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Sharing the News

The Mrs and I were at a family event this weekend, celebrating the birthday of a niece. As we talked with various relatives, many of whom we haven’t seen since Christmas, they shared their lives and what they’ve been up to. In turn, they asked about our lives as well. And that’s where things got dicey.

First, I was a bit tentative to share our plans to sell everything we own and travel. Between now and then, about a year will pass, we need to sell 3 homes, and I will need to ensure my employer is still good with me working from home. Not to mention I need to find remote work for Rachel or convince her it’s fine to leave without having something lined up. Sharing our plans feels like... Bragging about something we haven’t done yet. It’s ambitious and there’s so much between here and there. 

On top of that, people don’t really know how to react. There are two core reactions I’ve gotten, both from family and friends; most people exhibit a mixture of the two.

The largest overriding reaction is sheer confusion. People have no basis to relate to the trip we’re attempting, no way to understand. I might as well tell them that we’re considering moving to the moon. From the logistics to the level of freedom it represents to the lifestyle we’ll live for a time, they don’t know a single person that’s ever done anything like it. 

The other, less prevalent reaction is jealousy. Despite not really having a basis to relate, most of the people we’ve shared the news with have to some extent wished they, too, could go on an around the world trip. Some have been really overt about it, some subtle (and of course some have not been jealous at all). 

It has been hard sharing our news, but going outside the expected norms of society always is. Just another step between here and next year. Still overwhelmingly excited to travel the world with my love.

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Mindset: ‘Murica #1!

Part of the mindset Rachel and I needed to adopt to move towards full-time travel and considering living abroad is to buck the patriotic indoctrination we’ve spent a lifetime acquiring: that America is the best nation in the world in every quantifiable way. You know the stuff - “America is the freest nation on earth,” “America has the best health care money can buy,” “America has the  best education system, smartest kids, and shiniest fire hydrants in the world.”

To be honest, I thought getting over this mindset might be an obstacle to this move. You see, we’ve been open to children and there’s no telling when our openness might become expectation. I brought this up, asking what would happen if we started traveling and become pregnant. Rachel, without skipping a beat, said “Children are born in other parts of the world, aren’t they?”

We had a friend over for dinner last night, Jules, with a very unique background: she has a British father and American mother and was raised in Africa, having spent extensive time as an adult in both Britain and Africa. Jules is living in America for the first time after moving to Milwaukee this past winter. She was appalled by the costs, red tape, and arcane bureaucracy if the American health care system. She’s accustomed to buying antibiotics over the counter and paying cash for prescriptions at a fraction of the price we frequently pay in America. While the details of her stories were eye opening for us, the underlying truth of the health care system in America was not a surprise.

Another shock to her system that I don’t think Jules has fully internalized is the IRS implications of living here in America. She’s said she’s looking forward to paying taxes for the first time to see what all the fuss is about. I suppose we’ll see if she feels the same way in April of next year. 

Generally, America is a good place to live. But there’s plenty not to like, from eroding freedoms to a health care system of the brink of financial collapse to an education system obsessed with political correctness to a progressive tax system so absurd that half the country is free riding. It’s a big world out there with lots of other prospering countries and places to live. Maybe one of those is where we belong.

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Going Digital

My beautiful wife, Rachel, and I are planning to sell most of what we own and travel the world. Just writing the words makes everything feel so official, so real. Its an idea we’ve discussed at length and an opportunity we can’t let pass us by. It sounds like a crazy thing to do (even to us, sometimes) but the reasons are compelling. 

We might seem like perhaps the worst candidates to pursue such a trip: we moved back from Chicago to Wisconsin to be closer to family, we own three homes (two are rentals), and we’ve both spent the vast majority of our lives in Wisconsin. We attend church each week with family and since moving back to Wisconsin haven’t missed any major family events. 

We’re also highly educated, skilled young professionals who have the discipline required to work remotely. As a software architect, I already have a job that allows 100% remote work. Rachel, who has two masters degrees, has a job that requires her physical presence each day but is seeking out work that will enable her to travel as well.

So why embark on this adventure of a lifetime?

First and foremost, we want to. It’s a big world out there and we want to experience as much of it as we can. We want to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef, ski the Alps, hike Patagonia, swim in the Blue Lagoon. I called this trip the adventure of a lifetime, but how many lifetimes pass by without experiencing the best the world has to offer? How many people “play it safe,” lead lives, as Thoreau would put it, of “quiet desperation?” In my own circumstance, I spent my winter waking up at 5am to drive 40 miles in subfreezing temperatures in the dark to my job. Is this the safety I’m clinging to?

There’s nothing condemnable about the “play it safe” plan, but there is something wrong with it: inherently its about delayed gratification. But delayed until when? Do you really want to wait until retirement to experience life? You might get there and discover your health doesn’t support hiking and travel. You might get to retirement age and realize your finances don’t support retirement at all, that you’ll be spending your sunset years working in some capacity. Or - not to be too morbid - you might not get to retirement age at all. Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. 

My wife and I are both Americans and another compelling reason to consider travel, for a few years or even one, is a reason our government gives us: a tax break. By taking advantage of the foreign earned income exemption, which allows us to deduct the first ~$200k of income by simply being out of the country 330 or more days/year, we can realize tremendous tax savings. Unless our income somehow multiplies, we’d be entirely exempt from paying US taxes.

This past April we were slapped with (what was for us) a massive tax surprise: a $6k federal tax bill after our taxes were compiled. Our federal taxes alone rose to $22k, on top of which we paid another $8k to our state, and $12k to local municipalities via property taxes thanks to our three houses. Altogether, we had a whomping total tax bill of $42k. Just for the privilege of spending our time on US soil, the pound of flesh Uncle Sam exacts from us comes to $3.5k/month (and that excludes plenty of other smaller taxes). Driving that number to $0 gives us 42,000 good reasons to consider spending a lot of time traveling.

In coming posts, I’ll write about the preparations we’re making, the mindsets we’re trying to adopt, the drawbacks to extensive travel and plans we’re making to mitigate them. But for now, I’m taking the moment to enjoy this excitement and the exciting travel that awaits us.