In December of last year, I hit a unique turning point in my life that prompted a change.
For the most part, my life was pretty good. I had a beautiful apartment that I had essentially converted into my own private yoga studio, a fulfilling LA-style dating life, a sweet manual transmission car in perfect condition, a community-oriented gym I spent over 10 hours a week at, extra money for superfluous clothes and electronics, and of course a top of the line gaming PC.
Since the Four-Hour Work Week, there’s been no shortage of blogs where experts share the best strategies for living abroad. This is not one of them. I'm not really that great at making my life look amazing and perfect. My journey is more spontaneous, and I think that sometimes I do things wrong on purpose, because it just ends up being more fun.
When I decided to reduce my attachments in the US, there were a few key areas to focus on:
- Reducing my personal belongings to a couple suitcases
- Identifying all the things I was paying for, and stop paying for them
- Leave my job on good terms
The cleansing of nearly all my personal belongings was incredibly taxing. Since I wasn’t going to a new job or situation where income would be guaranteed, the idea of getting rid of things that had “value” was horrifying.
Throwing away dishes instead of washing them was the best part.
This process changed my financial mindset quite a bit. It really made me think about the fact that all purchases are essentially investments, and those investments have returns and losses.
- Many of the items I had purchased for my home were due for a replacement anyway. Thanks to the power of Ikea, much of what I owned had provided their value and were due for replacement anyway. Half my spoons had broken in half from eating ice cream late at night. My bath mats were starting to look old.
- When it came to clothes, I took a huge loss. Like many people, I bought a bunch of clothes I thought I would need, and then never wore them. I did make a small return by reselling some of the better items through this guy. For the clothes that were donated, it felt like throwing money away, but the real moment the money was thrown away was when I bought them, and I hope to hold on to that lesson despite the fact that I’m moving to a clothes shopping paradise.
- For furniture, fortunately I worked in a large company with an active classifieds community. I was able to resell most of my furniture with minimal loss, and some people even paid me a bit extra to show their support.
- I recently had a friend buy a house out in the country. He was generous enough to let me park my car, which held my bike, my gaming PC, and my personal documents, in the forest behind his house. This may or may not go well.
Everything. For now.
My days leading up to leaving the US were emotionally difficult. So many of my friends reached out to provide support, and I spent time as much time with them as I could. At the same time, I felt a sense of guilt in “abandoning” them. Part of me felt like I was looking for leaving the US because I was looking for something (a stronger foundation in life, a more peaceful life experience), but I might be failing to recognize that those things were already available to me.
The feeling was the same when it came to my dating life. For most of my life, I had a bit of an addiction to surrounding myself with people who treated me poorly, as my thinking was that the hostility would inspire me to improve myself. However, in the past year I had recovered from that and had finally cultivated a healthy practice around friendship and dating. While I wasn’t in any official relationships, I had a few women I had become very close to and intimate with, and it was hard to step away from that. Once again, the apparent risk was that I might be looking for something I already had.
I chose to move to Taiwan with very little research. I looked at some pictures on Google Earth, saw that the government supports gay marriage (although they are wishy-washy about it), and read a single blog saying the cost of living was pretty low. That was enough for me to buy a one way ticket.
It rained for 10 days straight when I arrived.
When I arrived, my first focus was to get my bearings and create a daily rhythm that would allow me to feel like I was generating momentum towards my goal.
- For $20, I bought a local SIM card with unlimited internet for one month from a local shop. When it wouldn’t work in my iPhone due to carrier blacklisting, I was frustrated, but at the same time, I felt like it reaffirmed my decision to disconnect from a culture where we are constantly at the mercy of corporations. So I ended up getting a cheap Android.
- I ported my phone number to Google Voice… I think. Despite the fact that I’ve read the FAQ multiple times, and read several blogs about it, I still have no idea if I even have my US-based phone number anymore, if I’ll still have my contacts, if texts I send will look like they’re from the correct number, or if it will create weird obstacles people will have to navigate around to stay in touch with me. This was stressful, but it felt weird to continue paying $70 a month just to continue to receive texts at my old number, especially while paying for a new service in Taiwan.
- Porting my number locked me out of everything that required SMS 2-Factor authentication - Facebook, PayPal, etc. During the “3-5 business day waiting period,” I felt a lot of stress wondering if I’d have to go through additional obstacles to access my accounts again.
- I wasn’t sure if power was the same here, i.e. if I would be able to use my laptop and chargers, but I suppose it is. So far, I’ve been able to plug things in without them exploding.
- Since I didn’t want to carry a suitcase around with me everywhere, I bought a backpack from a street vendor. It was priced at 850 NTD ($25), but we negotiated down to 600 NTD ($18).
For the first week, I used Booking.com to book a hostel in the randomly chosen Da’an district for about $16/night. It looked like it was near the center of Taipei, and it was cheap. Good enough for me.
A view of my hostel from the outside. I'll quickly discover that everything in Taiwan is decorated with art like this.
Despite the fact that I was celebrating small victories - getting a place to stay, meeting people, getting the lay of the land, and finding cost-effective solutions to everyday problems, after seven days I still felt a sense of pressure and guilt around the possibility that I wasn’t moving quickly enough, or doing enough. Everyone knows the stereotype of the unemployed guy who is “working on a new career” but in actuality, not doing anything at all. That was another reason for writing this piece; I wanted to have some output, some manifestation of productivity.
Intimidating
I have no idea how I’ll generate income, and that is obviously terrifying. There are of course a lot of options for generating passive income online, but it’s important for me to find something that’s fulfilling, otherwise I would be violating the whole purpose of this life change. While “total financial freedom” is attractive, I don’t think reselling items from Amazon at double the price is the right fit for me.
So far, the major challenges around this decision have been around a single theme, and that has been an inability to return the support I have received from others. When I shared this decision with my friends and family, I received an overwhelming amount of support, but I have yet really do anything in return. Part of the purpose of writing this piece is to put something back out there that others could learn or benefit from, though it’s very small in comparison to what I’ve received from others.
As a final note, during my last week in the US, I made an effort to use my medical insurance for as many things as possible. I got cleared for STDs, and got a cancer screening (negative) that involved cutting a piece of my face off, requiring me to wear an unflattering bandage for a week. In Taiwan, no one judged me for this imperfection or treated me apprehensively because of it, and I even went on a couple dates wearing it. Literally no one cared. There’s definitely something magical about this place.