Okay, so a while back there were some rumors floating around that our family was moving to Puerto Rico.
How crazy would that be? Well…not so crazy, because we are here and we are LOVING it!
Moving to Puerto Rico may have seemed to come out of the blue, but it’s something we’ve been thinking about for quite a while. With our kiddos growing older (can you believe our daughter is a high school graduate?! What?!) we felt drawn to enjoy a big adventure together. And the more we thought, the more right it all seemed.
Since we decided to make the move, we’ve had tons of questions thrown at us about all the hows and whys of our journey. We decided one of the best ways to answer those questions would be to put together this video.
In case you are more of a reader vs. a viewer, we also wanted to give you a heads-up and answer some of the questions we’ve gotten the most. Ready?
Questions About Moving to Puerto Rico
Are you still running your online businesses?
Absolutely. In fact—this is the GREATEST thing about having an online business: you can work from pretty much anywhere. Jared and I are both teaching classes, selling products, and coming up with awesome new ideas. We just get to see sand rather than snow.
So…will your kids go to school in Puerto Rico?
Yes! They’ll be attending this amazing little school where the kid/teacher ratio is 13:1! Where we lived in Utah it was 30:1. PLUS, they’ll become fluent in Spanish. It’s the greatest.
What part of Puerto Rico did you move to?
We looked at two areas: Durado and Palmas del Mar. Palmas del Mar, which is located on the southeastern part of the island, really ticked every box for our family.
Why did you move to Puerto Rico? Was there a good opportunity?
A lot of entrepreneurs have chosen to relocate here because there are some truly amazing tax incentives as a result of Act 20 and Act 22. Moving to Puerto Rico brings our business tax rate down substantially (to about 4% if you can believe it!) Oh—and did I mention that there’s no snow?
How do the kids feel about it?
There were a lot of questions at first, which was expected, but three of our four kiddos were pretty dang excited. Our youngest was nervous, and he’s still a little homesick. We’re just loving on him, and we’re already seeing him start to enjoy his tropical adventure. This makes us so dang proud of him! We’re also lucky to have other kids right here in our little neighborhood, and they’ve been awesome about including our children.
Is this a permanent move?
True story: this is the first time we’ve ever bought one-way tickets! We’ve committed to being here for a year at least, but it will probably be longer. We’ve loved the experience so far.
Did you sell your house in Utah?
No, but we did rent it out to a fantastic family. They are AMAZING, and the timing and everything worked out perfectly. Funny how that happens, right?
Will you work from the beach?
I don’t think Apple Care covers sand in your laptop, so probably not. But maybe we’ll have our meetings from there or at the very least we’ll do some brainstorming while we’re watching the waves. As a side note, it’s warmer and more humid here than we’re used to, so we rather enjoy our air-conditioned rooms.
Were you nervous to move to Puerto Rico?
Oh my heck yes! It was a big decision—and it took us far away from family. But now that we’re here, we’re even more convinced it’s absolutely the right thing.
Will you get a tan?
Jared will, but I’m a sunscreen sort of girl.
What about your Grandma and Grandpa?
Anyone who has gotten to know us over the years knows that my grandparents have played a huge part in our lives and in the lives of our kids. We loved being near them and took the opportunity to see them whenever we could. Now that both have passed on, we really believe that they have been encouraging us to explore the world and take this opportunity. And we definitely carry them in our hearts.
Okay, so those are the big questions we’ve been getting about moving to Puerto Rico.
In a nutshell, we’re here, we’re loving it, and we’re excited about what’s to come. And we are so grateful that we took a leap of faith almost a decade ago when I started to sell products online. That one choice changed the course of our family’s life, and it’s been such a remarkable journey.
If you want to be going places too—whether it’s moving to an island or just in business or life, do it. There is some hard work involved, but it’s so dang worth it.
So now on with the nitty-gritty of the move….to help anyone that may be interested in coming down to Puerto Rico!
House hunting in Puerto Rico:
We decided to rent to make sure the area we liked was really a good fit for us. The realtor that we used: liz@casillasrealty.com
Internet company:
It was critical that we knew we had good wifi. Liberty was recommended to us and so far so good.
Community:
There are two that seem to be the most popular for entrepreneurs to move too. Dorado (north of the island) and Palmas Del Mar (southern eastern side of the island). We chose Palmas Del Mar. We were told Dorado was closer to the airport, but after we took the drive, we found out that location- wise it was closer, BUT not traffic-wise. The traffic (and construction) took us a lot longer.
We also felt more ‘at home' with Palmas. This is a personal decision. I don't think you'll go wrong with either. There seem to be a lot of entrepreneur families like ours. Started from nothing and had the grit to build one up.
We also have friends here in the community that have answered a ton of our ‘oh my gosh what are we doing??' questions. Grateful for good people! Here is a resource guide for Palmas Del Mar that we referenced a bunch.
School for our 4 kids:
We chose to have the kids go to the school right here in the Palmas community. It is half a block away, and my daughter Bridges can drive a golf cart to school….how cool is that? AND she can take her brothers. You can drive golf carts at the age of 14. We will pay around 6K per kid to attend.
Shopping:
Walmart is a 17-minute drive (prices are more expensive than at home)
Costco is a 34-minute drive (same prices at home. hello $4.99 roasted chickens)
…and I'm pretty sure I saw a Krispy Kreme on the way to Costco.
We paid 10.5% tax on those shopping runs. Utah is 6.5%, so we do pay more for everyday things.
Act 20/22:
The incentive for businesses is called Act 20/22, and that was a big reason for moving to Puerto Rico. We researched this quite a bit. There is a lot of info on this online, but to sum it up, it is all about tax savings. This reduces taxes to 4% and zero capital gains tax.
To move your business LLC, I used Roberto A. Corretjer
Senior Partner, Omnia Economic Solutions
787.410.5075 roberto@omniaeconomics.com
He has a 100% track record of setting the business up correctly to qualify for Act 20/22. He has done a great job so far.
- Pros..knows his stuff.
- Pros…set up a business for my daughter Makayla for free. Due to her age, she'll pay 0% taxes on her business. That is blowing my mind.
- Cons… he didn't explain a few major things. One was that because I have multiple businesses, each one would have to be paid separately. He led us to believe it was one lump sum. He said it would take a week to get the paperwork done after we submitted and it took over a month with Jared consistently calling. I was told that's normal. The island life is a bit lax from the mainland, and things just don't go as quickly. That'll be something I'll need to get used to.
Accountant:
We needed to get an Accountant, and this is who we will be using:
Torres CPA, Jared has become BFF's with this company. I hear him laughing so hard when he's on the phone with them. Makes me smile.
Additional Info:
We read to see if this was the right fit for us on the business side when we were thinking about moving to Puerto Rico:
Paying for electricity:
From talking to neighbors, the bill runs $600-800 a month. Whoowee…that's a lot for us. We did move into a house with solar panels so we were told our bill will be closer to $100 a month. That's a bonus!
Church:
We are Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and the only English-speaking church is about a 45 min drive with no traffic. Not horrid, but we will bring snacks for the way home. It's also another time to talk about our HF as a family. There is a Spanish location 15 minutes away so I'm sure we will stop there a few times when we want to immerse ourselves in the Spanish language.
The Critters:
I honestly thought we were moving to PR, but think it's really Jurassic Park! Watch the video above, and you'll see why.
Cars:
We decided to buy one but are currently in a rental until we can find one. We head out to look for one today. Blah…I'd rather go to the dentist than car shopping. Do you feel that pain too?
Shipping Our Stuff When Moving to Puerto Rico:
Our crap and how to get it here. We moved some bigger things here. A piano, my huge monitors, Jared's bike, and all my BecauseICan shirts.
U-Pack is who we used. We did the smallest size and just brought over things to make it feel like home. Pictures of Christ, Grandma and Grandpa, the boys' legos and stuffed animals, our keyboard piano, my big computer monitors, my mattress…stuff like that.
Weather:
It's warm…some say it's hot, but I'm cold 98% (in July) of the time so I'm comfortable. I've gone for 2 walks outside today to think, and I'm really loving it.
Getting stuffed shipped:
If you can't get it at Costco, then use Amazon. True Lemon, Vitacost(although the oatmeal and pickles came demolished), and Zappos ship for free to PR. YES! It does take 7-10 days vs 2-3 days though.
I did ship a bunch of the basics to land the day after we got here to stock the basics. Broom, TP, Paper towels, true lemon…ya know…basics.
And there it is. I'm sure they'll be a bazillion other things that pop up as we adjust to living here on the island (including where to get my grays covered:)
Even if you have no desire to ever move to an island, remember it's not about that…it's about living your best life with a slice of adventure.
Go get it!
