• Retirement Calculator update!

    Retirement Calculator update!

    Hello friends. The Portfolio Withdrawal Calculator, for Brazil has been updated. The retirement calculator update includes the ability to include S&P500 in BRL as a portfolio allocation option. As you may know this was the most popular new feature voted in the recent poll. Simply adjust the “Percent S&P500” to the desired portion of your…

  • Poll Results: Next feature for the Brazil retirement calculator.

    Thanks to everyone who voted in the recent poll! The winning feature is to add S&P500 as a portfolio option, followed by adding the ability to front load bad years to test sequence of returns risk. A couple of people added their own ideas as answers. One was the ability to have NTN-B bonds (IPCA+)…

  • 5 Financial advantages of retiring in Brazil verses the US

    5 Financial advantages of retiring in Brazil verses the US

    After spending some time in Brazil, it has occurred to me there are several financial advantages for the Brazilian early retiree, as compared to the US person retiring in the US. The US has a comparatively large FIRE movement, whereas Brazil does not, despite it’s advantages. As a US tax resident, I can’t take advantage…

  • Poll Closed: Next Feature for the Brazil Retirement Calculator

    Hello! I’ve been happy to see people getting some benefit from the retirement calculator tool. In an effort to make it more relevant I have created a short survey below. Please help shape the direction of the Portfolio Withdrawal Calculator, for Brazil by taking the poll below. Poll Closed This poll will stay open until…

  • Beef in the US verses Brazil

    Beef in the US verses Brazil

    When I first came to Brazil I was very confused buying beef. You see, in the US there are three quality levels of beef mainly available to consumers: Select grade, Choice Grade, and Prime grade beef. You can see the difference is in how much intramuscular fat there is in the cut of beef. The…

  • Grocery prices in US verses Brazil

    Grocery prices in US verses Brazil

    In our ongoing Geoarbitrage adventures, we will explore grocery prices in the US verses Brazil by comparing 31 common items. For this study I used HEB as the grocery store in the US. HEB is a fantastic low-to-mid level priced grocery store. I used to use HEB every week when I lived in the US….

  • Safe withdrawal rate in Brazil: Failure points

    Safe withdrawal rate in Brazil: Failure points

    Using the Portfolio Withdrawal Calculator, for Brazil I ran some scenarios on the 4% rule over different time periods. I changed time periods and the mix of Ibovespa and Selic to see where the safe withdrawal rate in Brazil breaks down. Let’s take a look. [This is not investing advice. Don’t make financial plans based…

  • A new era of economic data? Pre verses Post 2007 in Brazil.

    A new era of economic data? Pre verses Post 2007 in Brazil.

    I was looking at the chart of Brazilian economic data since the Real Plan. Here it is: Check out the Selic rate both before and after 2007. Do you see anything? I noticed that is the first point in time the Selic has never exceeded 15%. Interesting… It led me to perform some more analysis….

  • Charting stock returns Brazil & US

    Charting stock returns Brazil & US

    Tying into the theme of the last post *updated* Are you better off keeping money in Brazil or the US?, which related to keeping cash at the cash rate in either country, what about risk assets? Using 1995-2023 data, let’s see how the Brazilian investor would have done in various assets. Above you can see…

  • *updated* Are you better off keeping money in Brazil or the US?

    *updated* Are you better off keeping money in Brazil or the US?

    *check out the calculator at the end of this post* * New update: check out the Spoiler Alert section at the end where I calculated every possible combination of years between 1995-2023, allowing for a minimum length of 5 years time and posted a summary of the results* The title is a bit off; my…