← So Money with Farnoosh Torabi
So Money with Farnoosh Torabi
1775: Living the Expat Life: Myths, Missteps, and Making It Work
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So Money Episode 1775 Living the Expat Life Myths, missteps and making it work. You're listening to so Money with award winning money guru Farnoosh Torabi. Each day get a 30 minute dose.
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Of financial inspiration from the world's top.
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Business minds, authors, influencers and from Farnoosh yourself. Looking for ways to save on gas or double your double coupons. Sorry, you're in the wrong place. Seeking profound ways to live a richer, happier life. Welcome to so Money.
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A
I will say that is for sure the hardest part of living abroad is being away from people that you love especially. I grew up in Boise. It's a beautiful city. I have tons of friends that I've known since I was six. You know, I went, one of my friends I went from kindergarten through my bachelor's degree with in every single school, you know, there is always this part of me that like really longs for that and I really miss it. And I feel sad about that a lot actually.
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Welcome to so Money everybody. I'm your host, Farnoosh Tarabi. The presidential inauguration is next week and ahead of that, many Americans are saying, I'm out. I'm leaving this country. According to Google Trends, US searches for quote unquote move to Canada reached a 12 month peak between November 3rd through November 9th. It dropped back down to a level that's just a little bit above where the term has hovered through most of the Last year, according to cnn. If you consider yourself among those who are looking overseas, considering becoming an expat, well, you're in the right place. Today's episode is for anyone who is seriously considering packing their bags, whether it's for a better quality of life, a slower pace or political reasons. Moving abroad is a dream for a lot of us, but it's also a very complex journey. So my guest today has done it many times and she's here with some advice. Stacy Ennis is a best selling author, she's a writing coach, and she's currently an expat living in Portugal with her family. She's lived in four countries outside the United States and she is sort of an expert now on relocating abroad sustainably, not impulsively. Stacy and I will dive into the practical, financial and emotional realities of moving abroad. What are the biggest challenges? How do you ensure that you're making this move for the right reasons? And what are some of the misconceptions that we have about living in another country? If you've ever dreamed of starting over in a beachside town or exploring a new culture, Stacy's insights are invaluable. Stacy Ennis, welcome back to SEW money. Happy New Year.
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Happy New Year and thanks for having me. Again.
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Continuation of our first conversation that we had, listeners, you may remember Stacy, she was on about a year ago in 2023, actually. So a little bit more than a year ago in the fall of 2023, we talked about your practice as a writing coach and a ghostwriter and an author. Also your move to living abroad. You've lived in four countries outside of the United States, currently settled in Portugal with your family. And I had a lot of questions about how to live abroad, how to be location agnostic, location independent. And I don't have to tell you, you've been getting a lot of phone calls and emails that right now Americans are considering living abroad because of the change in politics that we are about to face. So let's get into it. I wanted to have you on to continue that conversation, that piece of that conversation about how to relocate seriously, but sustainably too. Have it not just be this sort of impulsive knee jerk reaction. You get there and you're like, oh, what did I do? It's a big financial move and you've done it multiple times. It started with you living in the Northwest and then tell us all the places you've been since.
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Yeah, so when I graduated from my undergrad, my husband and I, he was my fiance at the time, we Took jobs as teachers in the Dominican Republic. So we taught at an international school and then moved to another school in Vietnam. Came back to the Midwest that time to do my graduate degree. Moved back to Idaho. We were in the US for eight years. And then we moved to Thailand with our kids because we had kids by that point. And then eventually we moved to Portugal, where we've been for five years now. So. And we're in the south of Portugal in a little, little beach town by the ocean.
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What are you hearing right now around this? People have started to really look at you as their go to expert on all things relocation. What are you hearing and what are you sharing?
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It's interesting because I, you know, in your, I don't know if you have this in your email, but I have email templates that I put together to reply to people on different topics. And now I have a Portugal one.
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I don't have that I should.
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Oh yes, this is one of my favorite efficiency hacks is email templating so that you can have responses to common questions or common things that you can just like pop in a reply and edit it. So I have one now on Portugal because I've gotten so many emails from people asking questions about living here, life abroad, and especially because I had a couple of pieces come out in major publications about our life here. So we have definitely gotten a lot of people, I don't know, people in my audience and a lot of friends reaching out to, to ask questions. Part of this probably depends on your political persuasion, but of a certain political persuasion, a lot of, a lot of my friends are really kind of questioning the future of the US and wondering what's going to happen, whether it's a place that they really see themselves long term. Some are kind of considering living across two places, so maybe having a home in the US that they come in the summer, for example, but they're spending most of their time abroad. But a lot of the questions that I'm getting are around taxes. People are really curious about that. I'm not a tax expert, but I have good resources for people in Portugal if they want to work with a relocation company. And then I think the other thing is people are just trying to imagine if this is a real thing that they could do and if this would suit them, which is hard. It's hard to know if it's going to fit for you.
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B
What do you think are the biggest misconceptions or assumptions that Americans have about moving to another country? Maybe some that you had.
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I think it's A cultural flaw as an American, that we think everything is just going to work out for us wherever we go. We're so used to in the US having fast shipping, a way to solve problems, good customer service, like just access to things that we need when we need it, to take care of things. And so it's a real culture shock for Americans when they come into a new place and suddenly they're navigating a totally different system and having to do things in a different way. Deal with bureaucracy in other countries and, you know, some people deal with that well and others. I can kind of read people now when they're, they're fresh expats and they move. Maybe they've only been here for a couple of months. I can usually sniff out the people that are going to stay and the people that aren't. And I think that, although I'm not necessarily.
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B
What does it come down to, you think?
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Well, I was going to say there's a. I was gonna say there's like an easygoingness about it, but I was like, but I'm not an easygoing person really. So I don't think that that's it. I think it's. There's a sense of taking things as they come and being open to different choices and different ways of doing things. There's this advice that my mentor gave me when I was just a wee undergrad finishing my degree, and she said, you make a choice and you make another one. And I love that advice so much. And I think if you can go into this decision to move abroad with a real openness and choicefulness and also knowing you can make a different decision takes a lot of the pressure off a lot of people when they're moving abroad. They're like, I'm going to sell everything. I'm never coming back. And they, they kind of like burn it all to the ground thinking that this new thing is going to solve all their problems and be the full answer. And that's almost never the case. So really kind of going into it as an adventure, but also being okay if something doesn't go the way that you expected and being willing to make a different decision. I think those are the people that are usually they last.
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I would imagine it's a lot harder too, for people who have dependents, children, pets, or even parents are taking care of in the States. Often I've dreamed of leaving, you know, just hightailing it out of here. And my husband will dutifully remind me that we have family here and not just our own. Obviously, we would take our children, but. But, you know, even grandparents and brothers and sisters. I would not want to be too far from them forever, I think, you know, life. People age, you want to. It just becomes logistically difficult, right, to keep reuniting. And I know you see your parents, but it's. It's got to be hard and harder for certain groups of people. Can you talk a little bit about when you're hearing from people? I want to move abroad. Are they typically those who don't seem to have a lot of tetheredness to.
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A
The U.S. i'm kind of thinking through that. No, I think a lot of them have family. Actually, all of the ones that I can think of right now have really strong family units that they really want to be around. It's not that. And I will say that is for sure. The hardest part of living abroad is being away from people that you love, especially. I grew up in Boise. It's a beautiful city. I have tons of friends that I've known since I was six. You know, I went. One of my friends I went from kindergarten through my bachelor's degree with. In every single school, you know, there is always this part of me that, like, really longs for that, and I really miss it, and I feel sad about that a lot, actually. But I will say that the time that we do have with people is such deep quality time. You know, we go back for, like, a month at a time, and I see my mom and dad almost every single day when my mom comes to stay with us, and my dad, they, like, live with us, you know, for a month, and I eat breakfast with them, and I have tea with my mom before bed. And we miss out on some of the more casual life experiences, but we have a lot of depth in the experiences that we have. It's just different. But it is hard. It's really hard.
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Yeah. Yeah. I'm thinking, like, you see your mom every day for a month, your parents every day for a month. Some people in the States, you live down the street from your family, and you don't have that much quality time together. That's true. Let's talk a little bit about the practical side of moving, the key logistical and financial factors that at least you had to consider. You know, I'm curious to know why you ended up putting roots down in Portugal. Do you see yourself moving anywhere else, coming back to the States? But let's first talk about, like, the logistical and financial factors that you have been through and that you recommend others consider.
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Well, of course, you should have savings that can support you. And I think don't overestimate your ability to work in the weeks before and after a move, because it is completely all consuming, all encompassing, and it will take all of your energy, time, and effort to prepare for that move. I started with my business before probably. Well, I always. We always knew we wanted to move abroad. So I was really intentional when I built my business not to market locally. I didn't build a business really in Idaho. I had a few clients there. But I was really intentional that I worked across distances with my clients so that when I did move, it wouldn't really feel different to them because we had always been working in that fashion. And so all of those pieces of it were really important to ensure that when I moved, my business would still be thriving. And, of course, there was tons of fear around that still. But my business did grow actually substantially after we moved. And I think a lot of that was we took the time to plan. Well, I was careful in how I organized my contracts so that I had a break and was able to take quite a lot of time to be able to make the move and all of that. But a lot of people don't realize that when you move to other countries, sometimes you have to put money in a held bank account. So when we moved to Thailand, we had to put, I think it was like $10,000 in an account. It was kind of scary because you don't know the bank, and you just have to put this money in an. And you can't touch it. It just has to sit there. And if it dips one equivalent of one US dollar below that balance, your entire visa is voided. So you. Yeah, so that was like kind of a str. It was a surprise. We're like, okay, well, here you go.
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B
Right.
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A
But there's some of those things. Every country has their own requirements. In Portugal, you only have to. Well, at the time that we moved, because it's changed a little, you had to prove that you had the equivalent of a year of income saved. So that. And it's the Portuguese equivalent, so it's not very much. I think it was like, it was less than $10,000. I think that you had to prove that you had to. To live on because it's. It's such a poor country. Like, the. The wages are so low. But, yeah, every country is so different, too.
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I actually did a little research. You want to hear about some of these places where there are relatively fewer obstacles to permanent residency? Let's start with Portugal. Let me tell me if I'm correct. I found that the D7 visa is for financially independent individuals with a minimum passive income of about €800 per month. You have to then, though, buy or rent property in the country. After five years of residency, you can apply for permanent residency or citizenship. That has changed over the years, but I think this is the current law.
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A
Yeah, that's the visa, I believe. Well, I know it's. I called it the own income visa. That's what we came in on. So basically, you had to prove that you had money that was coming to you from out of the country. And actually, when I came, you could also show work contracts, so. So I actually had to give them my retirement state. It was. It was kind of uncomfortable, actually. I had to give them my retirement statements. I had to give them, I think, six months of bank records. Of course, I blacked out all client information, but I had to show them proposals that had already been signed and secured. There was the threshold, but they really needed to see that you were, like, very financially healthy coming into the country. We're eligible to actually have dual passports now, so to get a Portuguese passport.
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Quince.com somoney I also discovered that Spain, where we know Eva Longoria famously moved to Spain like days after the election. I do want to talk about privilege at one point in our conversation, but there's a non lucrative visa that allows those outside of the EU to reside in Spain without engaging in professional activities. Applicants must demonstrate sufficient financial means, which is In Spain, approximately €2,400 per month and they need private health insurance. Who can do that? After five years, residents can apply for permanent residency. That's considered a relatively smaller scale obstacle. It's hard. I have friends who've moved to Italy. I'm like how are you there? I don't. But maybe they had a relative who is Italian and like a parent or I know that some countries, if you have lineage tied to that country, even if you weren't born there, you have at least an easier, maybe easier application.
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A
Yeah, I think it's usually a grandparent or a parent. I don't think they usually go beyond that. Except there's like a, a few countries where they have some exceptions to that. But there are a lot of hoops to jump through. But if you we had an attorney that we worked with. We actually worked with a relocation company which I did not know existed when we moved to Thailand and would have been very helpful. I hired an assistant, a virtual assistant in the city that we were moving to in Thailand and so that's how I got the information that I needed was through that va. But then when we moved to Portugal we worked with a company that provided an attorney and they did all the the main filings and that's And I remember one when we were in our visa appointment in Lisbon, our attorney turned to me, and she goes, okay, if you hear me yelling, it's okay. Sometimes I just have to yell a little. I'm like, okay, okay. I'm really glad you're here.
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B
Yeah, thanks for the heads up. So with privilege, I mean, it's, I think, social media and then these celebrities and then these rich people who move abroad, and you're like, oh, that seems so aspirational and ambitious. I would love to do that. The reality is, is that it does take a lot of effort. Time, money, work, Runway, leaving your loved ones. Like, there's a lot to consider and a lot to afford before you can do this. And even when you're doing it, it's not like everything's, like, falling into place. The chips have fallen into place. I guess the question is, what can the average person learn from these situations? What should they sort of take into account?
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A
Well, you have as. As an. If you're an American listening to this, you have inherently the privilege of an American passport, regardless of your financial situation, that in and of itself will afford you access to much more access than many people around the world to be able to move about freely and get visas and do most of the things that you want to do. The thing that I've learned from living abroad, absolutely, there is a ton of privilege involved in many situations. But actually, I've also learned that that's not true across the board. We know a lot of people who have moved from all over the world, from. A lot of Brazilians come in because of the language, of course, and, you know, all over Europe, many of the poor countries in Europe, and many of them do not have a lot of resources, and yet they come here because it's a better life for them and their family. So I. What I've seen is that in the US we make it into this huge thing to move abroad, and it feels so aspirational and maybe unachievable and monumental and just big. But actually, it's happening every day with people across a really wide socioeconomic band who have a lot of different reasons that they move. And it's very normal. And I think that's. That was what really surprised me when I started living this way and living in all these different places is it's just so. It's just so normal. It's just such. It's a thing that people do all the time in Europe. Sometimes they just drive their van over. You know, it's like, not a big Deal.
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B
Tell me a little bit about your day to day and how you think it would compare if you were still living in Idaho. Oh, with your children and you're running your business.
- [25:26]
A
I think a lot of our day to day is very similar actually. Like we take the kids to school, my husband takes them to school. Usually I work. We have our normal daily life that we'd have in Idaho. The differences that we have, I would say, are related to our access to the food that we eat. I mean, it's very different than what we would be buying in Idaho. You know, we were shopping at Whole Foods in Idaho and here we have our farmer that we meet on Saturdays and get our, you know, big haul for the week. We live a mile and a half from the beach, so we go to the beach a lot. I run there all the time. For me, work wise, I'm in such a great location for travel. I was just in the UK last week in Scotland and England and it's like nothing. It's like flying, you know, from New York to Ohio or something. It's not far. So it's really nice to have that accessibility to all these different places around the world. But like, honestly our daily life is pretty much like. It's really not that different at all. It's really pretty much the same.
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B
So why do you live there?
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A
Well, okay, it's the same except for. I'm not worried about being. I'm sorry, like, I'm sorry, trigger warning. But being shot, you know, I'm not worried about, you know, I'm not. There's not like a tension here. There's a very. It's very peaceful. When I went back to Idaho this past summer, the number of adults that I witnessed screaming it like multiple places, throwing like literally screaming at people or having like big emotional outbursts, I never see that. That never happens here. I love being in a multicultural location. Probably in the New York, New Jersey area, you're getting that already. But in Idaho I wasn't. And I think a lot of it is just peace. Like it's so peaceful here. I think that the world. I think it was either the World Health Organization or some large organization puts out a global peace index. And Portugal I think was number seven. Whereas the US is like 120 something, just to put it into context. So we don't really have to worry about a lot of the things that I had to worry about in Idaho. And I'm out of the. I don't know, I'm out of the hustle. I'm Really, I really like where we live because it's a good complement to my kind of natural type A personality. It calms me down and I think.
- [28:01]
B
It'S good for your nervous system. It's good for your nervous system.
- [28:05]
A
Yeah, it is. I think we would have a much more. I guess that's a good point. Your question had me, has me really thinking because I will say, when we were living in Idaho, we were much more scheduled. It was a lot of go, go, go, go, go all the time. It's a much slower pace of life here. We have less going on, a lot more kind of like space in our life.
- [28:27]
B
On the flip side, are there things that you really miss about living in the States?
- [28:31]
A
Target? I really miss Target. Just the convenience of being able to get what I need when I need it. It's really tough when we have like something that's needed for school and I have to go buy a specific thing. We just don't have a lot of shops here, so it's really hard to find some of the things that we need.
- [28:53]
B
Amazon doesn't deliver in same day or.
- [28:56]
A
Next day during Christmas. I ordered presents for the kids on December 10th and I wasn't sure if they were going to make it on time on Amazon. So you can see that, like, we really don't have the luxury of speed here. I miss being able to communicate everything that I need clearly and to know that it's being understood and that I'm understanding and that that really comes. Becomes important in like emergency situations. We've had a few of those and it's really scary when your kid is in an ambulance and you can't speak to the. The er tech, you know, so some of those things. Yeah. And I miss the entrepreneurial community in Idaho, but I make that up by going to London every few months. And so it's not perfect. There's definitely some things that I would love to improve here, but I would say in general it's still. It feels much more like the place that I. I am meant to be.
- [30:07]
B
And you've been there for about five years. Are you working towards being fluent or at least like speaking conversationally? How does that. How is that language barrier?
- [30:21]
A
I'm learning Portuguese, but it's difficult. I can actually understand a lot of Portuguese depending on the context. Like I was able to navigate our last visa appointment in Portuguese. I can kind of take care of stuff at my daughter's school in Portuguese, but it is such a hard language. It's so hard. And that is really. I Think people underestimate how hard it is when you don't really understand all the things that are going on or you're not able to communicate. It's given me a lot of empathy for foreigners coming into the US and here most of the time you can find somebody who can speak English. But imagine coming into an English speaking country and speaking a language that isn't widely spoken. And I, I just have so much empathy for people that are going through that. But it's challenging my brain and I'm sure that I'm forming new neurons and, and all of that. But I mean I've. It's five years and I'm still not fluent and I have been trying, so.
- [31:24]
B
It'S a tough language. Yeah. As an, as an English speaking person, if you were to do this move again today, would it be different with the children? Would you have different things? Would you consider a different location? What are some factors that you would need to reckon with as a mom of two growing children versus when maybe they were a lot younger or you were child free?
- [31:50]
A
Well, definitely very different from when I was child free. I mean I was just out having fun, hopping on buses, you know, like just we would at the end of the school day go, you want to go to out of town? Sure, let's run home and grab our stuff and catch a bus. Like I could never do that now. But the big thing that I underestimated when we chose our location was access to services. And by that I mean hospitals, therapy needs. If you have a child who has any additional needs of any kind, you know, speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, anything. A specialist, you need a specialist for your kid's ears. It's just none of that is here. So I mean there are some, but it's either like a huge waiting list or language fluency isn't necessarily there and so it's harder to do that appointment. So I think that it's like you don't want to have to go there of what might happen or where you might be or what could occur. But you really have to realize that like real life happens in these destinations. It's not just a holiday all the time. I think a lot of times people come and they just see like, oh, there's the beach and there's, you know, it's so beautiful. And I think if I, I'm glad I did, I, in some ways I'm glad I didn't know all this because we really love where we live. But we are facing a pretty tough decision spot because my daughter is getting, she's in middle school. And at the moment we really don't have a good high school option for her. And we're going to have to move. I think we will have to. And that just feels so exhausting to me to have to go and rebuild. So we're trying to figure out could we kind of move a little, but not away from this town. So we're close enough to the high school that we want to send her to, but it's 55 minutes away. So you know, those are real things. And when they're little, you're like, oh, I have so much time. And you know, you just kind of underestimate how quick those needs will come up. But then when they come up, you've built a life and you don't necessarily want to uproot that life now because the thing that you need isn't there. So really thinking through all of the various things that could come up, it's important if you think you're going to be there long term.
- [34:23]
B
And speaking of long term, how can those listening who are like curious about this and maybe thinking about making the leap ensure that this is a decision that they're doing for the right reasons and not just because they're trying to escape a current circumstance. And I say that, and I also want to say, like, my parents escaped Iran right along with millions of others in the late 70s because they just didn't feel like they had any better choice. Right. They, I guess they could have stayed, but they left with urgency and with probably more adrenaline than we would like for someone to do and that. But you know, I think for Americans it's different. We're not in like a war torn country currently. So I think we do have the privilege of like taking a minute and thinking this through as opposed to just fleeing as some do. So what's your advice for those of us who are contemplating? To make sure that how we're actually feeling will endure. Right. This desire to leave the US is not just a temporary feeling. We can trust that it will still be the right decision years from now when we're abroad.
- [35:38]
A
Well, I think I found that moving does not solve any problems. It's not going to magically like fix all the things that you're feeling. And so I think if you want to move abroad, that there should be a larger drive behind it that connects to, I don't know, a sense of wanderlust or adventure or curiosity or expansion or something that is rooted in your big vision for your life. We were Motivated by the election when we moved, certainly, but it was not our, our biggest driver at all.
- [36:22]
B
So to. So you did move after 2016.
- [36:25]
A
We moved in 2017, I think. Was it 20? Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was 2017 to Thailand. And yeah, and it did impact our decision, but we had also held that dream for eight years at that point. So for, for us, it played into it, but it wasn't like we were fleeing or running. And I also want to say to your earlier point, I think just as an outsider looking in, I just want to validate how. I mean insider, outsider. So I'm outside of the country, but I'm very much, you know, I still care deeply about the US and obviously I'm American. But just to validate how people are feeling, I am looking in on all the things that everyone is experiencing and feeling. And I just want anybody that's feeling that to feel very validated in a sense of things being in distress. And I think that if you are in a situation that you're feeling distress, it's natural to want to put yourself in a situation where you're not going to feel that way. But again, I think that is that really checking in with yourself to ask what the motivations are and connect that to something that is actually moving you toward the life that you dream of and want and the kind of way that you want to operate in the world also is going to put more positive intention into the move rather than it being, you know, a negative experience.
- [38:01]
B
Yeah, that makes sense. I appreciate this so much. I appreciate you. Thank you for coming on so money again as we embark on a new year. Next week is the inauguration. While Google, according to Google search results, a lot of people were searching for abroad options, living abroad options on November 6th and for probably a few days after that, I think it's dissipated. But if you're still that person who feels strongly about leaving the US hit replay on this interview. It was a good one. Thank you.
- [38:32]
A
Stacey Ennis, thank you so much for having me. And I, I hope that if somebody's like on the verge of that move, maybe this has inspired them to think a little bit more about it and see whether it could fit for them.
- [38:45]
B
Thanks so much to Stacey Ennis for joining us. We have links in our show notes where you can learn more about Stacy. I'll see you back here on Friday for AskFarnouche. And I hope your day is so muddy.
- [39:05]
A
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