• At 50, I retired from my job as a pharmacist in the US and moved to Ajijic, Mexico.
• To make this work, I did a lot of strategic planning and adjusting before and after the move.
• It has already paid off: I'm doing well, and I've planned for a sustainable early retirement abroad.

After turning 50, I retired from my job as a pharmacist and moved from San Francisco to Ajijic, Mexico.

On paper, I had done everything right: I did a ton of research, picked a beautiful lakeside town, and ran the numbers. I was confident I could make this new life work.

However, building a sustainable, enjoyable early retirement abroad takes more than just moving to a place with a lower cost of living.

After three years here, I believe I've finally done it.

First, I had to figure out what 'sustainable' actually means in practice

For me, a sustainable early retirement abroad means feeling at ease and living comfortably while staying prepared for the unexpected.

Since I chose to retire at 50, I wanted to make sure I could support myself for at least another 17 years, which is when I'll be eligible to receive full Social Security benefits.

When building a sustainable financial system, I kept in mind my desired lifestyle, second-career goals, fixed-income investments, and long-term legacy.

For example, I wanted to be able to visit my family back in San Francisco regularly and finally pursue writing as a career — something I'd wanted since grade school — without an immediate need for income.

So, I prioritized growing my high-yield savings accounts and investing in CDs, short-term bond funds, and money market funds to cover living expenses.

I also hired a financial advisor to diversify the rest of my portfolio for growth and stability, so I could focus on creative work rather than market swings after I moved.

I knew I needed to create a budget to help keep my yearly spending steady, so I began tracking how much I would need for essentials while still having extra money for travel, enrichment, and emergencies.

The first year of my move consisted of a lot of preparing, testing, and exploring

After the initial culture shock, I spent my first year in Ajijic learning my way around the town, getting accustomed to Mexican culture, and gradually falling into step with the local rhythm.

I explored different ways to manage cash flow between my US and Mexican bank accounts and learned I liked using the service Wise for low-fee currency conversions.

Through online searches and conversations with locals and expats, I curated a "money‑smart" list of the best-priced grocery stores, reliable handymen, and trusted doctors, so future surprise expenses could be less likely to blow up my budget.

I tracked all my spending in a spreadsheet, breaking it down by category so I knew exactly where my money was going. This helped me plan for the next year.

After a few months of renting, I also bought a house that's become both a comfortable home and a long‑term investment. Owning a home helped anchor me in the community and turn my housing expenses into an asset.

In my second and third years abroad, I did more strategic planning and refining

In year two, I worked closely with my financial advisor to better reshape my portfolio around my early retirement needs and set up an accessible emergency fund.

I got in the habit of using Wise to track the dollar-to-peso exchange rate and batch-converting money whenever it was favorable.

Plus, I took a closer look at my healthcare plans. Because of my good health, I chose to pay out of pocket for doctor's visits rather than buy health insurance in Mexico. This lowered my expenses and also made it easy to put off routine checkups.

Even though I felt fine, I knew I needed to stay on top of preventive care to protect my long-term health, so I also scheduled an annual lab panel, vision exam, and routine teeth cleaning. They all cost me less than what I'd spend on similar services in the US. I made plans to repeat this annually so small problems wouldn't snowball.

In year three, I set up many unsexy but critical documents, including wills, beneficiary designations, and a cross-border estate plan.

I also created an emergency plan in case of a health crisis, which included which hospital I'd like to use, how I would pay, and who to call if something went wrong.

And, after two years of collecting my Ajijic spending data, I finally had the experience and confidence to lock in my budget and begin living by it.

All in all, I've found that sustainability is a gateway to opportunities

I feel I've made the right choice by retiring early in Mexico and giving myself the chance to lead a new life on my own terms.

In three years, though, all my planning, saving, investing, and strategizing have begun to pay off: I've had more mental space for writing and other creative work that energizes me.

My writing career is already taking shape. I recently won ThrillerFest's 2026 Undiscovered New Voices scholarship and will soon pitch my latest psychological thriller to industry professionals.

Sure, this is a simplified overview — building a retirement abroad also involves navigating visas and so many other logistics.

It takes time to build a system that can hold up for decades, but I already feel confident I can maintain my current lifestyle for many years to come.

• Monica Nassif, founder of Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day, retired at 53.
• Nassif said scaling struggles pushed her to sell her brands to SC Johnson in 2008.
• "It deserves to be in the hands of people who can scale this much better than we can," Nassif said.

For some founders, selling their company to an internationally recognized corporation like SC Johnson is a cause for unbridled celebration. For Monica Nassif, it was more complicated.

"It's really bittersweet," Nassif, founder of Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day, told Business Insider. "I had to sell my mother."

Nassif's 93-year-old mother is the inspiration behind the household cleaning products. Thelma Meyers, an avid gardener, raised Nassif and her eight siblings as a homemaker in Iowa. The items she grew in the family's backyard — basil, lavender, lemon — were the basis for the Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day product scents.

"At one time, we had this trailer that was designed like her kitchen," Nassif said, referring to Thelma. "We used to take it to music events or places like the Embarcadero in San Francisco. People stood in line for that. They'd get samples, and she'd sign their bottles."

Nassif launched Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day and an upscale version, Caldrea, in 1999. By the mid-2000s, Nassif's brands were becoming part of people's daily lives. Caldrea, a premium essential oil-infused household cleaning brand, was sold at upscale grocery and specialty gift stores. Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day gained a foothold in mass-market retailers like Whole Foods, pushing the company to new heights.

So, when SC Johnson acquired the brands for an undisclosed amount in 2008, Nassif said the decision didn't come lightly. However, a phone call she had avoided for weeks changed everything.

Going international

In the early days, Nassif would often market her products at trade shows, where investors could be found searching for their next moneymaker. Among the curious crowd was SC Johnson, which owns popular brands like Windex, Drano, Ziploc, Scrubbing Bubbles, and Fantastik.

"A whole team from SC Johnson shows up during one of our first trade shows with Caldrea. We're probably maybe a year old, and our booth is so tiny," Nassif said. "I was trying to sell my product and needed to open wholesale accounts, so I asked them politely to leave, but I knew why they were interested. I'm sure we were very fascinating to them."

Nassif said she ignored "countless private equity and venture capital guys" for years as her brands grew.

"I always asked all these potential investors one question: "What can you do for us that we can't do for ourselves?" Nassif said. "We were great at marketing, and pretty good at sales."

Other areas, though, were less successful.

"Distribution and scaling rapidly, not so great," Nassif said. Still, Nassif kept her head down and pushed forward until she got a call from SC Johnson.

"I refused that call for weeks. I didn't even know who it was," Nassif said. "But it gets to a point where you go, 'I want this to be bigger. This is a great brand. It deserves to be in the hands of people who can scale this much better than we can.'"

She added: "We neither had that skillset nor the capital to figure it out."

Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day is now sold in major retailers across the United States, Canada, and Singapore. Both brands have products available through online retailers like Amazon.

Failed retirement

Nassif retired from the company in 2010. She was 53. Her days out of the office didn't stick, though.

"I failed retirement," Nassif said. "I liked working. I liked creative projects. I liked being involved in startups. They have incredible energy, and it really keeps you alert and aware of what's happening."

Most recently, Nassif wrote a part-memoir, part-business guide titled "I Bottled My Mother," which hits shelves on March 24.

"I speak to entrepreneurs and the questions are always the same," Nassif said. "'How do you do it? Where do you get your ideas? What should I do first?' I thought it'd be fun to do a startup manual. Hey, if you're thinking about starting a business, here's how to go about it."

She also wanted to honor her mother.

"It's really a childhood memoir about how the Mrs. Meyer's brand came into being," she said.