Just a quick note to say that we all made it to Panama City safe and sound. The dogs and cats are all happy and healthy, eating and drinking. We are packing up this morning for our 4 plus hour drive to our rental house in Pedasi. We successfully purchased Panamanian phones and a hotspot yesterday so we will post again later this weekend with all of the details.
Love and miss you all.
The Panamanian Twins
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Counting down
March 8, 2014
We are making fantastic progress in getting ready for the big move. Now that the pet transportation is resolved we move on to logistics and documentation. We were able to file our federal tax return jointly as a married couple for the first time! Woo hoo. Perfect timing since I am living off my sugar-mama and had no income. Hope this puts a stop to the annoying IRS letters we receive every year.
Here is a short-list of what we have been working on...
Mail: Panama does not have a mail service - they don't even have addresses. Our new house is the bright orange house in gringo village down from the high school. As it is impossible to exist as an American without an address we have found a mail forwarding company which will receive our mail, scan it and email it to us. This works great for day to day correspondence. They will even throw out junk mail and deposit checks if any arrive. Once we get to Panama we will get a box at a Mail Boxes etc. location to receive packages or anything that we have to physically have (i.e. credit cards etc). It is very expensive to ship and receive packages so no more Amazon for me! Thanks again to Pat and Carol for putting up with our endless stream of mail over the last two years.
Phone: We will be purchasing new Panamanian cell phones when we get there, but these are really only to be used to call Panamanian numbers. Our existing AT&T phone would work to call the U.S. but at $2.90 per minute not to mention the monthly plan fees it is not cost effective. So, we now have a new Skype phone number. We have unlimited calling to and from the U.S. for only $8 per month. We have been trying it out so if you get a call from a strange number it could be us :).
Banking: Who knew getting to your own money could be so hard. We found out that T.R.S. will not deposit Peg's retirement check into a foreign bank account. So after researching all of our options we have decided to continue to receive her income into our U.S. bank and just wire transfer money to Panama as we need it. We were able to set up a recurring wire which means we just call in and away it goes.
Health Insurance: We have now gone through the approval process for two different international health insurance companies and been approved without any exemptions for coverage at less than $300 per month for both of us. We submitted a cancellation notice to TRS-Care and are still trying to figure out how to cancel my Humana Obama-care. There is no way to cancel on-line!
Visas: We submitted fingerprints to the FBI for our background criminal checks and both received clear reports. These then had to be submitted to the Panamanian Consulate in Houston for authentication. We sent these express mail in the hopes of getting them back before we leave. We can stay in Panama with a tourist visa for six months until we have to leave so we are hoping to start the visa process as soon as we get there. If it takes longer than six months I guess we will go to Costa Rica - not a bad option.
The Lasts: Now it is time for the lasts.... last haircut, last RV space rent payment, last hood dinner, last book club, last Nex family dinner, last meal at Flores, last happy hour with friends etc. I am tearing up as I write this, but every new beginning comes after an ending.
Travel Schedule: We pick up the rental car on Wednesday the 26th. We drive Suni-Bat to our "wheel-estate" agent at Spring Branch RV for the consignment sale. We spend our last night at the Hotel De'Scheppner with all four butt-holes and six suitcases. Morning of the 27th we drive to Houston, drop off the dogs at their comfort station and stay in a pet-friendly hotel with the cats. On the 28th we drop off the cats at cargo at 6 am, turn in our rental car and head to our flight. We arrive in Panama City at 1 pm get the cats through customs and head to our pet-friendly hotel in the city to wait for the dogs. We pick up the dogs at 8 pm and get a very restful night's sleep. On Saturday morning our shuttle service will pick us up in two cars to drive us 4 1/2 hours to our new home in Pedasi. Whew!
On a completely different note... Alex and Jacob closed on their very first home in McKinney and I was able to brave the weather to drive up to spend a couple of days with them. It is a great house and I know they will make many happy memories there in the coming years. I am one proud mama.
We are still trying to figure out the best way to get our new address and phone number to everyone who wants it. Please email me and I will send it privately for now.
We are making fantastic progress in getting ready for the big move. Now that the pet transportation is resolved we move on to logistics and documentation. We were able to file our federal tax return jointly as a married couple for the first time! Woo hoo. Perfect timing since I am living off my sugar-mama and had no income. Hope this puts a stop to the annoying IRS letters we receive every year.
Here is a short-list of what we have been working on...
Mail: Panama does not have a mail service - they don't even have addresses. Our new house is the bright orange house in gringo village down from the high school. As it is impossible to exist as an American without an address we have found a mail forwarding company which will receive our mail, scan it and email it to us. This works great for day to day correspondence. They will even throw out junk mail and deposit checks if any arrive. Once we get to Panama we will get a box at a Mail Boxes etc. location to receive packages or anything that we have to physically have (i.e. credit cards etc). It is very expensive to ship and receive packages so no more Amazon for me! Thanks again to Pat and Carol for putting up with our endless stream of mail over the last two years.
Phone: We will be purchasing new Panamanian cell phones when we get there, but these are really only to be used to call Panamanian numbers. Our existing AT&T phone would work to call the U.S. but at $2.90 per minute not to mention the monthly plan fees it is not cost effective. So, we now have a new Skype phone number. We have unlimited calling to and from the U.S. for only $8 per month. We have been trying it out so if you get a call from a strange number it could be us :).
Banking: Who knew getting to your own money could be so hard. We found out that T.R.S. will not deposit Peg's retirement check into a foreign bank account. So after researching all of our options we have decided to continue to receive her income into our U.S. bank and just wire transfer money to Panama as we need it. We were able to set up a recurring wire which means we just call in and away it goes.
Health Insurance: We have now gone through the approval process for two different international health insurance companies and been approved without any exemptions for coverage at less than $300 per month for both of us. We submitted a cancellation notice to TRS-Care and are still trying to figure out how to cancel my Humana Obama-care. There is no way to cancel on-line!
Visas: We submitted fingerprints to the FBI for our background criminal checks and both received clear reports. These then had to be submitted to the Panamanian Consulate in Houston for authentication. We sent these express mail in the hopes of getting them back before we leave. We can stay in Panama with a tourist visa for six months until we have to leave so we are hoping to start the visa process as soon as we get there. If it takes longer than six months I guess we will go to Costa Rica - not a bad option.
The Lasts: Now it is time for the lasts.... last haircut, last RV space rent payment, last hood dinner, last book club, last Nex family dinner, last meal at Flores, last happy hour with friends etc. I am tearing up as I write this, but every new beginning comes after an ending.
Travel Schedule: We pick up the rental car on Wednesday the 26th. We drive Suni-Bat to our "wheel-estate" agent at Spring Branch RV for the consignment sale. We spend our last night at the Hotel De'Scheppner with all four butt-holes and six suitcases. Morning of the 27th we drive to Houston, drop off the dogs at their comfort station and stay in a pet-friendly hotel with the cats. On the 28th we drop off the cats at cargo at 6 am, turn in our rental car and head to our flight. We arrive in Panama City at 1 pm get the cats through customs and head to our pet-friendly hotel in the city to wait for the dogs. We pick up the dogs at 8 pm and get a very restful night's sleep. On Saturday morning our shuttle service will pick us up in two cars to drive us 4 1/2 hours to our new home in Pedasi. Whew!
On a completely different note... Alex and Jacob closed on their very first home in McKinney and I was able to brave the weather to drive up to spend a couple of days with them. It is a great house and I know they will make many happy memories there in the coming years. I am one proud mama.
We are still trying to figure out the best way to get our new address and phone number to everyone who wants it. Please email me and I will send it privately for now.
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