First day here!

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Hi, I'm new to mylot and am hoping that it can be a great past time and hopefully meet some new people. A little bit about me: I am 45 years old and have travelled America, I have also lived in pretty much each region. I am an explorer at heart and love to travel and see many new and exciting places. My passions include: social justice, economic justice (down with the 1%ers!), the issue of homelessness (a battlefield I have been fighting on for over 20 years now and have experienced it a few times myself), art, writing, ruins, and the great outdoors. For a long time now I have known that I will not retire in America. It is just too expensive. I work in Low Income Housing and I see this everyday! I see the struggles our seniors face with a high cost of living and a low salary. The choices they have to make between medicine or food or rent. This problem seems to be getting worse as the cost of living in America is rising and yet the pay check isn't. It isn't uncommon for me to see the rise in food prices from one week to the next even. My paycheck however remained the same. What did I get for my money? Quite a bit less than I was able to the week before. I make too much for food stamps and yet wonder at times how I will afford enough food. I have decided that I have had enough of this. I love to travel and I love to write and many other things. With the internet I can build a portable income and though it may not be as much as my current income in the places I will be in it will go so much further. My plan is to go from working more for less to working less and living more! Currently I am building up a nest egg of work online opportunities and freelance writing and setting off around mid next year to go and travel the world with a focus on Latin America. My plan is to travel and stay in each country for as long as I can on a tourist Visa. I like to try to become a local and blend in versus being a tourist. I plan to write ebooks on how I do this as well as travel guides so well written that you would swear that a local wrote that not a tourist! By doing this I will also hopefully find the place that makes me say "home" and that will be the place I will retire to. I also plan to blog all of this once I take off. Before I set off to do this I have set the following criteria: all my credit cards need to paid off (almost there), I need to have at least $5,000 in savings and my student loans 6 months ahead (my own deferment if I end up needing it) and be consistently pulling in at least $1,000 a month (and where I will be that will actually go really far). If you follow me the kinds of post you should expect to see is social justice and economic justice issues, homelessness, fun ways to make some decent money online, and of course down the road a whole lot of travel information and information about other countries. I am hoping to gain some friends who will follow me on the adventure I have planned even if in the comfort of their own home.