After 19 years living abroad, I’ve watched the same financial pattern repeat itself among expats across the Dominican Republic, Peru, Colombia, Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America.
Someone moves abroad young and single earning $2,000 or $3,000 a month.
Back home, that wasn’t much money. In Latin America, suddenly they’re living in a nice apartment, eating out regularly, going out several nights a week and traveling.
They feel rich.
More importantly, they have something that may be even more valuable than money:
Time.
Their cost of living is low. They have few responsibilities. They can work from almost anywhere.
That’s an incredible position to be in.
Unfortunately, I’ve watched plenty of people use that advantage backwards.
Instead of asking:
How do I turn $3,000 a month into $5,000, then $10,000, then $20,000?
They become increasingly skilled at living on $3,000.
Then $2,500.
Then $2,000.
They find a cheaper neighborhood. A cheaper apartment. Maybe eventually a cheaper country.
They become experts at reducing the denominator while doing very little about the numerator.
For a while, it works beautifully.
Until life changes.
When the $2,000 Expat Lifestyle Meets a $10,000 Life
Eventually, some of those same people get married.
Then come children.
Now the one-bedroom apartment isn’t enough. The neighborhood that was perfectly acceptable as a single guy isn’t necessarily where you want to raise a family.
You start thinking differently about security.
You want a larger home.
You start looking at private or international schools.
Healthcare matters more.
You’re buying three or four airline tickets instead of one.
Maybe you need a car.
Maybe you want help around the house.
Maybe your parents are getting older and you need to travel home more frequently.
The lifestyle expands.
But sometimes the income never did.
And that’s when something interesting happens.
The country becomes the problem.
Suddenly the infrastructure is terrible. The crime is intolerable. The schools aren’t good enough. The healthcare isn’t good enough. The bureaucracy is unbearable. The politics are hopeless.
Some of those criticisms may be completely legitimate.
Latin America has real problems.
But here’s the question I find more interesting:
Were those problems not there when you arrived?
In many cases, they were.
The potholes were there.
The bureaucracy was there.
The inequality was there.
The political dysfunction was there.
The crime was there.
You simply experienced those things differently when you were younger, single, responsibility-free and earning several times the local income.
The country didn’t necessarily change.
You did.
Why Some Long-Term Expats Eventually Move Home
I’ve watched two endings to this story more times than I can count.
The first is going home.
After years of talking about the freedom of living abroad, America suddenly starts looking pretty good again.
There’s nothing wrong with that.
Priorities change. People change. Sometimes returning home genuinely is the best decision.
What I find interesting is when the story gets rewritten afterward.
The country that provided an incredible lifestyle for ten years is suddenly portrayed as if it was always unlivable.
The second ending has almost become a running joke among long-term expats.
They stay abroad and start selling real estate to the next generation of expats.
And the cycle begins again.
Geographic Arbitrage Should Be a Runway, Not a Destination
I think there’s a different way to approach living abroad.
When you discover that you can live exceptionally well somewhere for a fraction of what the same lifestyle would cost elsewhere, don’t just pocket the lifestyle upgrade.
Use the difference as runway.
If you’re 30 years old, earning $3,000 a month and living extremely well abroad, that’s not necessarily the finish line.
It’s an opportunity.
You have low overhead.
You have time.
You have geographic flexibility.
You may have fewer responsibilities than you’ll ever have again.
Build something.
Learn something.
Invest.
Start businesses.
Increase your earning power.
Take the risks that become much harder when you’re 40 with children, tuition payments and a large monthly burn rate.
Don’t spend ten years becoming better at living on $2,000. Spend those years becoming better at earning $20,000.
The exact number isn’t important.
The trajectory is.
Because once your income increases without requiring you to be in a particular place, something fundamental changes.
Financial Independence Changes Where You Can Live
You’re no longer asking:
Where can I afford to live?
You’re asking:
Where do I want to live?
Those are very different questions.
Maybe you still choose Colombia.
Maybe you choose the United States.
Maybe your priorities change when you have children and Singapore suddenly makes more sense.
Maybe Switzerland.
Maybe Thailand.
Maybe you spend different stages of your life in different places.
The point isn’t that Latin America is better than America.
And it certainly isn’t that Latin America doesn’t have problems.
The point is that America versus Latin America is an unnecessarily small menu.
The world is the menu.
If security becomes your highest priority, optimize for security.
If education becomes the priority, optimize for education.
If healthcare matters most, optimize for healthcare.
If you’re building a company, optimize for opportunity.
If you’re retired, maybe you optimize for weather, healthcare and quality of life.
Different stages of life can have different answers.
Money doesn’t solve every problem.
But money combined with geographic freedom gives you something incredibly valuable:
options.
Going Home Isn’t an Automatic Financial Escape Hatch
There’s another assumption I think deserves more scrutiny.
For years, many people living abroad have had an implicit backup plan:
If this stops working, I’ll just go back to America and get a good job.
That may prove increasingly unreliable.
Technology—and particularly AI—is changing white-collar work rapidly. Some jobs will disappear. Others will require fewer people. New jobs will be created. Skilled trades and work requiring physical presence may prove more resilient.
Nobody knows exactly how it plays out.
But assuming that the job market you left 10 or 15 years ago will simply be waiting for you when you return seems like a dangerous financial plan.
Especially when you’re returning to significantly higher housing, healthcare, childcare and everyday living expenses.
That’s another reason I think the years of inexpensive international living are so valuable.
They’re an opportunity to build independent earning power before you need it.
Cheap Isn’t Financial Freedom
I don’t think the objective of living abroad should be finding the cheapest country on Earth.
Cheap is useful.
Cheap can buy time.
Cheap can lower risk.
Cheap can give a new business longer to survive.
Cheap can allow you to invest money that otherwise would have disappeared into rent.
But cheap itself isn’t freedom.
If you can only maintain your lifestyle as long as you remain in one inexpensive country, you’re still constrained. You’ve simply exchanged one constraint for another.
The objective should be getting to the point where your income, assets and skills give you choices.
Live in Bogotá because you love Bogotá.
Live in Dallas because Dallas works for what you’re building.
Live in Singapore because you think it’s the best place for your children.
Spend a year somewhere simply because you’re curious.
Go home because you want to.
Not because you’ve run out of alternatives.
What 19 Years Abroad Changed About How I Think About Money
Living abroad for 19 years has changed the way I think about personal finance.
I’m less interested in maximizing income for its own sake.
I’m also less interested in minimizing expenses for their own sake.
I’m interested in optionality.
Money is useful because of what it allows you to say yes to—and what it allows you to say no to.
Geography works the same way.
The ultimate financial advantage of living internationally isn’t discovering somewhere you can live like a king on $2,000 a month.
It’s discovering that many of the things we assume are fixed aren’t fixed at all.
Where you live.
Where you work.
How you earn.
What things should cost.
What “home” means.
And what a successful life is supposed to look like.
The default path is only one path.
These are my notes from outside it.