Woman flees America to live in a cheap Mexican beach town

Janet Blaser knows a thing or two about reinvention.

Once a food and restaurant writer in Santa Cruz, Calif., the now-63-year-old struggled to find work roughly a decade ago as journalism increasingly went online. She lost one beloved job, got her hours cut at another, and ended up working odd jobs, including one in human resources at an amusement park.

With little savings and a low salary, the single mother of three struggled — even as she watched friends buy million-dollar homes and pricey cars. “I constantly felt like I wasn’t ‘enough’ and didn’t have ‘enough,’” she writes in her new book “Why We Left,” which profiles 27 expats in Mexico.

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