Better standard of living outside US?
I’m thinking about relocating outside of USA due to HCOL. I’m a US born citizen. What are realistic options? #swe #remote Edit: TC $150K cash, no stock 🥜
Colombia
I've heard great things about Costa Rica. Apparently Americans love it there.
Sounds like a great reason not to move there.
Singapore
But only if you’re okay never getting citizenship.
You aren’t going to do much better than the lcol parts of the US unless you go to a significantly poorer country. Also, even in this new relatively remote friendly world it’s a tough sell to get a company to do payroll in some random developing country. Time zone is another potential barrier.
Would being in Latin solve the time zone issue?
Yeah. If I were going to go out of the country remote, I’d go to Costa Rica. But I don’t think the juice is worth the squeeze, personally. There’s plenty of cheap places to live in the US and at the end of the day, you are still in the US.
I realize there are LCOL areas in USA, but I want somewhere metropolitan with a high concentration of young highly educated people. Are there LCOL areas like that?
Denver's kind of like that
Not really. Best bet is probably a rust belt city with a big, good college. Some grads always stick around.
India is a nice place, very high ppp. Similar to anywhere else all types living conditions you can find here, depends on how much you can spend. Plus every tech giant is here.
How is it if you are not ethnically Indian (white)?
Some staring. You'll need to learn not to overpay (they think you're all rich). Generally people are good, friendly. Make an attempt at the local language and you'll win anyone over
Lots of people are saying EU, aren’t there issues with dramatically lower pay?
Depends on the field. If you are in software engineering, EU pay is typically half to one third of what you would get in the USA, and you pay much higher taxes. On the plus side, you generally get better benefits such as PTO and maternity/paternity leave. Generally better job security, and Europeans don't work as hard. WLB is much less of an issue - few companies really expect you to work very hard. From what I've heard, American companies expect more from you. But, nearly all of Europe is HCOL. Properties are expensive - more so than in the States. And properties are smaller too. You'll have less space and you'll pay more for it. And you'll do this on a smaller salary while paying more tax on that smaller salary. My advice: move to a LCOL American state rather than Europe.
Is Europe really that HCOL? I have some family in eastern Czech Republic and they live off ~$1000 USD per month per person pretty easily.
OP, move to metropolitan cities in India like Mumbai, Bangalore, etc. Bangalore has a young population, highly educated people and is very cosmopolitan. Super LCOL. You probably wouldn't even have to work after a year. Also, apparently the SWE TC these days is kinda beating EU TCs
Is it possible to get a Visa as an American?
Yes, very much possible
New Zealand - not LCOL, but neither is EU India would be too difficult to adjust for a white guy tbh. Just way too culturally different
Spain/Portugal