just living

I keep feeling that I should post more, like so many folks. They treat their blog llke a diary with their every tho't or feeling I'm not that fascinating or anal, but write here so that our family & friends can read that we're ok and get a feel for what we're doing. It's hopefully, also a way to give others an insight into what they might experience if they choose to make the leap to moving to Belize. The real reason tho' is as a memory record for us. We're not sure that we'll be able to stay here for the rest of our years. We're blessed with good health, but who knows what to expect. This will be here to remind us of this adventure. We didn't want to retire to a rocking chair, but felt that we'd prefer to find some new challenges, both physically and mentally. Belize has sure provided those.

We could live here comfortably, economically, if we could sell our home in the U.S. Even tho' costs keep escalating here, being off-grid has isolated us from some of this. The biggest hit to the budget is gasoline. It's now near $10bz a gallon for regular. A saving grace is that we don't travel far or often. Another big expense is that we have two vehicles. We keep the old 1990 Trooper with 280k miles, as part of Rene's compensation. We let him have it on the weekend to be able to take his family shopping. He's the only one that's allowed to drive it other than us. We're hoping that some day he'll be able to afford to buy it as the insurance and license are tough. We put new tires on it a couple of years ago, so tires haven't been a big concern. Prior to that we were going thru a couple of used tires every month or two. In case you haven't traveled to Belize, the roads here are the pits! Just FYI, the insurance, which is only liability and third party coverage, runs about $375bz a year and the license is $200bz per year. The Trooper is also here as a backup vehicle and as a little security system. If someone comes up our road it looks like we're home if there is a car in the driveway.

Life's a challenge everywhere, it's just a little more interesting here in little Belize.