There’s a fair amount of thought that needs to go into radically changing your lifestyle! You need to assess your finances, your job situation, your home, and your family and friends. You will have to arrange for different insurance, make arrangements for your mail, and for security and maintenance for your home while you are away. You will probably want to assess the credit cards you have, apply for global entry, and set up automatic payments for nearly everything. Then there’s deciding when and where to go, how to find an overseas nest, what to pack, and how to get involved in local life. From the broad, life-changing decisions to the little details, here’s how we did it and what we learned in the process.
Of course the first question is “How can you afford this?” We approached the financial problem from two angles. First, we worked on reducing all the costs we could while we live in the US. The biggest thing we did to accomplish this was to radically downsize our home and move to a less expensive area. I’m writing this like it was a simple decision, but it was a really hard thing to do. I loved my house in Northern Virginia. I had friends in town. I was happy and comfortable. But we were working very hard to make enough money to afford a house way bigger than we really needed in a very expensive area. We were spending our free time maintaining this big house. Simply put, while we loved our house, the house was owning us.
By moving from Northern to Central Virginia to a much smaller house, we cut our property taxes by 80% and the principle and interest payments on our house by 84%. Car insurance is cheaper. Gas is cheaper. We’re not buying career clothing, we’re not commuting and we’re not eating lunches out. Actually, at our base home we rarely eat out now at all, especially compared to when we were working full time. We dropped cable TV. We don’t pay for lawn care. We’ve considered getting rid of one of our cars, and while we’ve not yet done that, it’s a viable option.
Remember, we’re still working, though Al’s schedule is about half time and Sue’s is about third time now. Some of you might need to work a little more, some a little less, and some lucky ones out there might not have to work at all. Al retired as a Colonel in the Air Force, so we have military retirement and the health care that goes with it. We saved a considerable amount of our income and have been fortunate in our investments. One of those investments was several townhouses that we bought when the housing prices fell. They had fallen into foreclosure and we worked hard to renovate them. They are now rental properties that help finance our new lifestyle. We are also frugal people. We’re not interested in designer clothing, fancy cars or the latest gadgets. (except for Al and his bike!) We are still bringing in an income with Al’s teaching and consulting and Sue’s writing, which can be done anywhere. With careful management, we’re finding that this lifestyle is possible!
The other angle is how much we spend while we’re nesting abroad. Nesting abroad costs us travel fare, rental for our flats and additional fees and costs for touring. We simply wouldn’t go to as many museums, attractions and even restaurants in a three month period at home. So we’ve researched ways to keep those costs down as much as possible. We’ve found that if you are careful about where you go, and when you go there, the costs can be fairly reasonable. Some destinations are downright cheap! An interesting site to study while you are choosing destinations to nest is Expatisan. Expatistan compares the cost of living between any two cities in the world, and the results can be quite surprising – and gratifying! For example, Krakow, Poland has a cost of living about 40% than Charlottesville, VA, the closest city to our Virginia home.
Setting up finances (credit cards to get, setting up direct deposits, auto payments, mail delivery)
Setting up your USA home (nexia, auto insurance while you’re gone, lawn, etc)