Spain Offers Good Value

Snowbird Escapes to Southern Europe Can Be a Good Deal

BY STEVE DINNEN

Hola, amigos. Estoy aprendiendo Espanol.

How am I doing? Actually, I speak a little more Spanish than that, thanks to some classroom instruction this winter in Seville, Spain. While many people decamped to Florida, Arizona, or Palm Springs, California, I struck out in a different direction. I didn’t need the consistent warmth of Palm Springs or the beaches of Sarasota, but I definitely wanted to escape snow, below-zero temperatures and killer winds.

So, how about Spain? The Southern part of the country has an agreeable winter climate, just a tad cooler than, say, Phoenix. Housing is plentiful, and online rental services can match you up with suitable lodging.

I zeroed in on Seville, a congenial city with plazas everywhere. Food and drink are plentiful: I counted 57 restaurants and tavernas along the 1-kilometer stretch between the apartment I rented and the school where I was taking the language class. Tapas dominate the food scene and offer a great way to sample a little of this (baked garbanzos and fresh spinach), or a little of that (rabo de buey—oxtail—way better than it sounds).

As extended vacations go, this was a good deal. I paid $800 for three weeks at a modest one-bedroom apartment, with a small kitchen. Dinner rarely cost more than $35, including a bottle of quality Rioja red wine. Spanish class—45 hours of group instruction, plus five one-on-one hours—ran $850.

Where do your dollars go in Palm Springs? Housing, mostly. A cute villa for two advertised on Expedia cost $14,250 for three weeks starting in late April. The bargain of the day was a vintage Airstream Trailer on AirBnB, for $1,842.

Palm Springs does have Seville beat on golf. Plenty of links there, plenty of price competition. A handy website, Numbeo.com, will give you prices and the cost of living on everything from a glass of beer to a pair of Levi's for hundreds of cities globally, including Des Moines, Seville and Palm Springs.

So if you want to be a snowbird, feel free to spread those wings a little wider. Spain, Italy and the south of France are all open and have things to occupy your time. And if you’re worried about business connections, the internet, Zoom and phone packages will keep you in touch with home.

Now that I’m back, I’m planning a return next winter. Or maybe to southernmost Italy. Warm there, too. Ciao!

Consider Classes, Volunteering During Extended Stays

BY STEVE DINNEN

On my extended winter escape to Seville, I decided I couldn’t, or at least shouldn’t, spend all day drinking coffee and all night vino tinto, so I decided to learn how to better converse with the people I was around. I’d toyed with Spanish before, but I was rusty, and this seemed to be the time to brush up.

There are a dozen language schools in Seville, and I settled on Sevilla Habla, sevillahabla.com/en/. A written exam determined my level of instruction. It’s been a while since I sat in a classroom, and it was hard. All the instruction was in Spanish. There were half a dozen of us, mostly Europeans. Ninety minutes of class, then a break, then 90 more minutes every weekday. Plus homework!

Of course, not everyone who goes abroad for the winter wants to or needs to study the language. There are other opportunities to get involved with the local community, such volunteering at a hospital or working with at-risk kids—basically, the same types of things you could do here.

Greenheart Travel, based in Chicago, arranges for Americans to stay with families in France and Spain and teach them English. In return, you learn French or Spanish and get room and board. There are tons of cooking schools, with concentrations in Bologna, the capital of Italian cuisine, and certainly Paris.

If you've dreamed of working on the railroad, the Great Central Railway, in Loughborough, England, is always looking for ticket takers and platform agents. And the Atyla Foundation in Bilbao wants people to crew a wooden three-master sailing ship in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. Free meals and a hammock!

Ways Inflation Is Harming Retirement Income

BY CHRIS WOODYARD FOR USA TODAY

In times like these, Mary Johnson is willing to break the rules—at least when it comes to some of the classic axioms of investing. She’s gone heavy into stocks even though senior citizens like herself are generally advised to keep conservative portfolios that skew heavily toward bonds.

“I don’t even hold bonds. That’s very risky,” she said. “What I am doing now is looking at very reliable dividend [paying] companies” and keeping a close eye on them.

Johnson, who lives in rural Virginia, said she is in good shape at the moment following her stock-heavy strategy, but there are millions of seniors who wouldn’t be able to say the same. Some of the traditional investments upon which seniors depend have performed poorly amid an inflation rate that hit 7.9% last month, the fastest pace in 40 years.

It’s sending a wave of worry through the ranks of seniors. “The No. 1 concern anyone has is the risk of outliving their assets,” said Kevin Lao, a certified financial planner for Imagine Financial Security in St. Augustine, Florida.

Inflation is ravaging some of the asset classes that are cornerstones for seniors, ones that provide the backbone of their income in retirement. Here's a look at three troubled ones. READ MORE.

ESG Mutual Funds Seek Balance Between Ethics, Returns

BY JEANNE SAHADI FOR CNN BUSINESS

Climate change. Inequality. Unrest. There's a lot to consider in today's world and you may find yourself wanting to invest only in companies that aim to do business in an environmentally sustainable, socially equitable and ethical way.

Or, maybe you just want to invest in companies that are taking steps to protect their bottom line from the very real business risks posed by climate change or social inequities.Either way, you're probably not eager to lose money. So you'd like to make investments that deliver a competitive return over time.

That's a balance so-called ESG mutual funds are trying to strike. ESG stands for environmental, social and governance issues—all of which face public companies and their stakeholders, which include investors, customers, employees and the communities where a business operates. READ MORE.

Money.com covers why your estate plan needs to include digital assets like passwords.

CNBC.com reports on how two-thirds of American workers say their pay is not adequate to cover the rising cost of inflation.
Money.com explains the difference between NFTs and cryptocurrency.

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