Why US citizens leave to live abroad--summary via video - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15121681
It is interesting but many US citizens now are reconsidering living abroad. Mostly people who used to be middle class and well educated are finding the US very unattractive to stay.

The reasons they give consistently are these:

1)Health care costs. Expensive and difficult.

2) Rents and mortgages on flat wages.

3)Food quality and availability of fresh food every day. Many people don't like the taste, quality or style of coping with food in the USA. No one with flat wages can cope with Whole Foods prices.

4) Personal relationships. The majority of friends are on the internet and no one talks to anyone face-to-face anymore. This is bound to become worse due to the pandemic conditions. Aleination is already part of the rat race no relationships of importance trend.

5) Lack of family friendly employers.

6) Lack of traditions and lack of historical roots. A lot of people in the USA move constantly from state to state and city to city and it makes for rootless communities that are again alienated.

7) The racism is real. Many African American people don't like the stress of dealing with racism as a constant in their lives. Neither do the Latinos.

8) Bad politics. It depends on your politics.

9) Lack of speaking foreign languages. Many US citizens who prefer living abroad ae fluent in more than one world language and have a lot more flexibility because of it. Study foreign languages while in the US and it will pay off over time.

10) Religious reasons. Many religious institutions want to expand their outreach and they do it by missionary work outside of the 50 states.

Here are some videos of people who left and the reasons why:








Good advice on the regrets:



#15121685
@Rancid that woman at the end in the last video lives in my city. I have friends now who are getting ready to retire and they are asking my husband all the time of how to buy or rent a home and move to Mexico. Especially smaller cities like mine. I don't want the rat race and crime of Mexico City. But I don't like tiny small towns with nothing to do. For me this place fits the bill.

I bought on a limited budget. The place I bought for my airbnb costs like 105k and you put in another 25k in repairs and upgrades and you can resell it even in this pandemic for a big profit. It is a good investment. But I did it in a very unorthodox way and I doubt someone else would get a similar result. I recommend avoiding American from the states realty companies and their owners. All of them inflate the prices they charge to retirees. Go for strictly Mexican realty people with their lawyers. Speaking Spanish and reading Spanish paperwork and negotiating deals without the American vulture types will save you easily 100k on a realty deal.
#15121687
Tainari88 wrote:@Rancid that woman at the end in the last video lives in my city. I have friends now who are getting ready to retire and they are asking my husband all the time of how to buy or rent a home and move to Mexico. Especially smaller cities like mine. I don't want the rat race and crime of Mexico City. But I don't like tiny small towns with nothing to do. For me this place fits the bill.

I bought on a limited budget. The place I bought for my airbnb costs like 105k and you put in another 25k in repairs and upgrades and you can resell it even in this pandemic for a big profit. It is a good investment. But I did it in a very unorthodox way and I doubt someone else would get a similar result. I recommend avoiding American from the states realty companies and their owners. All of them inflate the prices they charge to retirees. Go for strictly Mexican realty people with their lawyers. Speaking Spanish and reading Spanish paperwork and negotiating deals without the American vulture types will save you easily 100k on a realty deal.


That's great. That said, if foreigners from the wealthier nations start moving to poorer countries because of the cheap cost of living, it will drive the cost of living up, which would screw over the natives of the town. It is a double edged sword for those small towns. Much needed money is brought in, but there's a cost to that. The cost of living goes up, and the culture changes. I think these towns need to limit how many foreigners can move in and buy property to protect the local poor, and to preserve the city culture. This is the reason places like Silicon Valley, Austin, Barcelona, etc. have become difficult to live in for working class people. This is why Austin is losing it's historically weird culture ("keep austin weird and all that"). For the record, Portland stole the phrase from Austin. "Keep Austin weird" was created first, and Portland stole it. ANother city that's losing its culture due to this sort of things is New Orleans. New Orleans is becoming in danger of becoming a boring city like Indianapolis or Kansas City.
#15121693
I've been advising frands to get out if they can, since the near-future in the U.S. doesn't look very bright. One frand moved to Nicaragua months ago. Another frand is currently living in Berlin since just before covid hit, she was over here on tour anyway and decided it'd be better for her mental health to live in Europe than go back during this shitshow. My ex-husband is in the process of selling most of his things to move to Europe, he keeps talking about coming to London but I'm recommending Spain. :D And another frand is currently in Mexico City and is planning to try staying there for as long as possible.
#15121700
Rancid wrote:That's great. That said, if foreigners from the wealthier nations start moving to poorer countries because of the cheap cost of living, it will drive the cost of living up, which would screw over the natives of the town. It is a double edged sword for those small towns. Much needed money is brought in, but there's a cost to that. The cost of living goes up, and the culture changes. I think these towns need to limit how many foreigners can move in and buy property to protect the local poor, and to preserve the city culture. This is the reason places like Silicon Valley, Austin, Barcelona, etc. have become difficult to live in for working class people. This is why Austin is losing it's historically weird culture ("keep austin weird and all that"). For the record, Portland stole the phrase from Austin. "Keep Austin weird" was created first, and Portland stole it. ANother city that's losing its culture due to this sort of things is New Orleans. New Orleans is becoming in danger of becoming a boring city like Indianapolis or Kansas City.


Merida families that sold their old historic properties to foreigners were people who bought the suburban US citizen boring paradigm and reproduce Americana boring ass life in gated communities up north. The US citizens love the ancient old buildings and colonial homes in historic downtown and pour money into restoring it. But it makes for more expensive real estate. Most of the American bores move to Playa del Carmen and Cancun. They stay away from Merida. Merida is the Yucatecan historic capital and as such, they have less influence.

Most US citizens who live here in Mexico permanently are nice people. But in the end? They are not Latin Americans. So they do change the culture. But the city has a lot of Latin American foreigners. Venezuelans, Colombians, Guatemalans, Cubans, etc. they far outnumber the Americans. Puerto Rico is not overrun with American mainlanders simply because of the Spanish Rancid. The Americans keep wanting to not speak Spanish at all and live well in warm weather nations. They get a reality check when no one speaks English and when they try to get jobs that are not online? They are hit in the face with the forced bilingualism. It keeps them from taking over inexpensive, warm cities with low costs of living and high quality of life standards.

@skinster if things continue to deteriote in the USA and people can get on disability or some form of pension or social security they prefer going to South America or Mexico. Puerto Rico is way too expensive for most and due to its shitty relationship with the USA has limited options for getting out of the hole it is in economically. People here ask me all the time why I don't live in Puerto Rico. I tell them the truth. It is a US dollar system and a colony that doesn't work.

I am getting ready to get a long term work visa next week from immigration. I plan on double citizenship in the future. It is very advantageous for my son, my family. When a Mexican government can give you more rights than being a Puerto Rican living in Puerto Rico? That is a very important reality.

It is better to be independent as a nation and negotiate on your own terms relationships of all sorts with other nations in partnerships that benefit both nations rather than remaining in bad colonial one way street relationships burdened with debt and lack of sovereignty and austerity economies without even a glimmer of being able to declare bankruptcy. It is bad.

I think the best thing is to live in a low cost of living nation that you have visited before and like.

Rancid and his wife like Argentina. He should consider retirement. Spain has a lot of advantages for USA citizen retirees. But you got to be aware that if you buy a property in Spain the money will never be transferable outside of Spain. If you doubt you are going to live all the rest of your years in Spain? Don't buy property there.
#15121710
Tainari88 wrote:Rancid and his wife like Argentina. He should consider retirement. Spain has a lot of advantages for USA citizen retirees. But you got to be aware that if you buy a property in Spain the money will never be transferable outside of Spain. If you doubt you are going to live all the rest of your years in Spain? Don't buy property there.


Yes, Argentina is one of our target countries. Love that country. :) I really did enjoy Spain, but it looks very expensive relative to Latin America.

Do you think it's a requirement to buy property? What about the strategy of just renting a cheap one bed room for me and my wife? Recall, that I'm saving/investing for retirement such that I don't really need to sustain an income in retirement. The goal is to be able to retire by age 55, which i think we might be able to do it. Engineers salary, plus I live like i make half the money I actually make. I clean my own house, do my own landscaping, fix our cars, etc. etc. Unlike most of my peers that pay large amounts of money to have other people do that stuff for them. Maybe that's just he Latino work ethic in me. Latinos all know how to clean, fix cars, and do lawns. :lol:
#15121725
Rancid wrote:Yes, Argentina is one of our target countries. Love that country. :) I really did enjoy Spain, but it looks very expensive relative to Latin America.

Do you think it's a requirement to buy property? What about the strategy of just renting a cheap one bed room for me and my wife? Recall, that I'm saving/investing for retirement such that I don't really need to sustain an income in retirement. The goal is to be able to retire by age 55, which i think we might be able to do it. Engineers salary, plus I live like i make half the money I actually make. I clean my own house, do my own landscaping, fix our cars, etc. etc. Unlike most of my peers that pay large amounts of money to have other people do that stuff for them. Maybe that's just he Latino work ethic in me. Latinos all know how to clean, fix cars, and do lawns. :lol:


Good strategy Rancid. I think you can get a lovely one bedroom. I bought near the coast. This in Mexico means you have to pay a bank to manage the property for you every year even though you paid cash for the property. Still got to cough up the fee every year. If it is coastal property. You don't have to do that if you buy a house in your own name away from the coast. It is the same as buying as a Mexican. But once you hit the coast of Mexico and try to buy property near the coast? The rules change and you have to have a bank trust involved. This happened because rich Americans would buy tons of beachfront property in Mexico and started prohibiting Mexicans from using the coast. And Mexico has been invaded by foreign armies via its ports like Veracruz and others. So the Mexican government made it a law that foreigners are never allowed to rule over the property near the coast.

But? Once you become a Mexican citizen? You don't have to pay the bank trust fees every year. Just pay a lawyer to change the title for you.

Funny what you said about cleaning, lawn, and fixing cars. Lol. My husband and I SUCK at fixing cars, and not the greatest at lawn care. I learned how to clean well and I pull my own weeds. But I take basic care of my car. My husband is terrible at oil changes, basic maintenance, and stuff with cars. Right now my car has some part of the front bumper dragging on the ground. I got to get someone to fix it.

You save money on cleaning and yard care if you do it yourself.

I think the best thing I did was get friends to help with cleaning and so on and I do English homework help with them. Lol.
#15121728
Tainari88 wrote:I think the best thing I did was get friends to help with cleaning and so on and I do English homework help with them. Lol.
Tainari88 wrote:I think the best thing I did was get friends to help with cleaning and so on and I do English homework help with them. Lol.


That's how my dad did it as a kid. He would fix everyone's car, and they would pay him back by helping him with stuff like remodeling a bathroom, or fixing an air conditioner. That's how it was in my old neighborhood, people trade their skills with each other to avoid having to pay tons of money to companies.
#15121733
Rancid wrote:That's how my dad did it as a kid. He would fix everyone's car, and they would pay him back by helping him with stuff like remodeling a bathroom, or fixing an air conditioner. That's how it was in my old neighborhood, people trade their skills with each other to avoid having to pay tons of money to companies.


Ah, Mutual Aid. The solution to Capitalism. :up:

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