My Story: Leaving Cozy and Taking Risks

This year my wife and I have made a decision that we both believe that we are a bit crazy to have made. We have always loved to travel internationally, but have only done so from a position of safety and financial security. This time, we have decided that we are going to take a leap of faith. We will quit our stable jobs and move overseas for at least a year, with the intention of making the move permanent.

We have decided that our destination of choice is Portugal, a place we have visited once, and only for three days. Those three days left an indelible impression upon us both. We look back to that trip, taken only five years ago, and constantly find ourselves remarking that we would like to return. Neither of us expected the return to be anything like what we are in the process of doing.

What has led us to this precipice of madness?

I’m glad you asked. The short answer is discontentment, the long answer involves freedom, politics, economics, and maybe a healthy dose of early mid-life crisis. You see, I’ve been employed in the financial world for fifteen years, with a small break in there to try out the start-up lifestyle (I recommend everyone try this once). My wife has been a nurse for almost as long. We have always played it safe, put our heads down and funded our retirement accounts so that one day we could hope to live as we wanted, and not have to be at another’s beck and call.

Two years ago, we had a child. Wonderful time for it, no? Pandemic had just begun, and the world shut down. We probably could not have done much traveling with a newborn, but the option was taken away from us entirely. While my wife had to continue showing up to work at the hospital, I was lucky enough to begin working from home. We spent that first year of pandemic figuring out how to be parents, how to make our relationship work with the new dynamic, and slowly becoming more and more dissatisfied with our careers.

Then, one day we had a conversation with a cousin and his wife that went something like this:

“Is your home going to be your forever home?” – Cousins

“I don’t know, probably. Unless we have a couple more kids it will be big enough, and we couldn’t afford anything else right now anyway. How about you?” – Us

“We plan to leave the country within four years.” – Cousins

They had just had a baby girl, and did not want to send her to school here in America. We had just had some high profile school shootings and Roe v. Wade had just been overturned. They longed for a safer place to live, with a better education system. I asked them where they were thinking of moving to. Norway, they replied.

Have you ever thought about Portugal? I responded.

Why Portugal?

You see, after our trip to Portugal five years ago, I had begun to research the country as a potential retirement destination for fifteen years down the road. Portugal has always ranked on the best places to retire to for Americans, generally behind some of the Central American countries that are a little closer geographically.

Portugal has a few awesome things going for it.

1. It has a relatively low cost of living
2. It is a very safe country with low rates of violent crime
3. It has a great climate
4. It has a relatively low bar to clear to gain residency and ultimately citizenship
5. It is both an EU member state and a Schengen Area state

It is the first point that my family is banking on to make this move possible. While the Portuguese minimum wage is less than $1000 USD per month and it is possible to survive on that, I understand that most expats tend to spend $3000-$4000 per month all-in. That includes housing, medical, travel, and leisure.

You see, we have not built up millions of dollars in savings, and while we could live in Portugal by depleting our finances for a year or maybe two, we could not do so indefinitely. We are choosing to give up the safety of retirement in 10-20 years in order to have an incredible life experience now, with the possibility of making it work and retiring early.

This is a chance we are willing to take. Additionally, our son is not yet in school, so there will never be a better time to attempt this. There is a Chinese proverb that goes, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”

What is with the Blog?

Well, I won’t deny that there is a monetary factor, I don’t think many would believe me if I did. The wife and I will need to find some way to replace at least some income in order to make this move work. The blog is part of that plan.

Beyond that, however, I believe that there are a lot of people out there like me. People that have always played life safe, but may be growing increasingly discontent with what the next 10-20 years looks like. We spend our years working just so that we get a few to ourselves at the end of our lives.

I want time to spend with my son while he grows up. I want to spend more time with my wife during the best years of life. I want time to indulge in my own interests.

I love to travel. I love to play games (both board and video). I love to read. Though I’m an introvert, I enjoy talking to people. I have had an idea for a book in the back of my mind for a decade, maybe I’ll find time to write. Most of all, I just want life to be exciting again. Maybe I could find some way to do that here, but I think I need a radical change. I’ll be documenting this life change here, and ultimately also dispensing some advice from my particular skillsets and interests.

Thank you for reading, and I’m glad to have you along for the ride.

Dan