation of how much you have to have in a bank account $100,000, $300,000. You have got to show that you are going to be in their country but you're not going to drain their resources, that you're coming in with enough resources. That's one thing. You want to look at taxes in that country. Some countries don't tax foreign source income. You may be able to exclude some foreign income from US taxes or you may need to report foreign financial accounts and assets. So, depending if you're not retiring, if you're working, that's something.

Speaker 1: 13:43

If you're continuing to work, healthcare Consider how you'll pay for health care in your new country. Now, the interesting thing about that, and this is let me tell you about that is that if you retire, if you decide to live down in Mexico, or even if you do it part time I'm not 100 percent sure if Medicare, I don't know if you can use your Medicare down there, neither here nor there. I don't know if you can use your Medicare down there, neither here nor there. It's so inexpensive healthcare down there To pay out of pocket is not prohibitive. So just know that, and you want to look at that in the countries that you're going to. I am not an expert in this, so take what I say with a grain of salt. If it intrigues you, then do your own research. I'm just giving you basic information. What are some of the other considerations you might have?

Speaker 1: 14:33

Culture shock and distance from support networks can be challenging. Now, craig and I lived in Europe. We lived in Denmark, one of the most beautiful countries, and it's an easy country to live in. But culture shock is interesting. So I had a two year old and a six month old when I moved there. One of the things I did when Craig said, do you want to go? I'm like sure I didn't realize. You know, going to the grocery store. Everything was in Danish, everything. And if you think Appleson is an apple, it's not. Appleson juice is orange juice, is it apple? It's not Appleson juice. Is orange juice, apple of the sun, the orange. So I learned a lot of things.

Speaker 1: 15:12

But then you get home and you get pancake mix. You can figure out it's pancake mix, but then the directions are in Danish. So and this was OK, fyi we have Google now. This was 30 years ago and there was no Google, so moving. We have translators on our phone. You can take a picture of the back of a pancake mix and it's going to tell you in English you have all of this. So please don't worry, that is not a big deal now, but it was a culture shock for me at the time. You're not going to be able to get your favorites At the time Ziploc bags, things like Ziploc bags, oreos were not a thing, things that I was used to in the United States.

Speaker 1: 15:53

But it didn't stop me and I loved it and I loved living there. So culture shock can definitely be it, but culture shock can be a good thing. Other cultures have wonderful things that are a part of their culture. One of the things I love about Mexico is. Every town has its town square and there's music in the town square and I don't know that when I was in Mexico and I was in beautiful places not tourist places at all I was with these people that live there. The people were so beautiful, kind and friendly and I absolutely love that. I think I will be fine if we decide to retire down in Mexico. The other thing for me I'll be closer to the West Coast, which my kids are in Colorado and California Makes it an easy jump up to see them. If Alec and Sharon choose to have kids, it'll be easy to get to my grandkids. Plus, alec loves Mexico so I know that he and Sharon would come visit as long as I'm living near some rocks that they can climb.

Speaker 1: 16:54

You may need to consider the residency requirements, so you want to check all countries for that. You may be able to maintain and manage 401ks IRA accounts from abroad, but there may be some restrictions. So there are some really good books out from expats that have done this in countries and I suggest, if you have, we have one. We have a book about retiring in Mexico that Craig and I both have read and really like. What countries, what countries are popular for retirement.

Speaker 1: 17:25

Costa Rica why is Costa Rica popular? Low cost of living, natural beauty and a stable, democratic government. Portugal I know one of my friends from Sherry, from Oregon, where I used to live, has moved to Portugal Again low cost of living, climate, health care, safety and visas. Spain low cost of living, peacefulness and rich history. Mexico low cost of living, culture and luxury you can live a much more luxurious lifestyle in Mexico on a retiree's income than you can in the United States.

Speaker 1: 18:03

The United States and right now is not a time to talk to me about cost of living in the United States it's ridiculous and it's getting worse and in my opinion, we are going to go into a recession and it's just not going to be good. And for my age group, for those of us that are 60 and up, we have been screwed one too many times by this economy for our retirement and it really has hurt our retirement accounts. It has mine and Craig's. We are definitely not where we wanted to be at retirement, where we thought we'd be, and it has to do with the pandemic hurting his company In 2008, when everything tanked, he worked for Marriott, who we thought he was going to retire with. That was his retirement job working for Marriott. He'd worked with them for a decade already and they closed down that department. So and here we go again. You know it's just, it's just not great. And so these are.

Speaker 1: 18:57

These are things that people may choose Malaysia, urban living and natural beauty. Panama doesn't tax foreign sourced income. Ecuador, dollarized country that's considered a good place to retire. New Zealand temperature, climate, opportunity for hiking, kayaking and skiing. So if you're an outdoorsy person, new Zealand I've been there, it's beautiful. I guess Australia is also now New Zealand and Australia for me. Australia, let me finish is English speaking country with lots of natural nature and wildlife. Those two are just too far to fly to get back. So if something was to happen with your adult children or their children, to me that's prohibitive flying it's expensive and it's long. I've flown to Australia before and New Zealand and they are very long flights and they're very expensive. So that's something to think about. You want to think about how easy and how often you think you'd want to be back to the United States and things like that, but I don't think you should be afraid of thinking of retiring somewhere else. I really don't. And, for that matter, next week I'll talk about different states and why you might want to retire in them. You don't want to retire in in Illinois because of the property taxes. It's ridiculous, and but there are states within the United States where things are better and there's less taxes. Etc are better and there's less taxes, et cetera. We are not even across the board on that.

Speaker 1: 20:37

There was something I wanted to talk about in my early part of this podcast. I watched a movie called Flow. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated. If you have not seen it and you love animals, I recommend it 100%. It gets a five out of five stars for me. I'm going to tell you nothing bad is going to happen to these animals, so don't worry the whole time. Like I did, I'm going to give you a heads up. Nothing bad happens, but it is just a delightful animated. No, I can see 100% why it won the Academy Award for best animation. Not only is the animation great, the story is phenomenal, it's intriguing, it makes you think, it's going to leave you with some questions. I'll tell you that much.

Speaker 1: 21:18

So with that I'm going to end this segment and we're going to step into. Did you know? All right? So here's my fun fact of the day. Ironically, the fear of long words is called now stay with me hypopotamonstrososquiptaliofobia, pseudodaliophobia, hypnotomonstrosyquiptaliophobia, a 36-letter word that was first used in the first century BCE to criticize writers with an unreasonable pension for long words. So there's a mouthful for you today. Look that word up Hippopotamonstrosesquiptadalophobia. I'm getting better at it, but I still don't have it down. So that's your fun word for the day. To come up with a 36 letter word to criticize people who have a pension for long words, it's pretty funny. Well, I hope your life is going well. I hope my life continues to go well. It's not perfect Things are going on in my life but we're doing our best. Again, we're always doing our best. I hope you're doing your best, and you know what I always say go out and do something positive. Talk to you next week.