28:00 I’ll second that idea of living on an AirBnB or VRBO for a month to test places out. We wanted to try Nashville and TN since we are huge country music fans, but we didn’t like it long term. A place like Knoxville, TN (which we barely knew of) ended up being our FAVORITE place. You’d be surprised what you can see once you are FI and can take monthlong trips. This applies also to location-independent workers and entrepreneurs.
It's great to hear you found something that's a great fit! We totally agree: it's hard to appreciate the benefits of truly owning your time until you finally can do so. Best wishes to you!
I also wanted to move someplace warm but here I am in Wisconsin on the shores of lake Michigan. It turns out that real estate is so inexpensive here that I can easily afford to spend a few months every year in Mexico and still live much cheaper than on either coast. I'm a few blocks from a beach and close to Chicago. An odd choice but it was the right one for me.
11:00 US Cities are tough with being walkable. A college town could work since they are smaller, yet have access to cultural events. However, as far as walkability vs. cost LATAM and Europe are hard to beat. We are set with our US home and are looking at Gamma cities abroad. The big Alpha ones are fun to visit, but long term we prefer mid-size cities.
Excellent points, Hugo! As much as we love visiting big cities, I think we'd both prefer to live in a mid-sized one. As you heard, Jason definitely selected for a walkable "city" though one that's more of a large town. Lots of access to fun stuff to do, restaurants, etc- but not to the level you'd find in a larger city. Compromises all around!
My work is related to property tax. I got calls from seniors asking all sorts of questions. Although most of them have low tax due to Prop 13 in CA, they have the problem using equity. They are on fixed income, limits the amount they can borrow from the house. The loan needs to be paid back, creating another dilemma. Many are too old to tackle finding a new place to live. Yet they sit on a million to multi-million property not able to cash out. This could be an issue only for locations with high appreciation but this is something people need to consider when they are still young enough to make decisions. The seniors I talked to all seem helpless. They may not be able to trust realtors, accountants, or relatives to help them with decision to sell. Yet they are sitting on a big pile of money petrified to move. Many told me they didn’t want to move because they may be removed from doctors, friends, familiar places, and family members. But if they don’t move, they don’t have enough from SSI or pension to pay all the bills. They can go the reserve mortgage route but that has its own risk components and disapproval from their heirs.
Just recently discovered your RU-vid channel. Thanks for all of this! To the issue of not being ready to live in a city, most people I talk with on this subject seem to vaguely have a first tier city like New York, Chicago or LA in mind. I can understand Eric's desire not to live in a city, but if you move your expectations down to a second or third tier city you're likely to find all of the community infrastructure your wife would like with that ease of access to the great outdoors. I have no idea how familiar you are with New York State, but three cities that come to mind are Albany, Schenectady and Saratoga Springs. Each of these cities have populations that hover in the high 5 digits. Each have at least three playhouses, two to three (one being seasonal) theaters, sports stadiums and, well, any other cultural amenity you can think of (surfing might be a bit of an issue unless you include surfing down the Black River when the dam water release takes place). Each of these cities is minutes - yes minutes, from the Adirondack Mountains. All three connect in some fashion (directly or indirectly to the cross-state Erie Canal Tral and Empire State Trail for cycling and hiking. You are within minutes to a few hours of 46 high peaks, and all the hunting and fishing your little hearts desire. Now, this may sound like a sales pitch (it is) but there are similar second and third tier cities all over the country, including the warm zone states like North and South Carolina which are so hot for cold weather people to move to these days. It seems something like this might be a potential point of compromise for you. Done preaching!
The thing about living in Europe that I'm looking at very closely is YOU DON'T NEED A CAR. If you can eliminate car ownership from your life, you have eliminated close to 10K in expenses in one fell swoop. I am eligible to retire next year (at age 57), so I'm very much considering Portugal, or Spain, just for this factor. What do you think?
If you can get by without a car 90% of the time, it makes perfect sense! With great mass transit options and car rental where needed, you can certainly save $$$
My girlfriend and I live in Wisconsin. My house is paid for. I am at FI and will stop working in less than a year. I'm on a good glide path, working 30 hours on a Mon - Thurs schedule. We have a trip to Panama scheduled for Feb 2023. Will be looking at it as a potential snowbird destination for future years.
This was a really helpful discussion even if it didn’t help me narrow it down. My partner (42) and I (36) moved out of our hometown of the beach cities of Los Angeles to Washington state - to a really great developing area of Bellingham (near the Canadian border). After 2 years we moved back home due to aging/lonely parent and lack of Sun. My partner loved Bellingham for the values and safety and nature but we aren’t really “nature” people. My dream is to live multiple areas for a month at a time to feel out where to go next but there is an increasing pressure to buy in our hometown as it goes through its next growth spurt. A beach condo can be purchased for $700k… probably the cheapest we can ever afford, or a condo in an up and coming area in a not so great area. So I guess what I’m saying is not only are we torn to live somewhere nationally but also statewide and city wide. I want to be within a 5 minute walk of lots of amenities. I don’t want to have to rely on a car to go to the market or the coffee shop or local diner… at the same time it is literally impossible to find an area that offers that. I like being within a 10 minute drive to the ocean and a 5 minute walk to amenities. What happens when you fall in love with a place and the potential of it but everything outside of it doesn’t completely fit the bill (safety, climate, etc). We are stuck between finding a home to grow a family potentially or retire in and pay it off young or keep looking and moving/jumping mortgage into a better area.
I have been going through the same thoughts with my girlfriend.. soon she'll be remote and won't have any ties to living in the US. Going to use your spreadsheet to help us layout our interests help turn those dreams into an actual plan!
Hi Raul, Great! I hope the process we used helps you and your girlfriend. We found that doing the first steps independently and then coming together to talk about your preferences was really useful. Be sure to let us how it goes for you!
Take into account moving to Greece (Nafplio - my hometown)! I am from Greece, but currently living in the UK for the working opportunities as a Civil Engineer. I can help you if you take a decision like that... Both channels are great, keep that quality and energy!!!
I had the chance to visit Athens for work and had a really great time. I'd love to visit more of your country in the future. Thanks for the feedback! -Jason
I spent a couple of years air bnb’ing my way around the world going to places I thought I might like to live, basically just spending a month or two in each place. It’s a great way to get a feel for a place. I actually ended up in a place I thought I’d hate, but just went there to meet up with some friends 😂. I’ve been in Bali for 5+ years now and have bought land and built a house (money goes a lot further than it does in London!). I really don’t see myself heading back to the “west” any time soon. Medical care would probably be the only thing that might make me move. My parents are in Australia, so only a 5 hour flight from here.
I moved to my retirement location several years ago in preparation for my early retirement. It will be my home base, even if I decide to live elsewhere for part of the year. My main goal for retirement is to have an oceangoing sailboat, liveaboard, sailing the Caribbean part of each year. Unfortunately, there's a 3-5+ year backlog, depending on the boat, at the shipyards for the boats I want.
Eric, on your table comparing locations under consideration it states that California taxes SS. We live In California and our SS is not subject to state income taxes.
One important thing to consider is how long you can stay in any international destination. What are the VISA requirements? Can you apply for permanent residency or citizenship? Or can you only stay for 3 months as a tourist before having to leave?
Very true, Shaun, and an excellent point. Another related tip is that these guidelines can change, and often do! It pays to be informed on these important topics.
If you want the NW but the sun, symphony, skiing, beach, small city (100k) try Bend (253 sunny to partly sunny days a year). Smith rocks is famous for climbing and hiking, Deschutes river rafting, symphony in Eugene 2.5 hours away, skiing on mount bachelor, 10 minutes from downtown. Beach is 3.5 hours away. More skiing on Mt Hood with the Olympic training center. Breweries right in town. And no I don't work for the visitors bureau. Just have spent many, many vacations there and in Sunriver.
I am interested in hearing what “political leaning” means to you from your ranking chart. I think this typically drives what the taxes will be like in the state in which you call home.
Jason here - totally agreed that tax implications are part of it. But we were thinking more about sociopolitical leanings when we came up with these factors. Thanks for the question!
Distance from family and obligations to parents etc is a big part of it. I already live a 3 hour flight from my parents and am considering making that more like 9-10 hours by moving to SE Asia. It does weigh on you as you say... the guilt of not being there enough. Having said that, things like skype have helped bridge the distance incredibly. I'd also argue that many people who made that decision to live within say an hour or less of their parents, then went on to not see them as nearly as often as they assumed.. When you boil it down, within reason, you have to live the life 'you' want. Living by or for the expectations of others is not a great strategy.
Thanks for the comment, Jamie. You make a lot of points that resonate with us. Like anything, where to live is a decision that you need to weight against all the various priorities in our lives. Best wishes to you.
Trying to figure out where the California guy is, Monterey or San Luis Obispo county? Feels like former. Both great places to live. I lived in Monterey county, my daughter is in SLO.
I really like the idea of the ranked list, but the score doesn't seem to be ranking Factor #1 more than Factor #12. Ideally, wouldn't the non-negotiables be weighted more heavily than the "nice to haves"?
Jason here - Great point. I commented in a bit that got cut from the episode that one potential improvement would be a weighted average. The score is more of a relative comparator between towns holding all variables at equal weight. Otherwise we used the sheet largely as a visual indicator since the heat map of colors makes that pretty simple. Thanks for the feedback!
On this point, I noticed several factors ranked 1 and then 6,7,8 etc. is there a method to ranking a few all the absolute top 1 must have and then the rest in descending order? Filling this out now and wasnt sure on the ranking approach
@@lucid685 Jason here - per the conversation in the episode, these were the "non negotiables" that my wife and I came up with. We each made our own top ten list and then came together to determine our shared priorities. Naturally some "priority one" items may well be most important of all, but this is part of the discussion that needs to happen. Good luck to you!
@@TwoSidesOfFI -Yeah....coming from So Calif - but having lived in mid-west also - it's hard to want any other type of weather! Portugal Recon Visit is set for this coming Spring!✨🚀
Hi I live in London United Kington maybe is different but one question why buy a house after "retire" ? in my mind is better to rent, after some years in the same place can be boring and you increase things you hate , sometimes you buy a house and a new ( idiot ) neighbour move next you and you need live with this or move on. I will keep my house in UK as well but have many countries to stay based in my age. Ex. Thailand - in my 50's Mexico - Cancun in my 50's Florida - US - in my 60's but if I need health ( in my 80's) care I will move to Portugal where is good and cheaper ( I am from Brazil and speask portuguese ) or go back to London where health care will be free to me Have a lot of countries but depend of my age, if my kids are with me I will go to a place with a good school , easy language, can you imagine if you kid have accident and you need make a call in Thailand to help you by phone? choose a place is the most difficult to me
Jason here - Great question, thanks. We love renting and did so for many years prior. and did consider it again. We simply wanted to buy again. We do plan to do much more longer term travel once our daughter finishes school in a few years. But my wife really likes the idea of coming back to a home base. We've also really enjoyed the opportunity to do our own landscaping, and make other improvements - things we couldn't do whilst renting. Might we change our minds and sell the house down the road? Certainly. Coupling the very lost cost to borrow money + the rising real estate market in our area, we feel it's low risk to have purchased. It's certainly an individual decision and not one that all would elect. But it made sense for us.
It may be good to stay in the US until your kids go to college. After that you could rent 6mo-1yr at a time in different places in US or in the world until you decide to settle. We decided to move to Puerto Vallarta MX next year when we (lean) FI. Youngest will go to college next summer and oldest to grad school. We will be 4 hrs away by plane. If we don't like PV then we can try another city in MX or we can come back to our paid off house in US (which we will put up for rent - instead of selling). We also like sunny climates, walking everywhere, near the ocean, and be as close as possible to family. It may be that we don't like living abroad... well, we can always come back :). It is scary to move countries, but it is also exciting and we love the planning, organizing, downsizing, and learning a new culture/language, etc. Plus we can save money and live a better quality of life on less $.
