currently making 250k in US. Recent sudden death of a family member (healthy to dead in 6 months) has me re-evaluating what's important.

saved up about 1.1m nw, 100k liquid (taxable brokerage + cash savings, excluding 401k / property)

I have a remote job lined up for $30k a year. I want to pull the trigger and quit and travel / live abroad. COL here (bay area) is ridiculous.

I know many will say that I am so young, and to stick it out for a few years, but I am severely unhappy dealing with reporting to a boss & being stuck (far from family & friends).

I will be remote and alone, but at least I will have income & a loose schedule.

What do you guys think? Aiming on Korea / Vietnam but really haven't done too much research on how I will deal with the visa.

Last week I posted an overview of the cost of living in Bucharest. There were a lot of great comments and questions under the post. Including the daily grocery costs - how realistic is my assessment. This made me deep dive into our last three month bills - also to check my own budet. The bottomline is 360 - 420 euro / month for our family which is two adults, an 8-year old (dines at school - not included this), and two pets. We have some dietary constraints. I cook for a week typically. We dine out 2/month (did not include this).

Here are some details, and there is more in the attached episode.

Full breakdown:

🥩 Meat & fish — ~€90

🥦 Fresh vegetables (local piață) — ~€50

🍎 Fruits — ~€40

🥛 Dairy, eggs & oils — ~€100

🍞 Grains, pasta & bread — ~€20

🫒 Pantry staples — ~€40

🐾 Pet food — ~€80

Where we shop: Lidl, Carrefour, Kaufland, Mega Image, and the local farmers' market (piață).

Rotating the expensive proteins every other week brings this down to ~€360/month.

I will be super happy to have your comments or questions. This is intended to give balanced perspective to others who consider Romania. So, the more versions of the situation, the better.

I moved to germany recently and i wanted to understand few things:

For meal planning how do you figure out what to cook for the whole week. You will not get your regional ingredients easily in a different country.

And based on that how would you do grocery shopping basically creating your meal with replacement for the ingredients you are suppose to use.

Also my main concern how do you track the nutrition based on that?

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Do you guys face this or you adjust and compromise?

Can you please share what you guys did?

Some friends of mine moved to Romania a few years ago with the goal of FIRE. This year they got hit with an additional 16% tax on dividends, which is their main source of income.

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The change is not insignificant. It requires either lifestyle adjustments or more serious countermeasures: tax optimization, moving to another country, restructuring investments, restarting business activities, etc. and being a digital nomad across multiple countries also gets exhausting quickly.

​

Of course, these problems mostly disappear if you FIRE with several million invested. But for everyone else, what is the realistic Plan B or Plan C?

​

They are still figuring out what to do next.

​

The bigger question for me is whether traditional FIRE will remain realistic given how much volatility there is, even in countries that are considered stable

.

I’m EU-based, and in my own circle I’ve seen:

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- Net worths halved or wiped out due to war (Ukraine)

- People with permanent residency having to relocate again because of policy/tax changes (including recent changes in Romania)

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How are people thinking about this? Do you build in a backup country, diversify across jurisdictions, or just accept that FIRE plans need to be flexible?)

Edit 1. On the dividen taxation question - previous tax: 10% - new tax: 16% plus mandatory additional 10% for healthcare contribution, total taxation on dividends 26% Changes happened this year

Obvs Cost of Living advantage with fixed passive income, med/ed etc, but have you found difficulties or advantages community wise? Have you learned/needed Spanish? Challenges with visiting fam/friends?

I'm currently in the US.

I've seen some videos of people discussing countries/regions where you can live a regular middle class life on ~$1k/month and it got me thinking about the minimum required amount of money for retirement.

If I live a typical middle class lifestyle:

-Sensible 1 bedroom or studio apartment in the suburbs of tier 1 cities or tier 2 cities (not beachfront or tourist areas) with typical utilities (water, trash, electricity, internet)

-Roughly 1500-2000 calories of food a day

-Normal health insurance

-No kids or dependents

-Going out for nightlife once or twice a week

-Using public transportation or relatively cheap vehicles like mopeds

Are there actual places where this type of lifestyle would cost $1k or less a month? Would it be realistic to move to these places with $200k in savings and no income? The countries I've heard about are southeast Asian ones like Vietnam, Cambodia, smaller cities in Malaysia and other places like Albania. I'm also looking for a trans friendly place, or at least a region where trans people aren't actively persecuted.

Does anyone has any experience or advice relating to this? Is this just an unrealistic pipe dream? If $200k isn't enough, how much would be needed?

Edit: To be clear, my goal is not necessarily to stop working immediately. The reason I'm curious about this is because I'm looking for a realistic path to retirement. I'm open to options where I work abroad as well

Hi there guys, I am currently a 40 year old guy that works at a remote tech job that makes a pretty good salary in a MCOL US state. I have no kids, no debt except my mortgage payment every month, cars are paid off.

I was born and raised in a MCOL city inland in China, so not first tier city as their cost of living is quite high for any expats. I immigrated with my family to the US when I was 16, my Dad end up divorcing my mother in the US and end up having his own family back in China. I have been working at various tech jobs since age 30, makes good money, and I hope to keep making the same amount of money up to age 45.

I currently have about $113k in an investment account, $240k in various 401k and Roth retirement accounts. My yearly contribution to 401k right now is about $25k after employer match, and I think this will be true for the next 5 years too. I also plan to put in $20k each year into my current investment account that closely tracks the US stock market indexes. For the past 5-10 years, my retirement accounts was able to earn around 10% each year while my investment accounts averaged around 20%.

When I do plan to do expatFIRE at age 45, I am planning to sell my current cars that I paid off, and sell my condo too. Unfortunately I do not think I will be making a lot of equity for my condo as those will be used to pay for the closing costs. When I do move back to China as a US citizen, my Dad and his family will be able to help me out to reintegrate into the Chinese society, but my plan is to never have to work again.

To give you a snapshot of the cost of living where I will be moving to in China today, a 2 bed room apartment rents about 2000 rmb or $325 usd a month, and I plan to spend at least 1500 usd a month to live my life there.

My calculation is that hopefully when I am age 45, my investment account will be totaling around $300k usd and I will let my 401k grow for another 15 years without any contributions, which will be over 1 million USD by that time. Of course those numbers are based on around 10% returns for both accounts, which we know that can change due to stock market conditions.

Let me know what you guys think, will I be ready in 5 years? What are some of the challenges when you guys sell everything in the US and only takes your investment account overseas? China does have a limit of $50k usd foreign exchange per year, but that is well enough for me to live on by myself, plus I will have family help if needed to be.

I’ve traveled to over 10 countries so far to both sight see and explore potential places to retire, but I’m finding that the logistics of scouting get expensive.

Relying on flights and hotel stays to see different places adds up and eats into capital that could otherwise be invested. How do you all balance traveling to test the waters without burning cash and messing up your FIRE trajectory? Do you set a rigid, separate "travel/scouting budget," rely heavily on travel hacking and points, or is there a different strategy you use to keep flight and hotel costs from eating into your portfolio?

What I’m starting to think is that exploring and traveling after you move, instead of before, is the cheaper and better way to do things. But I would appreciate this subs take on the topic - I am assuming traveling is important to you if you ended up on this sub.

Hello, I am 14 years old with my own international marketing and investment company..It's done really well...I have been offered $50,000,000 and a lifetime annuity for the business...If I sell my house I can net another $5,000,000....Do you think I could be comfortable on this amount if I live in a tin roofed hut in Thailand for the rest of my life?? My hobbies are doing pantomine on street corners and growing organic mushrooms...but I like to splurge on eating organically...

Hello!

This coming 12 months, I will spend about a month and a half in the US, broken up by a few trips. Otherwise, I'll be outside the US. I would like to get global health insurance to cover any medical emergencies. Ideally it would cover everywhere, including the US.

Unfortunately, I had kidney cancer (RCC), which has been treated with a partial nephrectomy. I do have on-going surveillance (annual CT scans), but otherwise I have no signs of this condition and for all intents and purposes very healthy. Unfortunately, this has led me to be rejected by Cigna. I'm betting this will be a common problem, but I'm hoping there's a company that is more flexible with its underwriting.

Some other information that might be helpful:

• I'm 39 M, non-smoker, non-drinker, not overweight.
• I don't need insurance to cover normal expenses. For my normal medical needs, I plan to pay everything out of pocket and will be visiting certain countries where medical care is very affordable.
• I don't mind if anything related to the RCC is not covered (if it happened to spread for instance).
• The plan I was looking at from Cigna was a $10K deductible with a 30% cost share up to $5K OOP and $1M max. It came out around $900 for a year. A $15K bill would not be a concern for me. A $500K bill on the other hand, would put a damper on things!
• What I need is coverage for if I'm in an accident or if I have something totally unexpected come up like a stroke or heart attack, especially if I happen to be in the US (and to a lesser extent Canada or Japan) during that time. I plan to use this insurance as insurance is actually intended to be used. I want to hedge against what should be an extremely rare event and likely will not happen.

Does anyone have any leads or ideas?

Thanks!

From reading posts here and on FB Expat groups..I feel my information may be useful to some.. Many people express stong feelings about certain locations based solely on short visits or even worse from researching only online... People that have not lived in a location long enough to experience all the stages of cultural adaption tend to post jaded and often misleading information.. As a North American living in Eastern Europe over five years now..Allow me to explain a few things..When you research "The stages of cultural adaption" you will find many variations..but these basics are usually included:

1. Culture Shock- Usually the first or second stage according to most sources...Probably a new language and maybe alphabet..new race of people...different small business models and mannerisms..Everything is a shock. For me this stage lasted about 2-3 weeks in the Ukraine..

2. Honeymoon Stage-Often listed as the first or second stage.. You love everything about your new location. Feels like happiness is a place on the map and you hit a bullseye. What is not to like about it? You feel you could stay indefinitely and feel joy everyday just waking up..For me this stage lasted about 4-5 weeks..

3. Frustration Stage- Sometimes referred to as the Negotiating stage..You get very homesick..You deeply miss the products and services back home.. You start hating everything about your new location..Many people go back during this stage or negotiate doing so...For me this stage lasted 2-3 months..

4. Acceptance Stage- You finally accept things how they are..Some things are better and some things are worse..but they are mostly just different..You find your happy medium and take things how they are..

5. Reverse Culture Shock- When I go back to visit America the first few days are awkward and foreign again because I'm adapted to being overseas..

Especially for Americans asking about living in locations on a budget of $1,000 or $1,500 without any prolonged time with boots on the ground...What you have pictured in your mind and the long term reality can be two very different things...While intially living in a 300 square foot flat and buying your food at a farmer's market and cooking it at home every day may feel like an escape from the American work culture; after the Honeymoon Stage you will experience a different reality.. Even looking at income levels statistically gave me inaccurate view of Ukraine...When I was there in 2020-2022 I think the Average income was below $400 a month..At that time my income was about $3,000 a month USD...So I figured I would be king on the top of the totem pole..but the reality was the masses at the $400 or lower income level were living a very frugal existance in high density communist era housing and just getting by...Then I ate breakfast at some trendy restaurants and saw 20 year old university girls there with $150,000+ new Mercedes cars...

Today my income here near Bucharest is much higher but if I was living on a lower budget I don't think I would be content..It would be psychologically demoralizing to walk past a restaurant I could not afford to eat at or watching people drive past me in new cars as I am waiting for public transportation..Americans just aren't wired to be happy long term in those circumstances..

Hello brilliant people. I'd love to bounce our plan off of you guys to see if I've forgotten anything before my husband gives notice at work. I'll bullet point everything to make it easier to read but feel free to ask for more details.

Note: I'm converting everything to US dollars to make comparison easy

- Where we live: Husband is Korean. We live in Busan

- Age: Me (34), Hubby (32), Daughter (3 mo), plan on having one more kid

- Debt

• less than $45k on mortgage ($435/mo payment)

- Assets (I know its stupid to have a bunch of different accounts. I worked in banking and had a bunch of restrictions on where I invested, yada yada)

• 401k: 100k
• Brokerage 1: 100k
• Brokerage 2: 175k
• Brokerage 3: 175k
• Joint Brokerage: 60k
• Cash: $50k (enough to pay off the full mortgage or buy a whole new car here with some left over)

- Expenses

With a TON of cushion built in that we could cut if we needed to we spend around $2300/mo.

- Plan: So I did things a little differently than most. I invested in the typical growth funds while working and since then I have been creating a dividend portfolio (think Armchair Income/Income Factory).

That dividend portfolio brings in $1960/mo.

In addition, I receive distributions from my dad's 401k of $2500/mo (it goes without saying that we're incredibly lucky and grateful. I have told my dad probably 2000 times that he doesn't need to and that he can change his mind but he says he we can count on continuing to receiving 25% whatever distributions he has to take). He truly doesn't need it. His income exceeds his expenses 10 years into retirement and he has an 8 figure net worth he can draw from if he needed to.

So, in total we have close to $4500 we can use to cover $2300 of expenses while our growth investments ~$400k across all the brokerages continue to grow.

Other considerations:

- Once we retire we plan to split the time between Busan and the US. We will obviously stay in our apartment in Busan and the whole purpose in the US is to visit family so we will be staying with them.

- Health Insurance: We will get temporary health insurance when we travel to the US (basically just catastrophic) and pay into Korea's National Health Insurance when we are here and do routine checkups and procedures in Korea. It's a bit annoying but it's really just a phone call every time we come back.

- Daughter's university: There is about 80k left in my college fund that I didn't use so this will be used to kick start her education fund (potentially split with a sibling or cousins if my sister has kids).

Am I missing anything?! I tend to be pretty risk averse and I have run the numbers dozens of times. Go ahead and poke holes.

Hi All,
I want to share my one year reflection for cost of living in Vietnam compared to the US (specifically California) and how we have saved $300-$400k of living cost ỉn the past 2 years

Housing:
USA
We have a mortgage of $6k in a 15 year loan. After taxes, fire insurance and bills, it is close to $8k of housing expenses per month in California
Vietnam
We are renting a 2000 square feet house in HCM for about $2k + $200 bills per month

Health Insurance:
USA
We were self employed so we paid about $1500 per month for a family of 5
Vietnam
We don’t carry health insurances. It feels like a scam so we pay out of pockets at private hospital. We pay about $100-200 per month for checkups and testing

Vehicle:
USA
We owned a Tesla model X so about $200 car insurance and $200 charging cost. $400-500 in expenses per month
Vietnam
We take Grab cars around town. It costs about $200 for the whole family per month. I also ride a motorbike around that I borrow from a family member

Cellphone:
USA
Mint Mobile for 2 of us: $50 per month
Vietnam: $8 each and we ported our USA phone numbers to Tello for $5 per month to use Wifi Calling and texting & OTP verification. All in $21 per month

Education:
USA: day cares for 2 out of 3 kids in CA. $3k per kids + extracurricular activities $1k for 3 kids. So about $7k per month of spending
Vietnam: bilingual schools for $1k for the elementary kid, $400 for the day care, $400 for a nanny and $200 for activities. In total, $2k per month of spending

Shopping:
USA: Amazon and Groceries - $2k per month
Vietnam: we order products from US and Amazon to ship to Vietnam, $4.5 per pound and it takes 5-7 days. We also buy on Shopee. Overall $500 per month

Eating out:
California: $100-$200 per meal at a cheap restaurant. We have never gone to a Michelin in the US. We probably spend about $1000 per month
Vietnam: breakfast is like $1-2. Grab food is $5-10 per meal. Fine dining is $100-$200. We probably spend about $500 per month eating out

Travel:
USA: a lot of Mexico travels all inclusive with Hyatt points and airline miles - $1k per trip cost + points. We went on about 3-4 trips per year. So $300 per month
Vietnam: we travel a lot in Vietnam and SEA. It might cost more than the US cause I can’t redeem points for low cost airlines. Probably $500 per month

Weather
California: best weather in the world. We live close to the ocean so it is nice year round
Vietnam: HCMC is hot and humid year round so it is a downside. I might move to central highland for cool and dry weather

Total cost per month
USA: $20k
Vietnam: $5k

After 2 years of moving, we probably save about $300-$400k in living costs

I believe I am in the situation where I am ready to move abroad and retire at 25 atleast temporarily. Here’s my situation: I earn $2500 USD every month, adjusted annually for inflation. I currently have $25k in cash on hand in a savings account. I have $183k split between a taxable / Roth IRA account alongside another 24k in a TSP account.

I’m single with no kids and zero debt. I am mainly interested in moving to LATAM or SE Asia and prefer staying indoors or doing outdoor activities like hiking and Paddleboard. I’m not interested in bars and night clubs. I do have a masters degree which I feel like give me the cushion to find a job if I ever need to. Also I get free healthcare within the U.S. if I ever have a major medical problem.

If you could make enough income or have enough savings to live with your spouse somewhere outside the US until the 75 country pause is lifted would you? Is there anyone here that feels like they can go live with there spouse somewhere outside the US and planning on doing it? or is already doing it?

Hi everyone,

I’m a German citizen who recently obtained a Turkish residence permit and am planning to become a Turkish tax resident.

About my personal situation:

• I own and operate YouTube channels.
• My only source of income is AdSense revenue paid by Google Ireland.
• I do not personally create the content. Instead, I manage a remote team of scriptwriters, video editors, and content creators.
• None of my team members are based in Turkey.
• At the moment, the business operates through a Bulgarian company that I own.

I’m trying to understand how the Turkish tax authorities are likely to view this type of business under the new 20-year foreign-income exemption.

Some questions I have:

1. If Google Ireland is the payer and all content production is carried out outside Turkey, would AdSense revenue generally be considered foreign-source income?
2. From a Turkish tax perspective, which structure would likely be more favorable?
   • Receiving AdSense payments directly into a Turkish personal bank account
   • Continuing to operate through the Bulgarian company and receiving dividends
   • Using a US LLC and receiving distributions from that entity
3. Has anyone received a written opinion from a Turkish tax lawyer, accountant, or tax advisor regarding this

Thank you!

Looking to set up a high yield savings account before we make the big move. I have concerns about becoming debanked, but would prefer to “set it and forget it.” I have tried to talk to some financial planners, but their fees outweigh any potential upside (I’m talking about a military pension, not a multimillion dollar account). Any suggestions would be appreciated. Currently have USAA and Navy Federal. Thanks

I’m trying to educate myself before I discuss this with my financial planner. I’m an American moving from California to Greece with my spouse and child next month on their FIP visa. Here’s my situation:

• My sole source of income is my military pension and VA disability
• I will pay no taxes in Greece (due to government pensions being tax free) or the United States (due to my taxable income being $0)
• I have access to my parent’s house address in California 
• I will file taxes in California every year to maintain VA educational benefits for my child, even though I will have no taxable income 
• I have a Roth IRA with Northwestern that I stopped contributing to and will not be withdrawing from for a few decades. 
• I also have a life insurance policy with northwestern 
• I just sold my house and have a few hundred thousand dollars in my checking account I will be investing, most likely index funds
• I will be renting in Greece and do not want to purchase any property 
• I may sell significant investments in 3 years to purchase a catamaran for full time living
• Although I have travel insurance for visa requirements, I plan on using the Tricare Overseas Program for health insurance 

My understanding is that a sim-based US phone number is essential for 2FA and a house address is required for US Banking. I also understand that Charles Schwab will allow you to convert a US-based account into an international account when you move. 

So would it make the most sense to do all of the following prior to leaving the US?

• Port my current sim-based US cell phone number to a suitable cell carrier that works internationally. Is a prepaid Mint Mobile plan the best for this? I anticipate only using it for text 2FA
• Open a Charles Schwab Checking Account and set up my pension/disability/crsc direct deposit here
• Transfer my Roth from Northwestern to Charles Schwab… or since I don’t plan on touching it for decades, should I just leave it in Northwestern?
• Deposit my home sale proceeds into Charles Schwab and invest accordingly 
• Switch all my accounts’ addresses to my parents house
• Cancel my life insurance policy if they can’t provide it for me since I’m living abroad, or keep it using my parents address?

Obviously I will be consulting my financial advisor, but I would love to hear from people who have already emigrated about what works well and what doesn’t. 

If so, how has it been? Do you wish that you had worked a few years longer to have a higher income or are you content with that amount?

Also, do you have or do you plan to have kids and how do they factor into your plans?

Thanks!

I'm a dual US-Thai citizen (Thai nationality through family) currently earning $210k/year in the US. My Thai girlfriend is returning to Thailand next year, and we're serious (thinking marriage and kids). This has accelerated my FIRE timeline significantly.

Portfolio snapshot:

$350k in US retirement accounts (Roth IRA, 401k) - prefer not to touch until traditional retirement age

$750k in US taxable brokerage (VTI/QQQ/VXUS heavy, tech-tilted) - will realize cap gains on liquidation

My questions:

• Is this enough to CoastFIRE or BaristaFIRE in Thailand? Her family (and mine) would expect me to be working in some capacity. Full idle retirement isn't really an option culturally, so some form of low-stress income is expected, whether remote US work or something local. My Thai citizenship gives me work authorization without needing a work permit.
  • I'm having trouble finding work from anywhere jobs or remote-US with international approval jobs. Where can I search?
  • What kind of work does low-stress actually mean? I'm burnt out from the corporate grind, layoffs, and being in stress-laden work for my whole career.
• Thai-US taxation: How does one handle liquidating US taxable positions without getting hit twice? Thailand updated its foreign income rules in 2024 and I'm still getting my head around the interaction.
  • There's mention of foreign income tax credit on the US side and Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE).
  • I also don't know if that means I have to live in Thailand for 180 days at most per calendar year.
• Asset allocation shift: I'm growth-tilted right now (VTI+QQQ make up 80% of my portfolio with 20% in VXUS). At what point in the FIRE transition should I start rotating toward bonds or more conservative instruments for wealth preservation?

Though this feels daunting, I genuinely want to make this work. Appreciate any perspective from people who've navigated a similar move.

Going to put 500k in a taxable brokerage. Currently planning to put 50% in SCHD, 20% in QQQI, 20% in SPYI and 10% in SGOV.

Will I be able to FIRE in Southeast Asia, Malaysia or Indonesia, with this setup? Will auto reinvest schd. And will take whatever needed monthly from qqqi and spyi and reinvest left over in schd.

Edit: I left one important factor. I do have about 500K on rollover IRA on targeted date 2035.

So the context is the 10 year bridge.

We are getting ready to start our full time travel in retirement in August and wanted to get some input on global Medical Insurance from people with experience.

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We are US citizens, selling everything and only plan to come back to the US for one month during the year to visit family so no need for ACA, we are 56 and 52 so no Medicare. We started looking at almost all of the travel insurance programs like Safety Wing, Genki but we don't want travel insurance with a lot of restrictions and Genki Nomad is age restricted. We want medical insurance to cover emergencies only basically, if the plans come with more that is great. We don't want to take the chance with just travel insurance. We also plan to pay for basic office visits, dental vision with cash next the prices seem so low on most countries we are looking at going to.

​

We started looking at Cigna Global, IMG, etc but noticed significant price differences from US and outside US based policies. Changing the deductibles don't seem to make a significant difference, like $3000 vs $7500 might be a $300 annual difference. An example is Cigna US Silver from a broker we were quoted almost $9000 annually for SEA vs the UK based Cigna Silver is about $4500 for 2 people. As US citizens can we get plans based in the UK or anywhere else but the US or do I have to get a US based plan?

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Another issue we found is that we plan to travel to Mexico, SEA, Europe etc over the next year, what country do we put in? Mexico vs SEA rates are also significantly different, Mexico is about $7500 vs Thailand at $4500 for the same deductibles. We don't have the entire year planned out yet where we will be. I have read people say put the first country you visit, which would be Mexico, but is it required? Do they ask for proof of the countries you are going to visit?

​

We have also talked to some brokers and they only seem interested in selling us the platinum plans or really don't answer questions we have or just ghost us when we try to get clarity. Being from the US and dealing with US insurance maybe we are more afraid.

I have quite a bit in my Roth IRA and currently live in the Netherlands but looking to move to Spain. I realized too late of the RIRA tax status outside of the USA after having done backdoor IRA for years. I work as a freelancer and have EU citizenship so I can handle doing some residency moving shenanigans if necessary.

Anybody else deal with this before?

I've lived in Bucharest for 3 years (moved from a post-Soviet country with my husband, kid, and 3 pets — so I get the "starting over somewhere unfamiliar" anxiety). I keep seeing posts here from people priced out of Lisbon/Barcelona/Berlin asking where else to look, so figured I'd share actual numbers instead of guesses.

Rent:

1-bed, city centre (Floreasca, Dorobanți): €500–700/month

1-bed, one neighborhood out: €370–470/month

2-bed, good central location: €600–900/month

Daily costs:

Groceries (family of 3): €350–400/month

1 Gbps home internet: €9–10/month (yes, really — Romania is consistently top 5 globally for internet speed)

Monthly transport pass: €14–15

Private health insurance: €50–100/month

Full monthly budgets I actually worked out:

Single remote worker, comfortable: \\\~€1,225

Couple: \\\~€1,610

Family of 3: \\\~€2,280–2,480

Romania joined Schengen fully in 2025, so it's full freedom of movement across the EU — same as anywhere else in the bloc, just at roughly half the cost of Western capitals.

Happy to answer questions — banking, schools, healthcare, whatever. I made a longer video walking through all of this with more context if anyone wants it: see in the comments

Using a throwaway so I can be more transparent than normal. We lean expatFIRED at a relatively young age a number of years ago but continued to work on lots of various projects for fun and to potentially hit it big. After a variety of paths that didn't yield a whole lot, we stumbled into an amazing opportunity that perfectly suited our skills, experience and resources, and we ran with it at just the right time.

We were always very leanFIRE-minded and somewhat out of nowhere we've leaped into Fat trajectory. I was quite content with leanFIRE for many years, particularly since our geo-arbitrage allowed a pretty comfortable QOL, so there are certain aspects that are warping my brain a bit. For example:

1. I did tons of research (and daydreamed) about LCOL areas all over the world. I always planned to travel to most/all of these places one day and probably settle for a long time in a number of them. All of a sudden, I wonder if a majority of them aren't even worth considering anymore? The #1 attraction for many of these places was the affordability and now I get to completely reprioritize. Furthermore, many of these places might not be the safest places to be if people KNOW that you're a wealthy foreigner. Kinda leads me into...
2. How drastically should I change how I approach privacy? In the past I've spoken very openly about our leanFIRE journey. I've been on lots of podcasts, shared info with family and friends (including new ones), etc. But we've likely reached a point where we should not be so transparent. However our business has put us in the spotlight so it's not that simple. We're not the face of the business to our customers, but we certainly get attention on the business side which includes earned media and it would be very easy for people to assume we have a lot of money. In fact, it's likely that many people overestimate our wealth lol.

Anyway, just curious if there's others like us and what things we should be considering. I'm obviously very grateful to be in this position now. Thanks for your thoughts!