zacb wrote:
How much progress have you made since you started frequenting this forum?
Still looking for initial funding to visit a country?
Splitting time?
Building up your funding mechanism to live abroad?
Finding a love partner? ......
What progress have you made?
Great questions.
SUCCESSES:
Moved out of the US for good.
Functional Spanish.
Living among Mexicans, first working class, now wealthy. Successfully avoided gringo colonies, though I was tempted.
U.S. banking and communications still working for me. Some folks I deal with don't know I Ieft.
Waning romance with US gf heated back up again after I left and she saw FB pics of hot Mexicana friends.
Have good trustworthy helpers coming when I need them.
Locals totally accept me as a real estate agent.
Older ladies invite me for wine, dinner, etc. (They are lively, fun, athletic but not young enough to date.)
FAILURES:
Can't get my friends or more sons to move down.
No live-in gf. Hard to access the virginal young model types I want, and they are rare where I live.
Still dragging my ass on completing Mexican residency and getting roots put down, including local banking.
Telemarketing job I had when I moved down failed to produce money. Long story. Had to bag it.
Just being a writer is too isolating when I don't know anyone locally. It kind of works during the day but damn lonely at night.
There are nice gyms but a long way from anywhere I'd live. A long drive to the gym is really hard to continue after 3 weeks or so
Older ladies are the only ones who want to run or swim or exercise at the beach.
No local-based income yet, I have tried to get real estate brokerage going but no deals so far.
The men seem more guarded, perhaps they feel threatened or clannish. I've met educated English-speaking Mexican men socially, but the friendship seems not to progress.
Met some old gringo men in a high-end trailer colony, funny guys, but all they want to do is sit on the barstool and drink in the afternoon. They don't hit on pretty girls or speak Spanish or make Mexican friends. I think some of them do p4p, not sure.
Met some wealthy barfly gringo couples in another, high-end gringo colony, but they live too far away, isolated from the city, and there are no young honeys to hit on.
It's not as cheap as I'd hoped, crap from China is MORE expensive, local labor is cheap, food is a good deal but not free. Plus I am still paying for US auto insurance, international cellphone, child support, etc.
CONCLUSION SO FAR:
I am basically a spoiled, over-educated big city guy. While my paradise at the beach is good for exercise, "chi energy" and appearances, still there are no walk-to food stands, and utterly no close-by entertainment. I still have thoughts of moving to Bangkok or someplace like that, with a lively street life.
While I am able to exist, I am not able to throw money around, travel easily, etc. I can't for example invite all the neighborhood for beer and asada, to make friends. Or meet a girl online in Mexico City and fly down to meet her on a whim. Living solo on a tight budget is not conducive to meeting Miss Teen Mexico. (I did come close with one, but no "cigar".)
Where I live is a great place to raise children, totally safe, fresh air and clean beach/ocean.
NEXT STEP:
Need to complete residency, increase mobility, and take some trips within Mexico and to other Latin countries, probably Colombia or further south.
Also plan to visit Syria and Lebanon with my sons next summer.
Need to examine my commitment to writing and to real estate and get very successful in one or the other.
Real estate is theoretically more sociable, but I hate working on it alone at home during the day. I like dealmaking but not creating a website, uploading photos, etc. I had the same issue in the US, but in Mexico there is no MLS, you sort of create all your marketing from scratch. Total freedom but no system. Had no plans to do real estate when I came south, but I keep running into opportunities.
Writing is easier to do alone, because it seems like there is an "audience" as you do it. It doesn't feel lonely while doing it.
Of course there is more money in real estate, if you close, but there is more freedom to travel with writing.