MEREDITH
[ 00:00:07 ] Welcome back future expats you got Mark and Meredith here we were just talking about if we were going to allow ourselves to be explicit on this podcast maybe not this episode but I told him that we were definitely going to be um I mean we're going to be ourselves okay yes we are and that might mean dropping the f
MARK
[ 00:00:34 ] -bomb once in a while yes especially when you talk about moving abroad people yeah that comes with its own series of consequences as will be proven through these podcasts okay anyway welcome back we are on episode two we are really excited to expand a little bit on something that we talked about and touched on in our
MEREDITH
[ 00:00:57 ] first episode yeah which was you know kind of the big deal here which is how do you know how long you should give yourself to make a clear decision you know if you're on the fence about moving anywhere much less um to Portugal but if you're trying to move anywhere other than the United States if you're moving um I don't know abroad or wherever else that it's a huge decision and I think people might be thinking well how long do I give myself like how long do I consider it how long did you go back and forth what basically brought us here and we did talk about this in the first episode like this much of it and so we wanted as we have intended From day one on this um podcast, and for Portugal junkies in general, that we want to make sure that we are talking about the things that people actually care about, want to hear, and need to hear, and that maybe you don't want to hear it-good or bad. That's right, about this kind of decision. So anyway, we were gonna... You know, you might be sitting there thinking like, 'How long should it take me to decide to move? How long should I give myself? You know, wondering how I'm gonna know if I'm ready.'
MARK
[ 00:02:21 ] And so hopefully, this podcast will help you with that at least, yeah, give you some maybe some other thoughts that you haven't thought about, yeah.
MEREDITH
[ 00:02:31 ] All right. So, babe, how long did it take us to actually make a decision to move actually decide to take action and start the process of moving over here to Portugal from Charlotte?
MARK
[ 00:02:44 ] Yeah, I'm gonna say it was at least or about a year. Specifically one year so yeah, June-ish 2022 because Mum came over, yeah, and that was in June '22. Then we pulled the the the plug on everything going in June-ish of '23.
MEREDITH
[ 00:03:07 ] Yeah, because June of 2022, she had come to visit us in Charlotte and we were going up to my parents' house at Lake Aston, yeah. And um, yeah... I can't even remember how that conversation started, but it did. But all I know is that I used the four-hour trip, yeah, to start googling um, I think I actually put in 'most affordable places to live in Europe', yeah, something like that because Europe was like our best place to retire.
MARK
[ 00:03:37 ] Yeah, or yeah, something like that. This is never a retirement let me just, oh yeah, we're not; we're not clear. I kind of wish we were, yeah, I kind of wish I could win the lottery but still working on that one, um, so yeah, I was Googling it in the car and then, yeah, I think the top three...
MEREDITH
[ 00:03:56 ] well, I remember two; I remember the definitely the top Costa Rica, yes Portugal and Costa Rica were the the in the top three. I can't remember what the third one was, and so I was like, oh Portugal, and so I started Googling Portugal as a as a destination for expats and it was like, it like blew up; I just, I wasn't even so aware of how popular Portugal had become in the last few years. I had never been here, you had never been here, right? And I want, business trip but that was in and out of the airport, oh really, I didn't realize that, um, so basically I was like, oh I'm gonna go to Portugal, I'm gonna go to Portugal, I'm gonna go to Portugal; you were tuned in to this but basically it was like, I was finding all of this content about how amazing it is and how it's like the undiscovered destination that's affordable for expats, so that's what started.
MARK
[ 00:04:48 ] It and then what we decided to go, oh yeah, we came over, not to move, we decided to scale it's it's so important, I think we, you know, you've got to do it your own way, but the way in which we decided to do it was to go and have a look and see what we could be doing and if it was everything that what was printed on paper, yeah, real life, yeah, um, and could we live it and could we get around, could we get in touch with the language, could we all sorts of different, could we?
MEREDITH
[ 00:05:22 ] I also think that there's a you know this is the Enneagram Four in me but a place will tell you emotionally for me I can tell if a place is somewhere that I could live I am not always 100% on. that but i do believe that there's something in your gut when you're in a place that is a connection to a place or not and i think that that is an important thing so i feel like um if you are considering moving i don't think you should ever do it blindly i think you should definitely there's people who do this all the time they pick up and they move somewhere new and that's that's fine and and i'm not judging it all but i do believe that for most we need to go to that place and really feel that place and and i feel like being in the heart of that place will tell you if you're connected to it or not that sounds so hippie but i am kind of i am
MARK
[ 00:06:21 ] kind of hippy so i maybe sometimes i own that um but anyway so we did go scouting yes we went scouting so that was we were googling in june i think that's another important thing is even if you think you're set on one i think that's another important thing is even if you think you're set on one particular place definitely go there obviously but open it up be be open to other things that are different to it that that that are bigger than it that are smaller than it that are in a different destination to it you know when we came over it was Porto, Aveiro, Lisbon, Sintra, you know, and they were all places of consideration, but Porto was definitely the one that was the the tick on far many more things than others. Yes, you know that that's just we wanted to make sure that Portugal was the right place; then you start drilling down and make sure that a specific place is the right place, yeah.
MEREDITH
[ 00:07:16 ] And most of the I mean, you know, you can only do it-you get it's always going to be a risk, right? Where you choose if you could get there and it not be your place, and that's fine. But it's it; I feel like you definitely need to go and visit and make sure that the core things that are important to you exist exist so anyway we Googled in June, and then we booked a trip five or six weeks later. We came over here in August 2022, and I mean literally he just named them all. We went; we flew into Lisbon, we came up to Porto, um, we Avéiro, we went to Sintra, and we loved oh my god! What did we love? We loved the weather, we loved the affordability, especially a food and drink right. We had not even gotten to can we really afford apartments right so that wasn't even there but just the day-to-day life stuff could you live in it was super affordable, and I'm telling you Porto is a very special place. So we, we really felt connected to it. I felt like Lisbon was way too big, and I still do; um, and some of the others were too small, so that's kind of how. We landed on Porto, but I go back to the Porto we scouted right. We wanted to see this place, but then what? We come home so we're in August 2022 and you're on a high, you're on a high, you're like 'yes, I want to live there! I want to do it!'
MARK
[ 00:08:46 ] And that's when you really, really have to start thinking-not only that I want to do it, but how can I do it? How do we as a team, as a family make it happen from wanting to it happening, yes. And a lot of people, that's where they stay.
MEREDITH
[ 00:09:10 ] Yeah, it's the dream, it's the wanting, it's the excitement and the you know. I think for Americans specifically, there is a group of us who dream of living in Europe, it's this, it's This thing that seems like romantic and old-world, and it's things that we don't know, and so I think we're intrigued by those things and we want to experience those. That group of us anyway. And so here's the thing: you get home, you have this amazing trip, you're like, 'Wouldn't it be amazing to live in a place like that for a while?' And you ride that for a little while, and I feel like we did; we absolutely rode that like, this is what we want to do.
MARK
[ 00:09:56 ] We could not consume enough information; we could not enough of YouTube, enough podcasts, enough-we could not whatever, wherever you could find anything to do with Porto specifically and Portugal. Generally, um, it was okay. We need to know about this, need to know about that. One thing I do wish we'd done would be to start learning the language, so that's a definite um pro tip. But so then what happens you get discouraged.
MEREDITH
[ 00:10:27 ] I can tell you over the course of from August to June, we went back and forth on whether or not this was actually going to happen.
MARK
[ 00:10:36 ] Easily six or seven times, and yeah, there were iterations of should we do this if we didn't do this, what could we do? Because we knew we wanted to do something to change up our lives um and that was important to us, that that was, you know, that was our boy, yeah, that was our boy. Um, we wanted To change things up, um, what did we consider other than, obviously, Costa Rica? But we also considered and I don't know where you got this idea quotes um of a year-long road trip that was not my idea; it was definitely okay, I am the road trip hater-that was not more than two hours in the car, and it's just held for the other people.
MEREDITH
[ 00:11:22 ] But we did consider Costa Rica; we did consider that, wouldn't have been much different, though. You're still moving to a completely different country, have to get a visa... blah, blah, blah, blah, but for me the difference between what we read about Portugal and Costa Rica is the humidity and heat and I just don't know if I could live there so the road trip was you know like maybe we just want an adventure for a little while maybe we should rent our house and like get an RV and see the world you know he hasn't he hasn't lived in that scene all that I want to of the state so it was like through the lens of could we go around the States for you know a year and stay in each place for a month at a time yeah that's a terrible idea for me but other things that we consider were Puerto Rico because that would be dead so I love Puerto Rico that'd be dead simple um dead simple why though because it's America it's still in American territory yeah
MARK
[ 00:12:26 ] But I think that the big thing with that was the dog, yeah yeah, but you wouldn't need visas, so yeah, there's a stumbling block there. Another easy one would have been I'm from England, we'll go to England, we'll stay in England for that was probably the first thing we considered, was like well we want to change, I've lived there, I know it, I'm going to say like the back of my hand but I'm pretty yeah, pretty much um and I wanted more of an adventure than that would give us so there were so many different considerations that led us a longer path, a windy path, yeah up and down path like, but that was what that year looked like, so this is what I want.
MEREDITH
[ 00:13:04 ] To, I want people to understand is that this was not something where you you go 'I think I'm going to move to Europe and let's go see it' and yet we love it and then we just started the process like it was an emotional journey for us for many reasons. Some of the hurdles besides family-right? Yeah, it's all if I forget to say it out loud, I'll say it loud every time: family, family, and leaving family and being away from family was a huge thing for me. Um, Mark has already done this with his family, right? This was going to be a new thing, living so far from mine. So if I don't say that every time, that is number one; it was always a hurdle and a concern. It's not that I don't want to, um, ever be away, but it's just a different type of life for me because I've been in the same state as my family my whole life, um, you know. Number one is money, come on! Like you're sitting there going, 'Can we do this? Like, could can we actually figure out the finances of this?
MARK
[ 00:14:11 ] How much do we have? How much do we need? How much more can we make? How much we spend?
MEREDITH
[ 00:14:15 ] What would make us comfortable in terms of what we needed to save before we even left the country? Could we rent our house? Would we keep our jobs if we kept our jobs and be a remote option at all, all of these things um obviously huge, I mean it's the number One hurdle for most people right, can I afford to do this and then once I get there, can we afford to live, yeah?
MARK
[ 00:14:42 ] And I think that along with can I afford, is do I fit into a visa bracket, do I fit into a D2, a D8, a D7, which we will go we'll go into in a different episode, yeah.
MEREDITH
[ 00:14:57 ] But ultimately, can we qualify for any kind of visa, can we physically do it, yeah?
MARK
[ 00:15:02 ] On paper, um, and if you know that, that's got to be a first, first big starting point, yeah. Because if you don't, it's even possible, be it that you do in some ways but you don't in others, can you manipulate that to make it work or not, or you know, it's just a very overwhelming process, so this is you never ever going. To be for the faint of heart, um, it's a very overwhelming process. Well, overwhelming is the right word, because I feel like, but at each point, I always felt that yes, it was overwhelming for one or other of us, and the other one brought the other one back down to earth or up out of the dumps, yeah, whichever way it was, yeah, and I think we're very lucky, and again, um, that just worked for us, yeah.
MEREDITH
[ 00:15:52 ] I think when you talk about all of these hurdles right, we even talked about well, what if we go and one of us hates it when we get there, right? Like those are things that we definitely had to consider because it's such a change for both of us. He could love It and I could hate it, I could love it, and he could hate every minute.
MARK
[ 00:16:11 ] We always had to have a pack; we did. We had a pack from the beginning.
MEREDITH
[ 00:16:14 ] One person didn't like it, then we would do something about it and leave. And I think that's just, um, um, um, spine right. You're either going to decide you want it more and push through those hurdles and like have this mindset of, 'We will find a way,' yep. Or you stick where you are, which is fine because that's right for some people. Um, but there is a stress hardiness I believe that has to be a part of that um of this process to push through the overwhelm and the hurdles and get you where you really want to be. We can apply that to all the hurdles we just talked about. We can definitely apply that to the visa process alone. And we're going to talk in detail about the visa process and the requirements and all of that in future episodes, because I think that's what a lot of people need to understand and want to understand. Like, if I'm on board, it's the how, right? Now it's the how. I just, I feel like the biggest thing that one would have to decide when you're at this point, if you're listening and you're like, 'I would really love to move one day and I would really love to do this,' is to A, understand that it's not for the faint of heart, but B, that it is 100%. 100% worth it and possible.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:18:21 ] Yeah.
MEREDITH
[ 00:18:22 ] You know, every time we hit a hurdle, I feel like I had these roller coasters. It was like, I hit a hurdle and I'd be like, 'Well, there goes our plan.' You know, now I'm frustrated. Now I'm pissed off. Now I'm like, sad and I'm having, because I am an Enneagram 4, I feel things much deeper than he does. And I just, I would also go like, maybe this is the universe telling us not to do it. Like, I literally, we would have these moments and then I would take a day and I'd be like, 'No, what? You know what?' It's like other people have done this resilience, right? It's resilience and it's pushing through and finding the right resources and understanding that people have gone before you and they have accomplished this.
MARK
[ 00:19:07 ] So we're not the first.
MEREDITH
[ 00:19:09 ] We're not, we're not going to be the last hopefully. And so it's, it's one of those, I beg you to, um, keep the faith or at least, you know, keep the faith. Also understand what you're going to be up against when you start this process, if you do. Um, but also have the faith that, you know, I, I'm also one of those people who said, I don't think that the universe puts things in your heart, like these desires in you, if it's not going to help you facilitate them. And that's just kind of, again, hippie of me, but I do, I do, I do believe that like if, if there's a difference, if there's a difference, if there's a difference, if there's a desire within you to do something like this, there is a way to accomplish it. It may take longer than others. It may take a shorter time than other than most people for you because of how you make decisions and your readiness, but even just possible, just comparing it, even if you weren't moving to a different country, you were moving to a different state within the U.
MARK
[ 00:20:10 ] S. think about how overwhelming that process is of just moving home for maybe for a job or for whatever reason. Yeah. But you're moving from for instance, North Carolina to South Carolina, you know, 50 miles away and it's a different state. It's different texts. It's different. The whole buying and selling and moving and things like that in itself is a stressful thing to do. You know, as a realtor, I see that every time that clients did that, whether they were buying, selling or both.
MEREDITH
[ 00:20:42 ] You're uprooting your life either way.
MARK
[ 00:20:43 ] And if you then compound that one chunk of stress with then an ocean away or maybe two or three different countries and a different language and a different culture and all sorts. It's just a different scale of having to be prepared for things that you don't even know that you're going to have to be prepared for.
MEREDITH
[ 00:21:07 ] Yeah, cause we're pretty organized and pretty prepared and there were tons of things that came our way really well. Okay.
MARK
[ 00:21:14 ] That one caught us. Um, so, but yeah, again, if it's worth doing for you, then follow it through. If it, if it's something you start and after a while, you feel lost in it, then change, you know, there's nothing that there's, there's no guide that says what you start doing is where you have to end. What you start doing might open up a different possibility. So instead of it being another country, it might be a different city. In the States, you know, it doesn't always have to end where you expect it to. It did for us. We are very pleased. It did. But again, it didn't come without its own challenges.
MEREDITH
[ 00:22:00 ] And I'll say too, you know, this is not a channel trying to convince you to move abroad. It's really about giving you our experience and our ups and downs and the good, the bad, the ugly about our experience so that you can decide if it's something that you want to do. It's actually for you. And for some people, you will decide that it's not for you. Yeah. And I just want to make sure that people understand it's not about us trying to sell you while moving here. I'm not even trying to sell you while moving to Portugal. But I do want to share what our experience has been as an American and a Brit moving to Portugal from the United States, and all that comes with that; I, you know, I, I have heard a lot. You will often hear me talking about it from an emotional lens, and you will hear him talking about it from a black and white practical, you know. So that's who we are, and so I think it's a good pairing to share both, both lenses of the experience with you guys on that, so we hope you've enjoyed episode two, yeah.
MARK
[ 00:23:10 ] Hopefully it didn't go too far off tangents; it's okay, we like storytelling, it's really yeah, I think we've got tons of stories to tell, oh hell yeah, um, some, some maybe not, but I just, I don't know, I just think that having an opportunity to share what we why we did what we did is so important and you know, trying to find if you're watching this, trying to find people that resonate with your fears and feelings, um, it's it's something that is so valuable and I think that's one of the definitely one of the the desires that we yeah, we want to build a community, we want to build community, we want to Build value, we want to offer value um in what we say and what we can provide and anything uh like that because it is overwhelming yeah but worth it again yeah worth it for us I will say so this is a good lead-in.
MEREDITH
[ 00:24:11 ] Thank you babe! If you guys would head over to Instagram let us know, send us a message um you know I would love to know what you want to hear more about on the podcast; we have some plans, but I want to make sure we're catering it to what it is that you are actually interested in.
MARK
[ 00:24:32 ] If we're talking about offering value, yeah it comes from giving us ideas; send us a DM
MEREDITH
[ 00:24:38 ] (I would love that)! If you want some one-on-one consultation with us, you can Find that on Instagram, and we'll see you in the next episode! Instagram and our bio too; um, but other than that, I guess we'll see you next time. Absolutely, have fun! Cheers. Listen up, future expats, for more content about our move, the visa process, Portuguese culture, and destinations, and tons of support resources for your own decisions and potential move abroad.
MARK
[ 00:25:06 ] Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Portugal Junkies; stay in touch and help us reach more people by subscribing here and following us there.
MEREDITH
[ 00:25:16 ] Cheers, y'all.