Priced out of America

17.04.2024 - 09:45 / insider.com

Amelia Basista and JP Stonestreet call 2015 their "year from hell" — the final straw that sent them packing to South America. Stonestreet was 43 and working as a self-employed web developer when he began experiencing strange nerve pain in his hands, feet, and legs. After a frightening afternoon when he found himself struggling to walk, he got diagnoses of congenital spinal stenosis and degenerative disc disease, conditions that required two major spinal surgeries to correct.

During the nearly yearlong recovery that followed, Stonestreet was unable to work. Basista left her job as a regional sales manager to take a new sales role that allowed her more time at home while her partner recovered, but it came with a significant pay cut. As the couple's income plummeted, Stonestreet's insurance premiums soared to $1,200 a month.

"We realized we couldn't afford the mortgage and the car payments and everything," Stonestreet told me. "The conventional American lifestyle just wasn't in our reach anymore." The couple sold their house in Denver, but that wasn't enough to break even. Over the next year and a half, they hatched an escape plan. In 2017, the pair relocated to Cuenca, Ecuador, and continued working their old jobs remotely. Their monthly expenses dropped by 70%.

Basista and Stonestreet are part of an emerging cohort of Americans who, fed up with the cost of living at home, are seeking a better quality of life elsewhere. They swap advice on Reddit boards like AmerExit (57,000 members) and I Want Out (2 million members), consult with concierge relocation-service providers that cost a few hundred to several thousand dollars a pop, and teach others how to follow in their footsteps. They toss around terms like "geoarbitrage" (the notion of saving money by moving somewhere cheaper) and acronyms like FIRE (short for "financial independence, retire early," which is equal parts target and mantra).

Some, like Basista and Stonestreet, envision the move as the first step in a long-term plan that ends in a leisurely retirement abroad. Others are drawn to a digital-nomad lifestyle that allows them the flexibility and extra income to travel the world indefinitely on a remote paycheck. Either way, they're moving to save money for the future, to pay off debts, or to afford more of what life has to offer — all while propping up a cottage industry of companies catering to their every need.

It's tricky to know exactly how many Americans have relocated to other countries, let alone the details of when or why. But as of 2023, there were almost 161 million US passports in circulation, one for nearly half of all Americans. (A generation ago, only 10% of Americans had a passport.) The State Department estimated in 2020 that a