Plans vs Reality: An UPDATED Post on Planning a move out of the country

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When I set out to plan my year long adventure in Costa Rica, I wrote an earlier blog titled "Preparing to move out of the Country? Some Things to Consider" about things to consider when planning an international move such as the one I was about to embark on. Now that I'm nearly 1/3 of the way through my year abroad I figured it would be a good time to go back and report on whether my planning was realistic and / or whether I would amend my previous advice.

Planning topic #1 from previous post: Can I live here legally for 1 year?

It turns out my research in this area provided me with correct and important advice. While some people have suggested I might have been successful in applying for an extension to my 90 days once I arrived in Costa Rica, based on the fact that my children are enrolled in school, most all have conceded that the process is lengthy and not guaranteed. So my plan to simply leave when my 90 days is up, remain out of the country for 72 hours and then return turned out to be a good idea. For our first trip we took a bus from San Jose, Costa Rica to Granada, Nicaragua and stayed there for 4 nights. I will do a follow up post to give you all of the details on how we planned the trip, what to expect during your travels and some approximate costs involved. The bottom line though is that we had no problems exiting and entering the country. And we came away with brand new 90 day stamps so this seems to be a do-able plan so far.

Topic #2: Where should I live?

On this topic I want to say that my expectations have been exceeded. My realtor, who as I mentioned happens to be my brother-in-law, really did line up a perfect place for us. The proximity to school is convenient, the size of the house is more than comfortable for us, the costs of rent and maintaining the house fit our budget, and basically it would be hard to imagine a better fit for us. So although I was a bit nervous committing to something sight unseen, by communicating to my realtor what I wanted and what my budget was I was able to get into a house that has become my home away from home.

Topic #3: Transportation

I mentioned in an earlier post that we purchased a 2000 Isuzu Trooper soon after arriving here. My brother-in-law helped us navigate the process of transferring the title and insuring the car. It is common in Costa Rica to place the title of a car into a corporation for liability reasons. Supposedly if the car is owned by a corporation, in the case of an accident the other person cannot come after you personally. For me, placing the car in a corporation has another benefit. The corporation that holds the title of my car is in my brother-in-law's name so he will be able to sell the vehicle for me when I move in December and sign all necessary paperwork instead of me needing to be here to do so. I don't think I need to say this but I will anyway, you should only do something like this if you KNOW that the person you are working with can be trusted absolutely. Because with my current arrangement, I actually do not own my car. There would have been other ways for me to transfer the car into my name had I wanted to, but it would have been more time consuming and would have created complications when I move back to the states in December. So this solution was right for me but not a one size fits all by any means.

Also I need to say that here in Costa Rica there are some excellent mass transit options if you would want to skip the whole car ownership route. I've taken the bus from Atenas to San Jose many times and would say that I prefer the bus to having to navigate the city traffic in my own vehicle. I often travel to the Coca Cola bus stop, where there is a great market that's almost worth the trip by itself, and from there take a cab to where I want to go. I've visited some museums, gone to the Tica Bus station to get bus tickets and more.

Topic #4: Where should the kids go to school?

I have been very happy with our school choice. The kids are enrolled at Green Valley School, a private school, and are taking classes taught in English and in Spanish. They've recently begun once per week tutoring sessions to give them a bit of extra help learning Spanish and seem to genuinely like the school. The only thing I need to amend from the previous article where I discussed school choice is that when I gave reasons for choosing a private vs public school they were valid reasons but I left one important thing out. Since my kids are not citizens here, I think I might have had a harder time trying to enroll them in public school. I'm not sure, I didn't actually try, but I'm not sure if non-citizens would be allowed to enroll. Anyway, I didn't move here with the intention of taking any resources that should belong to Costa Rican children so paying private school tuition so that they may attend school here is just a better fit all the way around.

Topic #5: Bank accounts / credit cards

When I was in my planning stages I was operating under the assumption that I would be able to open a bank account here. Upon arrival I attempted to have my mother in law, who is a citizen, open an account and add my name to the account. We were not able to do this, according to the bank tourists cannot be added to a bank account. There was some confusion, the first time we tried to open the account the bank told us that they needed some additional documentation and the banker even wrote down what documents we needed. I acquired these documents and returned the next day to open the account as planned and was told that it didn't matter if I had those documents, as a tourist I couldn't be on an account. What's even more funny is that the person we talked to the previous day leaned over and told our new banker that she'd already told us that I couldn't be on an account. Yes, the person who made the list of documents to bring decided the next day that she'd told us all along that we couldn't open the account. So, here is another situation where I've since found a solution but it wouldn't necessarily work for everyone. We decided to simply allow my brother-in-law and his partner, who have accounts at multiple banks here, to manager our money while here. As in we transfer funds to those accounts from the states when needed (it's about $50 each time we do a transfer) and they pay our bills and help get me cash when needed. Not perfect, but so far it's working and it's only for a year. As far as credit cards go we found out that Discover cards can be used with no foreign transaction fee! Woo hoo! The downside is that not every place will take a Discover card (VISA is what most places prefer) but Discover IS accepted at the main grocery store and gas station here in Atenas so it's been a handy card for me.

Topic #6: Cell phones, TV etc

My husbands research into cell phones proved very helpful. We've been using a pre-paid service through Kolbi here in Costa Rica. The cell coverage has been pretty good, the data is so-so. But it's very easy to get set up with service. We purchased unlocked phones before we came to Costa Rica that use SIM cards and just bought a SIM for each phone when we arrived. Then you just charge up your account with how much money you'd like on it and that's it - you can now make and receive calls. You are only charged for the calls you make, not the ones you receive and your money/credit doesn't expire. As for TV, we found out that Netflix is available in Costa Rica, so we've been using our Wii to access the Netflix content on our TV. The content here is different than in the US but there still is a lot that we recognize and it keeps us entertained. Plus it only costs about $8 per month so it was an affordable way to have a little something to do when we're just hanging out at home.

One more important topic not discussed before: Healthcare

We have insurance through my husband's employer back in the U.S. that does cover us here if we need medical care, we just would have to pay out of network expenses. I only anticipate using this in a major medical emergency. That is because we enrolled in a private health service when we arrived that takes care of our 'urgent care' needs for much less than what we pay at home. We pay about $50 per month for family coverage at the private service and all of our office visits/exams are free. We pay only for prescriptions and so far the ones we've needed have been very cheap. Plus, the kids were enrolled in mandatory insurance at school which covers up to $1,000 in expenses for the year. Costa Rica does have universal health coverage, but that is for citizens. Since we do not pay into their government fund to cover health insurance we are not utilizing this.



So, for the most part my planning got us off to a good start and we're having a good experience so far. Not every day is perfect, each of us has taken a turn being a little homesick or has faced challenges on how to deal with something at school, minor illness that have required doctor visits and the like. But so far I'd say we're all learning a lot and enjoying our time here quite a bit.

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