No longer prepared to move at any time...

[iris lilies]

Fair question, IL, now that you have framed it this way and given the nature of my posts. I'll give you this much - this comes across as a fair question.

So here's an answer. My mother feels about this country as I do however....she does have Medicare and since we are in Arizona, it's easy to get on a Medicare Advantage plan with minimal co-pays. She also is 76 years of age and dreads any major upheaval in her life. But I believe the strongest reason is this: Leaving the US would be admitting to all the family in Austria that it was a mistake to come to the United States. She has admitted as much verbally many more times than once but to pick up and pack up is to really admit this and I don't think she wants to face that level of scrutiny by family over her decision to come here and take the citizenship. Especially since doing so worked against here in terms of standard of living and stress levels during her working years. Rob

That is interesting, her perceived idea that she would be considered a failure in comng to the US.

That isnt something I can relate to, the controlling aspect of The Relatives in
the Homeland although I can understand it. It is interesting that you and she allow them to control your behaviour to the extent you do.

As you know DH has similar circumstances to yours, his mother was Swiss, she came here after WWII. She often talked about retiring back “home” in Switzerland. She died before she seriously got to consider it and I dont know if she really would have done it. If her husband, DH’s father had died, I would not have been surprised if she moved back to her
Homeland. I CAN tell you she and the Swiss relatives do not consider her move to the USA a mistake, even if they think Switzerland a superior country. (For the record, they consider Austria to be an inferior country to their own! )


but who cares about Eurothoughts.

DH has cousins who moved to North America, both Canada and the USA for the opportunity. One cousin retired about age 50, towing his blonde American trophy wife and two tow headed children back to the Homeland after making his millions here. No one here or there thought less of him, we support him doing what he wants to do.

For that matter DH recently closed the book on getting a Swiss passport. He and his sister investigated that possibility and while it IS techncally possible, his lack of language skills seems to kill the deal. Had he got a Swiss passport we might have spent more time there but would never have considered any opinions of relatives there or here to be final determinants.

[gimmethesimplelife]

That is interesting, her perceived idea that she would be considered a failure in comng to the US.

That isnt something I can relate to, the controlling aspect of The Relatives in
the Homeland although I can understand it. It is interesting that you and she allow them to control your behaviour to the extent you do.

As you know DH has similar circumstances to yours, his mother was Swiss, she came here after WWII. She often talked about retiring back “home” in Switzerland. She died before she seriously got to consider it and I dont know if she really would have done it. If her husband, DH’s father had died, I would not have been surprised if she moved back to her
Homeland. I CAN tell you she and the Swiss relatives do not consider her move to the USA a mistake, even if they think Switzerland a superior country. (For the record, they consider Austria to be an inferior country to their own! )


but who cares about Eurothoughts.

DH has cousins who moved to North America, both Canada and the USA for the opportunity. One cousin retired about age 50, towing his blonde American trophy wife and two tow headed children back to the Homeland after making his millions here. No one here or there thought less of him, we support him doing what he wants to do.

For that matter DH recently closed the book on getting a Swiss passport. He and his sister investigated that possibility and while it IS techncally possible, his lack of language skills seems to kill the deal. Had he got a Swiss passport we might have spent more time there but would never have considered any opinions of relatives there or here to be final determinants.

Thank You for the update, IL....I'd been wondering what was up with your husband and the potential acquisition of a Swiss passport but since there'd been some friction between us recently I didn't want to come right out and ask.....so Thank You for the update.

About Switzerland - my family in Austria doesn't have much to say about it other than it's very very very expensive. Which I found interesting as I found the costs I was exposed to in Austria comparable to US costs and in some cases, less expensive. I've never been to Switzerland, though......my mother changed planes once in Geneva years ago and on one of her trips to visit some years ago, her luggage was sent on to Zurich by mistake.....I believe this was back in 1998 when she got a great tax refund and spent it on visiting Austria. Rob

[iris lilies]

Switzerland IS very very expensive, that’s why
I laugh about DH taking a vacation there in recent years, and it cost less than me going to Florida for a shorter period of time. His Swiss relativs fed him, gave him a car or ferried him around, and let him stay at their house. From his aunt’s house i have walked across the bridge into Austria.

You can ask whatever. If I dont want to answer, I wont.

[dmc]

The recent prospect of getting a new job somewhere else brought to light that I am no longer prepared to move at the drop of a hat.

I could not fit all my stuff into my car anymore. It'd take two car loads and I would have to get rid of my couch.

I have "settled in" here it seems.

More than that, there are more things keeping me here emotionally than ever have. My sister and BIL. My niece. My nephew about to be born. Some friends in the atheist and minimalist community.

And believe it or not, some of my coworkers are cool enough to make me think: "Do I want to risk this and leave?"

So I have been doing some thinking. Should I lighten my rucksack of life so I could move anytime? Or should I keep digging in here and become even more a part of my community, family, and friendship circles?

All you need is a U Haul truck with a car hauler. As to your relatives, you could always visit. Plane fares are cheap these days.

We moved 4 years ago from the St. Louis area to SW Florida. We got rid of everything that wouldn’t fit into a 26’ truck and a couple of cars and plane. We can pretty much live anywhere we want, I was tired of the winters. The heat doesn’t bother me much, and we take quite a few vacations. We are leaving tommorow to visit relatives in Ohio, then flying over to take our grandson on a vacation for a few days. Then we will decide what we want to do after that. The grandson has a soccer game on Thursday so we have to get him back to Chicago. My other son and his family recently moved down here, so we will see them a lot.

We have never lived in the same house more than 11 years, my wife is already looking at new homes now. I think she watches to many of the home shows.

[dmc]

I'm today toying with the idea of moving between Iceland/Norway and New Zealand seasonally.

i looked into doing the snowbird thing, just seemed like to much of a hassle. We can stay in pretty nice hotels for the cost of maintaining two homes. And the nice thing is we can go where we want in the summer, visiting new places. I am still waiting for my new passport to arrive, so I am limited in that.

[Gardnr]

i looked into doing the snowbird thing, just seemed like to much of a hassle. We can stay in pretty nice hotels for the cost of maintaining two homes. And the nice thing is we can go where we want in the summer, visiting new places. I am still waiting for my new passport to arrive, so I am limited in that.

We own 2 homes. 1 winter location and 1 city location (where we are currently employed). Our total monthly cost in 2017 was $2204.33. This includes: insurance, property tax, utilities (snow removal up north), all AC/Heat maintenance visits), and any household item we need to replace (even a hand towel). 2017 also included replacement of our AC/Heat unit for $11270 so without that 2 homes cost us $1264.

Considering prior to the purchase of the cabin, we went to this mountain town 3-4X/year which would now cost us $12-1400/visit, it was a huge bargain! At the time of purchase our monthly payment was less than a single long weekend visit. We escalated payments and paid it off in 54 months.

All choices and decisions are relative to desires and cost 15 years later, We are VERY happy we made this decision.

[razz]

There are a large number of people around my community who live here from April to November and then elsewhere the other months. Some have homes in Mexico, Florida, Texas, Arizona, Britain, Portugal, British Columbia, Costa Rica, Peru, Hungary... Health insurance does play a part for some but not for others and this is just for people in my circle which is basic middle class economically.

At one point I think that I may have considered doing the same but i love where I am with four seasons and quality services and amenities readily available.

[iris lilies]

We own 2 homes. 1 winter location and 1 city location (where we are currently employed). Our total monthly cost in 2017 was $2204.33. This includes: insurance, property tax, utilities (snow removal up north), all AC/Heat maintenance visits), and any household item we need to replace (even a hand towel). 2017 also included replacement of our AC/Heat unit for $11270 so without that 2 homes cost us $1264.

Considering prior to the purchase of the cabin, we went to this mountain town 3-4X/year which would now cost us $12-1400/visit, it was a huge bargain! At the time of purchase our monthly payment was less than a single long weekend visit. We escalated payments and paid it off in 54 months.

All choices and decisions are relative to desires and cost 15 years later, We are VERY happy we made this decision.

That is cheap, the $2200 annually. If comparing aples to apples (like an Aire bnb in your same mountain town) a financial advisor would have you also look at the opportunity cost of the funds you have sunk into the vacation home as well a real estate appreciation that offsets that.

But in the end, that is very cheap.

I think our Hermann house would probably be around $3,200 annually bare bones costs if we made no improvements. Which we could do because it is habitable the way it is. But—but we are all about tricking out the acreage. Building beds, cutting trees, landscaping. That is our entertainment and hobby.

[Gardnr]

That is cheap, the $2200 annually. If comparing aples to apples (like an Aire bnb in your same mountain town) a financial advisor would have you also look at the opportunity cost of the funds you have sunk into the vacation home as well a real estate appreciation that offsets that.

But in the end, that is very cheap.

I think our Hermann house would probably be around $3,200 annually bare bones costs if we made no improvements. Which we could do because it is habitable the way it is. But—but we are all about tricking out the acreage. Building beds, cutting trees, landscaping. That is our entertainment and hobby.

We could get an easy $1500/week and we've had multiple cold-call offers to purchase. But we have no interest in having our home used by others, vandalized or ruined or injured by others. We've done the entire restoration ourselves. DH milled every single piece of trim/baseboards, we did every inch of flooring, we installed a tankless water heater and the thought of arriving to damage is too stressful. Plus, if we rent it we have to decide a year at a time when we want to block it for our use AND we can't spur of the moment go up like we can now.

We've always considered it a sunk cost for us so having it sit vacant waiting for us to show up is not economically bothersome.

And because we have zero debt, it's totally no problem.

[dmc]

We own 2 homes. 1 winter location and 1 city location (where we are currently employed). Our total monthly cost in 2017 was $2204.33. This includes: insurance, property tax, utilities (snow removal up north), all AC/Heat maintenance visits), and any household item we need to replace (even a hand towel). 2017 also included replacement of our AC/Heat unit for $11270 so without that 2 homes cost us $1264.

Considering prior to the purchase of the cabin, we went to this mountain town 3-4X/year which would now cost us $12-1400/visit, it was a huge bargain! At the time of purchase our monthly payment was less than a single long weekend visit. We escalated payments and paid it off in 54 months.

All choices and decisions are relative to desires and cost 15 years later, We are VERY happy we made this decision.

Im glad it worked out for you. My wife was looking at both homes being of similar value, not a cabin. And I wasn’t looking for something that I would have to work on. Taxes, insurance, utilities, and furnishings for two homes was just more than I wanted. Plus I’d be worrying about the home I wasn’t living in being damaged, robbed, or vandalized.

I know many that this worked out for, just not what I want to do.

i wish I could hangar my plane for $2204.33. I pay much more than that just to rent what’s nothing more than a metal building.