#9. Hurray for you!
I learned long ago, if you help someone who always needs help...
Then you ain't helping anything. You're just a mark, for a professional whiner.
Got stuck travelling, with a real bludger, in outback oz. Couldn't get rid of him. No alternative highways. And few jobs.
Solo for me, from now on. Keep my own pace.
Whiners not welcome.
Some people wouldn't pull their weight, at their own hanging.
Like my old man always said, "If you can't pay cash, then you can't afford it."
Hi,
For what it is worth I honestly believe that savings are not the issue, income is. If you are lucky to have a regular income (pension etc) then you can settle in many places - assuming that the income is ok and you are looking at some cheaper places to resettle. $25,000 is a little on the low side if there is no other money to supplement it. Imagine running out then having to return to the life you tried to get away from.
Blow the 25,000 on a feel good get away for a time type of break and enjoy it. If that does not appeal, and you have no other funds then you have to keep going a little while to build up the necessary. It is not just the north American continent that has the work until you drop ethic, earn, earn and never spend - just accumulate, a heck of a lot of Europe has it too. For my part I realised long ago that I was employed because I was needed, not liked. That financial institutions were not really bothered about me but making company, and personal, gains. Long ago I vowed never to work for cash again, just volunteer now and love every minute. Sad thing is I still had to enter a world I did not wish to in order to travel as I now do. Still at least I am getting the rewards.
Wishing everyone on OT branch all the best for the New Year. Back from my travels January 15th, then out again mid Feb, ain't life grand?
Here is the link Kahua.
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?threadID=1710302&tstart=15
While we were in Spain we met a lot of English expats who bought a peace of land with a ruin on it (sometimes) they would have just enough money to make the purchase but not enough money to fix it up. So, a lot of people would live without the basics a lot of times. None of them (age group was mid 30's to mid 50's more or less) would have no way of making a living and many did not speak the language. A lot of them had troubles coming out of their ying yang and survived on far less the poorest of poor local.
Is that crazy? Well, for you maybe, for me maybe too but not for so many expats in Spain who hang in and hang in. But, none of those expats in Spain would regret doing it even though it might not work out. Some of them would regret it more not doing it. Even if it's crazy sometimes we all just gotta do it.
I agree.
If Resurgam ever opened Don Quixote, I bet it wasn't a book he couldn't put down.
What you met seems to be a lot of bums and idiots majortraveller. What you are leaving out of that picture is the fact that they could not survive without free government services like healthcare. They're parasites who do not support themselves. They were losers back home and now they are losers in Spain.
I can't believe you seem to be suggesting that there might be anything admirable about their lifestyle.
Well, it may not be admirable but it sure is interesting. Yes, a lot of them have some form of socail assistance from home many were on a disability pension of some form or another. There are people who bring along their young children and many are driven into illegal activities to get by. After all the first English expats that went to Spain were the criminals. But, over a million emigrated there many of them English. Some have more money then others but they came over in droves.
Even the ones that came over with money end up running dry after a time. So many had bought houses without doing the bone basics and every single English person I met who bought a home in Spain had problems. There was many who bought overpriced homes in Spain at the height of the pricing market on credit and now can't sell it for what they paid for it. It was like a frenzy to buy and I can't tell you how many times I was told I was crazy not to buy now, prices are going up. They had it in their heads that prices could not possibly go down. The stories I could tell you. Absulute madness.
But, stories they are and it's interesting. Playing it safe is dull and boring Resurgam. What can you say about your past year if all you did was get up in the morning and go to work come home and do it all again the next day. If you're a traveller you've quit that job, packed up your stuff and stuck it in storage, bought that airline ticket and packed your bag and off you went armed with a guidebook. Didn't you have a lot more to say about that?
I am of two minds on this issue. Being in my early 60's and having lost my agility due to a neurological disease, but having kept my nose to the grindstone enough to have a good pension and money in the bank, it ain't doin' me any good folks. So that is one aspect of putting off travelling.
The other side of the coin is the number of expats I have seen in favorite retirement areas from Spain, to Thailand to Mexico who belly up to the bar at 11:00 A.M. and spend the day there. They don't really have enough money to do anything else, and they pick a place where booze is cheap. I am sure you have all seen that. It's a pathetic sight, and not one I would want to emulate.