Leaving the US because it’s just not affordable anymore

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am hearing of people moving to Portugal. I can't manage to learn any other languages but English, and I'm jewish (and poor), but otherwise I'd leave the US too.

History. Jews always need to be thinking of the next place to go. How about Canada?

[Anonymous]

Japan

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, the more we travel the more we can see how crappy the US has become. Huge and noticeable decline, and the US is far behind so many nations in so many ways. Roads/bridges and other infrastructure are falling part. Trash is often everywhere that the US looks more like a 3rd world country. So many junkies, strungout addicts and homeless everywhere that you simply don't see in countries like Australia, Japan, or South Korea. The worst public transportation. Horrifically exensive rail transit. Terrible performing schools. Terrible public safety and high crime due to all of the guns. Very bad and very expensive food. High rents and mssively overpriced housing. INSANELY overpriced internet and cellular services.

And the grand daddy of them all - Healthcare. What a freak show and a joke in the US.

Yes OP, the more we see of the world, the more we realize the American dream is a sham. The US is dystopian hellhole nightmare in so many ways and so far behind so many other first world countries in many ways. The US is increasingly a really crappy place to live.

USA has sold its soul to oil

[Anonymous]

The US is done!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hoping to move to the Baltics at 62, but part time as my kids stay here. It's getting more expensive, but countryside is still affordable.
The best part is the long summer nights, fresh local food, and no people.
Healthcare is fine. Ambulance has come out 5 times for our family alone and put us back together.

You will not do part time as you get older. More challenges. Just pick one of the two places or a different place altogether if your kids will also move to that third place

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Before you get all excited about national healthcare check on waiting times for things.

Sorry, you're not scaring anyone, Fox News. US Healthcare is gutter trash bottom of the barrel trash that makes the entire country unliveable. Number of countries that wish they had a HC system like the US: 0.

+1 We see the horror stories and outliers but ignore the vast majority of times that it works smoothly and as it should in other countries, for much less $$ and insurance company middleman profit. I don't want to emigrate to have that. I want to have that here. We deserve that here for all our tax money. Also no guns.

I know most people posting in favor of living outside the US are more upset at a certain administration than the actual realities of life in America. I have lived both in the US and in several countries overseas for many (many!) years so I have no rosy lens about life outside the US. I lived in the UK, Germany, Dubai and Singapore for a collective 15 years and another 10 years of adulthood in the US so I'm not ignorant to the pros and cons. Just don't fall into the trap of thinking the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. The UK, for example, has substantial problems with their overburdened national health system to the point that many regular people are paying cash for quick visits to doctors instead of having to wait months and even over a year for an appointment. Even countries with excellent healthcare like Switzerland still have waiting lists and believe it or not - I know people who moved back to the US after working in Switzerland for 10+ years because in retirement it was easier and quicker to rely on US healthcare than the rationed Swiss healthcare. The US healthcare system is a mess but on the flip side it is also extremely generous and proactive in ways most countries' systems are not. And people still often have private healthcare in many developed countries.

Culturally, mass migration has become a major tension point across all of Europe, in part of the burdens on the welfare state. Housing costs are very expensive in most of the major cities across Europe, the US is much more affordable. US also has a much better racial integration compared to the rest of the developed countries. There are some things European countries can do better, food is a bit cheaper, yes, transportation/housing tends to be more expensive and salaries are also lower, often substantially lower... so....

The people with the grass-is-greener-other-side will be in for some difficult times if they uproot just as some of your grandparents/great grandparents + did when they moved to the great US of A. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, the more we travel the more we can see how crappy the US has become. Huge and noticeable decline, and the US is far behind so many nations in so many ways. Roads/bridges and other infrastructure are falling part. Trash is often everywhere that the US looks more like a 3rd world country. So many junkies, strungout addicts and homeless everywhere that you simply don't see in countries like Australia, Japan, or South Korea. The worst public transportation. Horrifically exensive rail transit. Terrible performing schools. Terrible public safety and high crime due to all of the guns. Very bad and very expensive food. High rents and mssively overpriced housing. INSANELY overpriced internet and cellular services.

And the grand daddy of them all - Healthcare. What a freak show and a joke in the US.

Yes OP, the more we see of the world, the more we realize the American dream is a sham. The US is dystopian hellhole nightmare in so many ways and so far behind so many other first world countries in many ways. The US is increasingly a really crappy place to live.

USA has sold its soul to oil

Paying for it by building more and more weapons that eventually get in the hands of those who should not have weapons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am hearing of people moving to Portugal. I can't manage to learn any other languages but English, and I'm jewish (and poor), but otherwise I'd leave the US too.

You need $500k invested for five yeras and competency in Portuguese.

If you're Jewish Israel will probably take you and give you a pension.

Yeah, the people I am hearing of plus the guy I know who wants to retire there easily has that much money. I can't speak Hebrew (or learn it) and wilt in the heat. So I am not sure I could do okay in Israel.

You can make it in Israel without fluency in Hebrew. My ex had several cousins move there and none spoke Hebrew. Their kids learned quickly and translated for them for years.

So what you're saying is that in Israel you need to either speak Hebrew or have someone to go out with you to translate. I don't have a translator.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am hearing of people moving to Portugal. I can't manage to learn any other languages but English, and I'm jewish (and poor), but otherwise I'd leave the US too.

History. Jews always need to be thinking of the next place to go. How about Canada?

I'm not rich enough to move to Canada, otherwise I'd have gone there already.

[Anonymous]

I hate the 🍊but will never leave the US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you live in the DC area. There are plenty of parts of the US that have a much lower cost of living. Albuquerque for example. Or Indianapolis.

Yay. Albuquerque. A city where they have massive problems with hordes of junkies smashing windows to get into cars. The US is a disaster everywhere. Just rapid decline, misery, and fraying of the social contract everywhere. Ughh. The decline is so noticeable in my lifetime. Everywhere in the US has gotten dirtier, more crude, more crass, more violent, and more rundown. The US is rapidly turning into an entire nation with tailer park culture and mentality. Plus, the worst heslthcare in the world is inescapable even if you move to a lcol area.

But much, much more diverse! That’s gotta balance out everything. We invited the entire third world here; this is the natural consequence.

The third world is only third because white people looted it. Get some reparations and then we’ll see how “developed” the first world really is.

This comment is bizarrely ignorant of history. US education is so poor now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Before you get all excited about national healthcare check on waiting times for things.

Sorry, you're not scaring anyone, Fox News. US Healthcare is gutter trash bottom of the barrel trash that makes the entire country unliveable. Number of countries that wish they had a HC system like the US: 0.

+1 We see the horror stories and outliers but ignore the vast majority of times that it works smoothly and as it should in other countries, for much less $$ and insurance company middleman profit. I don't want to emigrate to have that. I want to have that here. We deserve that here for all our tax money. Also no guns.

I know most people posting in favor of living outside the US are more upset at a certain administration than the actual realities of life in America. I have lived both in the US and in several countries overseas for many (many!) years so I have no rosy lens about life outside the US. I lived in the UK, Germany, Dubai and Singapore for a collective 15 years and another 10 years of adulthood in the US so I'm not ignorant to the pros and cons. Just don't fall into the trap of thinking the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. The UK, for example, has substantial problems with their overburdened national health system to the point that many regular people are paying cash for quick visits to doctors instead of having to wait months and even over a year for an appointment. Even countries with excellent healthcare like Switzerland still have waiting lists and believe it or not - I know people who moved back to the US after working in Switzerland for 10+ years because in retirement it was easier and quicker to rely on US healthcare than the rationed Swiss healthcare. The US healthcare system is a mess but on the flip side it is also extremely generous and proactive in ways most countries' systems are not. And people still often have private healthcare in many developed countries.

Culturally, mass migration has become a major tension point across all of Europe, in part of the burdens on the welfare state. Housing costs are very expensive in most of the major cities across Europe, the US is much more affordable. US also has a much better racial integration compared to the rest of the developed countries. There are some things European countries can do better, food is a bit cheaper, yes, transportation/housing tends to be more expensive and salaries are also lower, often substantially lower... so....

The people with the grass-is-greener-other-side will be in for some difficult times if they uproot just as some of your grandparents/great grandparents + did when they moved to the great US of A. Good luck.

Blah blah blah, stfu with your soap box grass is greener junk BS.

USA, where are classroom full of 8 year old is shot up into ground beef, yet the solution in the minds idiot Americans is to arm teachers.

USA, where hundreds of peole are shot in Las Vegas by a single person and nothing changes.

USA, where thousands of people die from opioids due to corporate corruption.

USA where people die from unaffordable insulin while their country spends $4 trillion dollars bombing goat herders earning 20 cents a day.

Grass will always be greener, because on the US side there is nothing but rot and decay.

[Anonymous]

I have one friend who moved to Bali and is always posting about her simple, basic, affordable life there. I have three friends that moved to Germany. It isn't cheaper but I know one of them saves a ton on health expenses for her SN child. One that moved to the Philippines bc it was too expensive here.

[Anonymous]

I know of one person who was a naturalized us citizen. She moved back to her country, won’t mention it here, but one of the Scandinavian ones.
Her child had autism and she struggled to pay for the therapy.
It turned out for the best and she was very happy. Her kid got more support than here in the DC area, got to go to a nicer school and her salary worked out much better

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lots of great affordable cities in the US: buffalo, cleveland, Pittsburgh are a few I know personally people thriving.

Every country has its problems. S Korea has terrible misogyny and ancestral classism. Japan is extremely racist and unaccepting to foreigners and also has bad misogyny. Australia struggles with Asian immigration and race tensions.

US has lots to work on but so do other countries. You feel poor but my guess is you are actually lacking purpose/connection. There is no escaping the work we all need to do to make any society more fair and healthy. Get involved and help make things better, even if it’s just for your neighborhood. It doesn’t have to be political. Look for groups that are actually helping people everyday. Join a church or non profit that is helping pay people’s medical and utility bills, does youth mentoring, food banks.

Love this post and this mentality.