Connie Martin

Hi! My husband and I, along with our two grown children who are 27 & 28 currently, live with us, due to the financial expenses of living where we are (a suburb of Sacramento, the Capital of the state of California) and hit even harder due to the loss of 95% of all my business due to the Pandemic this year. Both of our children work for my firm, so it has hit them financially as well. I own a 35-year-old Advertising, Marketing & Digital Agency. However, I, along with my grown children are now venturing into the world of freelance online work, so that we can take our jobs with us. My husband is 76 and has been semi-retired for the past five or so years. I am 11 years younger than he is. While our new income stream should allow us to live here without stressing over bills every single month, we had always been 'stuck' here due to local events we had to be physically at for all the shopping center clients we had (but lost to the Pandemic) plus, the last 13 years as the sole caregiver for my elderly father, and because of my love for my aunt who was 90. My father passed away in January, followed by my aunt in June of this year, so we no longer have family ties, nor local retail clients keeping us here. My husband was born and raised in Hawaii, and all four of us just love the beach and a tropical type of atmosphere. We started looking about five years ago for a place to move to outside the US. We started with an extended stay in Costa Rica. Unfortunately, our daughter has Asthma and 'muggy' weather (we were located in the rainforest) made it difficult for her to breathe well. It was fine for a visit, but she couldn't live there comfortably for an extended period of time. So, we started looking at the Caribbean instead and what might be a good fit for us there. My husband, I took a Caribbean cruise many years ago but found the people and life there fabulous. We made the most out of our visits to each island and didn't find a single one we didn't love. So, while there are of course a number of places that would fit our 'wish list' for life outside of the U.S., we are leaning toward Belize only because of the language issue. We know making the transition to live outside of the US will have its challenges, but not having to learn a new language would allow us a greater advantage in the transition, we believe. I just happened upon this site, but it doesn't seem like all of the questions are ever answered? Perhaps it's a small group of Expats in Belize, or people just don't answer for some reason. Just don't know since this is my first posting here. I have, of course, a million questions about making the transition to Belize, the best place(s) within Belize to concentrate on, how to find a long-term rental, and much more. All of my research up till now has touted Belize as a very economical place to live, with beachfront rentals available at really reasonable amounts, etc. We are trying to check that out now, without knowing what areas we should look at and those to avoid for whatever reason. We also noticed that the vast majority of rentals seemed to be one or two bedrooms. We are looking for a 4 Bedroom, 2+ bath home for a long-term rental with absolutely no clue where in Belize we should be concentrating on? We would also like to live near an Expat community if possible. If anyone would dare to become a 'pen pal' with me through regular email, and not mind answering my questions, telling me about your personal experience in making the move, the "do's and dont's" in Belize, and all that good stuff, I sure would love to correspond with someone who is willing? I'd appreciate any feedback here of course, and if someone is willing to correspond with me as a 'pen pal,' my email is Connie@HallMarketMedia.com. Thank you so much for reading my rather long post. Stay Safe...Connie