RETIREMENT

One day you realize this is really going to happen.  John had already sold our laundromat business  and “retired” but found himself as busy as ever.  Our friend, Ed, was sold on retirement and told me I should retire as soon as possible. In January of 2000 I still had 2 years to work before meeting requirements to retire from Kansas Public Employees Retirement System, having worked a combined 23 years for the City government and the local school board which were both part of the same retirement system.

All the 32 years we lived in Kansas City we disliked the weather because of the humidity which always makes the hot feel hotter and the cold feel colder.  The thought of spending the majority of our retired days inside the house in order to avoid the extreme temperatures wasn’t very exciting.  We considered southwestern U.S., but the desirable places weren’t within our budget and many areas of the southwest are extremely warm in the summer.

We had enjoyed several vacations in Cancun which may be what got us thinking about Mexico.  We realized, of course, that Cancun is paradise and not necessarily your everyday Mexico, but the Mexican culture reminded us of our 10 years as missionaries in Brazil and we were comfortable with that.  In fact, if it weren’t so far from the U.S., and thus from our kids and grandkids, we probably would have chosen southern Brazil, which enjoys a temperate climate.  It sure would have been nice not having to learn another language!

THE RESEARCH

As we began to seriously consider Mexico as our retirement home, we did a lot of research by reading books available on living and retiring in Mexico, searching the internet diligently (mostly Mexico Connect) http://www.mexconnected.com/ and talking to everyone who looked as if they had lived in Mexico--asking what city would be their preference if they were to move back to Mexico.  Some of the things we were looking for were a great climate, a reasonable cost of living, within driving distance of the U.S., etc.  One of our Mexican friends gave us a geography book that she had used in school.  It had big maps of areas of precipitation, population density, natural vegetation, terrain, land use, average temperatures, etc.  This book was a great resource since we wanted to avoid areas of high humidity, known volcanoes, earthquakes, and borders and coastal areas.  We were also trying to avoid areas of political strife, and colonies of Americans where the cost of living may have become inflated because of their presence.

presence.