A Plan for Living Abroad?

First, admit your plan sucks
My friend Craig says he wants to tell every person that moves here that their plan sucks. To be clear, he thinks his plan sucked too. Now, I'm from the south, and I'm way too polite to say such a thing, but, well, I can just let the Jersey guy say it for me.

I love plans. A lot. I love lists and detailing them and clarifying them and charting the whole course. I've written several extensive business plans in my life, and I never go to the store without a list. I did planned home births - 4 of them. I've read so many parenting books. It was way overkill. I started a school because I didn't like my options. I research, and I plan. I'm not a fly by the seat of your pants girl. I am, however, a little woo woo. And maybe a bit of a Pollyanna. So my plan was thorough but perhaps a bit optimistic. Here's the truth. Brace yourself. You have no idea what it's going to be like or how things are going to go. Not a clue. The only thing you can be sure of is that they're not going to go the way you think they're going to go. That's what Craig means when he says your plan sucks.

Homebirth #4. This was a good plan.

Scrap that Plan and Make 7 More
So what are you going to do? Make a plan that sucks? Fly by the seat of your pants? These options are shit. Here is my advice. Make a plan, but be flexible. Your plan is definitely going to change, and it may fall through completely. So, you need to have back up and contingency plans. You need to have some cash to live on while you figure out what works with your situation and location or in case something goes horribly wrong. Even better if you have cash flowing from a business or location independent work. Having no plan is not the answer. You will likely end up in trouble. At the very least, you need a plan for money/income that will work in almost any circumstance. I will likely devote several blogs to this topic.

The inside of a collapsed yurt. One of many things that can go wrong.

Now we've established I'm in favor of a plan, but buying a house before you've lived somewhere is a bad plan. It works out for a few, but it's so unlikely that, on a short visit or from another country, you could decide where you want to live. In fact, I'm not even a fan of setting up a long term rental ahead of time, so this also applies to travelers. You don't know what area you're really going to prefer. Again, this isn't vacation. Get yourself 2-7 nights in an Airbnb or a hotel and then find a long term rental once you've arrived. You'll get a better deal and find a place you like more. And let me be clear. I had been coming to Belize for almost 20 years when I moved here. I’ve travelled all around this country, top to bottom and side to side. I have friends and connections all over. And I had no business trying to buy. In the end we lost almost $20,000 and a whole lot of sanity because we tried to rush the process and didn't really prepare properly. We had a thorough and brilliant business plan that I still believe in, but neither crowdfunding nor investors came through because we didn't really know how to convey our message or drum up the kind of support we needed. We weren't firmly planted or really sure where we wanted to be. We hadn't been here long enough to really connect with what we wanted, what the community needed, or what tourists or other potential customers or clients might want or need.

In fairness to us, we fell in love with this.

Here's another reason to hold off. With all my experience in and around Belize, I was unfamiliar with the rules and laws, so I wasn't prepared to properly navigate immigration and work permit laws, customs duties, or different real estate norms, including the 10% escrow deal that screwed us so hard in the end. There's a lot of wisdom in hanging out long enough to learn the ropes. You can read online until you're purple, but if you're not living in it, you just can't know it all.

Best Plan? Lots of $$$.
Good grief. Reading through this again, you must be wondering what the hell the advice is here. Make a plan. Ditch the plan. Make a new plan. Wash, rinse, repeat until you figure out what works. Yeah. You're welcome.