April 2018 - thethoughtfulexpat

Where do you start to become an expat?

“Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.” – Michael Jordan

Becoming an expat is not for the faint of heart. Expats are strong, solid people who are generally ok doing something a bit different. Are you up for the task? We are!

So where should we begin? This week, we started researching a couple different topics:

House Sitting
Potential Expat Locations.
Expat Forums
Book Lists
Expat Blogs
Taxes and Insurance

Each of these areas will include a separate blog post as it will become too overwhelming to cover that much information in just this one.

Jason and I are definitely ying and yang. He looks at a topic in one way, and I look at it a different way. I think that usually works out pretty well. Usually… 🙂

Jason is responsible for researching potential locations for this adventure! He is great gleaning information from a variety of sources and breaking it down into meaningful parts. We can easily argue about where to put the cups in the cupboards for days (we wouldn’t have to if he just put them back on a shelf that I can reach!) but when it comes time to make a decision on something important, like picking a place to live or buying a house, we both trust that the other one will pick the best one and we both will be happy. It’s a strange thing really but it works for us every time.

I am responsible for researching house sitting. I am inspired and excited to try it. I am not 100% certain that this is the way we want to go, but I am intrigued enough to open to try something that freaks me out a little bit!

I am also responsible for creating book lists and reading them. I have more day-to-day time as Jason currently works full-time (and then some!) I need to create a list for this and get reading! Time to break out the kindle and have some fun!

We both researching blogs and forums. There is so much to explore in this area that I think we won’t overlap too much.

What expat forums are we using?

http://www.expat.com/forum/

http://www.expatforum.com

http://www.expatexchange.com

http://www.expatfocus.com/expatriate-forums

These are the ones we decided to start with at this point. I browsed a couple when we first started talking about being expats and some were more helpful than others.

What house sitting sites am I researching?

https://www.trustedhousesitters.com/house-and-pet-sitting-assignments/

https://www.mindmyhouse.com

https://www.nomador.com/house-sitting/

The nomador one is my favorite so far, simply for the layout of the dates. I just started my search and have logged in, but I need to decide which one is best suited for a couple of trial runs. I love the idea of taking care of someone’s home and spending more time in a location. I think we will prefer to spend more time in one location, and we’ll see if this is something we want to incorporate into our expat life.

What expat books will I read?

I am going to start off with these. Do you have other recommendations?

https://www.amazon.com/Expat-Life-Beginnings-G-Donnellan-ebook/dp/B01BGTMJ16/ref=pd_sbs_351_8?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=6AGZEBYQ9DS94BHKV02F

https://www.amazon.com/Once-Upon-Expat-Lisa-Webb-ebook/dp/B01FP365GO/ref=pd_sbs_351_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=HJ9WGQ1SRS9SBH7Z7SSE

https://www.amazon.com/Expatriates-Roadmap-Successfully-Moving-Overseas-ebook/dp/B01LW5OGNI/ref=pd_sim_351_4?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=HW1YVYFCHJ71JDVPR4RW

What locations we will research for expat living?
Our first round of research started with the trip to Thailand and all the expats living there. We are also looking at Portugal, Spain, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Philippines, Vietnam, Budapest, Panama . We want to balance inexpensive locations, fun opportunities to travel, plenty of activities that we enjoy, and darned good food choices!

Ok, let the intense research begin. We will continue to post updates on our findings to help anyone else starting their expat journey!

Why do you want to become an expat?

What if this actually works……

Why do you want to become an expat?

Today I was standing in my kitchen making cookies with my Kitchenaid mixer and the thought hit me “oh my gosh! I won’t have this part of my life when i become an expat!” That is a slight exaggeration, of course. It will all be decided once we decide which kind of expat we are going to be.

Let’s go back to the original question at hand. After an incredible 18 months of traveling to Iceland, United Kingdom, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, France, Belgium, Spain, and Gibraltar, Jason and I discovered how much we love learning about how other countries live. We spent our entire lives in the United States, even during the last 20 years in the military, as we developed a sense of what is “normal.”

Our travels have uprooted our preconceived notions and we love this idea of challenging our definition of “normal.” We also fell in love with visiting these incredible places as inexpensively as possible. That led me to the original idea of being an expat for a year or two after Jason retires at 55.

Vacations with a hint of Expat

A few weeks ago, we finally settled on our family trip for this summer. Thailand here we come! Jason started researching (Hello? This never happens this early in our vacation planning process. Trust me!) and found a lot of information on expats living in Chiang Mai. He wasn’t looking for this information, but it just kept coming up.

He started throwing around stories of Digital Nomads virtually retiring to Thailand and working part time with a very nice quality of life.

We’ve talked about retiring overseas throughout the years, but never really thought about it seriously. Now that the retirement is near, we are talking about this a lot more. It seems within I arms-reach.

Thanks to the internet and a lot of detailed high-quality blogs, we can get a sense of what our military retirement will provide in terms of day-to-day expenses. We didn’t want to be a couple living in a remote village in order to survive on pennies a day. We want to find a balance between inexpensive cost of living, immersion in a foreign culture, continuing our travels, and spending more time with each other. We would prefer to find a place where we can live on our military retirement and let our 401K and IRA continue to grow.

So why don’t we just leave now?

Jason asked that question several times. I have three reasons.

1 I want to get our son through college. He has the use of the post-9/11 Montgomery GI Bill, and all of the U.S.-based colleges he is looking at have the Yellow Ribbon program, which means that they will cover the costs above and beyond the Montgomery GI Bill (he will not need student loans.). He is also looking at universities overseas, and this VA program will cover those costs as well. But, things happen. I want his college experience to be more stress free than mine.

2-We will continue to save money each month while we prepare to be expats. We aren’t currently planning to spend the rest of our lives as expats. At some point, we’d like to retire in central Oregon, so we’ll need to have enough savings, retirement income and military benefits to cover our expenses. The longer we work, the more we will save.

3-My mom is turning 77 this year and I need to come to terms with being even farther away from her. I’m extremely close to her and even though I live close to 3000 miles away from her now, we talk and text daily. I would hate to be in a foreign country and not be able to return to the States easily if she needed me. I also want to be able to keep up with our daily communications without breaking the bank.

Long Term Retirement Plans

Our ideal place to retire and enjoy our hobbies is in Central Oregon. I quilt and Jason enjoys gardening and woodworking. Unfortunately, central Oregon is not cheap. We can’t easily retire early AND live comfortably in Bend/Sisters. This has been a stressor for us for a few years. We’ll have to work longer to save enough for the lifestyle we want in Oregon. But, we don’t want to work until our health deteriorates and we will be limited in doing the activities we want. It is a dilemma.

Is there a way to be an Expat for just a few years?

We think so! This is the “Have your cake and eat it too, scenario.”

We believe that we can accelerate our planned retirement date, enjoy an expat lifestyle for a few years, travel the world, and experience different cultures. At the same time, we can let our investments continue to grow and we can live off of our military retirement check.

We want to become expats because we are curious. We are excited. We are life-long learners. Most all all, we are ready to move to the next chapter of our lives.

Our life is wonderful. We are happily married with an awesome teenager. But, it has the potential to be EVEN better in a few short years. We are actively planning for it now. So why do YOU want to become an expat and what are YOU doing to make that happen?

Admitting the truth

Do or don’t. There is no try.

Master Yoda

So, I want to be an expat.

There, I said it. I admitted it. I think that’s the first step, right? Acknowledging and admitting the issue/problem – or in this case, the truth.

This isn’t new. A couple of years ago, I was reading a travel blog that covered a vacation spot we were looking at. The couple who wrote it retired early and traveled full time during their first year of retirement. They went throughout Europe for around $36,000 for the year. They tracked every penny they spent and explained how they did it.

Tragedy struck. My computer rebooted and I lost their site. I have never found it again, but that blog, that couple and the idea of traveling during retirement has never left my heart.

I first brought up the idea of being an expat to Jason right after I read that article. We want to retire in our mid 50s. That should give us enough time to be active and travel. Both of us had parents that passed away at an early age, and we are fully aware that life goes by way too quickly. We need to capture all of the experiences that we can.

***His initial response to me was lukewarm at best.*** What the heck?

Fast forward a couple of years, and we have a few more international trips behind us. I revisited the idea with him and now he can see how far the dollar can stretch in some of these countries. We have no chance of maintaining that lifestyle and retiring early if we stayed in D.C.

How did we come to this conclusion?

The majority of our overseas trips are to places where we could stretch the dollar. We felt the biggest bang for our buck after visiting Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia and the Canary Islands.

Actually spending time in these places and seeing how much we spent living day to day as tourists really opened up Jason’s eyes to the thought that being an expat at an early age was very achievable. Of course, our trips to Iceland, Paris and Brussels showed him that not every place in Europe was a bargain!

After we returned from our last overseas adventure, we buckled down and started the research on the specific steps we needed to take to become expats in 5 years.

Join us as we create our five year plan.

We have five years until our son finishes high school and completes college
We have five years to complete our financial plans
We have five years to address all of our household goods, figure out medical insurance, sell our cars and find a place to live!
Put away a fine bottle of champagne and celebrate with us when we say hello to the exciting life of being an expatriate! F
Here’s looking at you, Summer 2023.

I want The Thoughtful Expat blog to be a place of research and documentation of the process. We’ll have successes and learning opportunities. We’ll change our minds a good half dozen times, and we’ll learn a lot from you – our readers!