13 Things to Improve Your Finances When Saving to Move Abroad

No matter where you are in your preparation to move abroad, there are always more steps, big and small, that you can take to make progress towards your target FIRE figure or to build your habits that will set you up for long term success once you make the move.

The first thing to be aware of - I’m not writing this for the Alex Hormozi followers of the world. While I read his books, listen to his podcasts and follow a lot of his guidance and advice, my reality is not that I’m trying to build a $100M business. I’m looking to find balance, joy, and freedom to pursue the things I want to do in life, even if it means being frugal and hyper focused on expenses versus optimizing my available time to work at all costs.

If you’re still reading, it’s safe to assume you too are aligned with those priorities, so let’s get on to the list of 13 different things you can do starting right now to get you closer to that FIRE goal and on your way to living abroad.

The 13 Things to Start Doing This Month or Year to Make Progress towards your FIRE Goal and being ready to move abroad

1. Build a budget and understand where your money goes

   If you’re already doing this you know why I put it as Number 1. Without budgeting you have no visibility to the patterns in how you spend, no clear way of identifying unnecessary subscriptions, and no way of measuring the impact of the broader efforts or changes you make to bring your costs down and savings up.

   Treating your personal finances like a business is a game changer in progressing towards your financial goals. By knowing your top line (the money you bring in, or your revenue), the bottom line (profit, or what you have left after monthly expenses), and having a balance sheet (all of your assets and liabilities) you have the foundational financial details ready to help you feel confident as you proceed in your FIRE journey. Additionally you’re going to need it once you’ve reached FIRE to make sure you are staying Financially stable - so your better off starting today!

2. Stop buying things you don’t need

   When I was making $300k+ a year at Salesforce, I was setting aside 50-60% of my earnings to investments, real estate and savings. This was huge and helped me make a ton of progress. But I still spent money on things that I look back at now and wonder what I was thinking. Sonos’ top end sound bar? Our dog barks incessantly at any sound from the TV, so it gets used once per day when we work out to Apple Fitness+. Could the entry level Soundbar, or even a basic offering from Best Buy have met our needs? Definitely. This would have given me an additional $500+ to put into savings without ANY material or quality of life loss.

   Now don’t get me wrong - everyone has different priorities in life, and if you thrive on high-end audio from your TV - go for it. Just think through the realities of how frequently you are going to use something before you high “Buy”.

3. Sell the things you don’t use

   Already bought a bunch of stuff from Instagram ads sucking you in? Or have a sound bar you too never use? Time to get those things listed on Facebook Marketplace.

   When we moved from Minneapolis to Milwaukee, listing and selling things on Facebook Marketplace became a second job for us. And you know what? It was fun! Getting cash in hand for things our move forced us to realize we never use was invigorating and showed how easy it really can be.

   Inflatable Kayaks that we used twice in 5 years? Sold. My road bike that I used to ride daily in Seattle, but hadn’t taken out once in 7 years in Minneapolis (a city with hundreds of miles of bike trails)? Sold. The massive gas fire pit that got used once per summer? You get the point.

   But you don’t need to wait for a major life event like a move to spur this action. Start by finding 1 item per week that you no longer use, and throw it up on Facebook Marketplace. The cash you get back? Save it, use it for your splurge dinner out instead of pulling that money from your budget. Either way - you are reducing your material waste and creating space for more savings!

4. Make your home work for you

   This is a big one that can mean many different things depending on your current status. So let’s take a look at each.

   Own or looking to buy a home? House Hack!

   House hacking is something I wish I did earlier in my life. I’m not going to write extensively on it, because there are so many resources already available (just as Claude or ChatGPT what it is and for recommended resources for pursuing it), but at it’s core it is the idea of renting out a portion of your home to help cover your mortgage payment.

   Best case scenarios in my opinion?

   • Buy a 4-unit Multi-family property (You can still get traditional, primary residence financing for a property up to 4 units), live in one, and rent out the other three. Depending on where you live, you may actually be generating positive monthly cashflow when you do this
   • Buy a property with substantially more bedrooms than you need, and rent them out (again there’s a possibility of fully covering your mortgage or coming out net positive)

   There are numerous other ways to perform a house hack (duplexes or triplexes, Detached Accessory Dwelling Units or attached in-law suites), it doesn’t really matter which route you take - just having the ability to offset your housing expense is huge in making progress towards your FIRE goal. Bonus points - you learn how to be landlord and determine if owning and operating rental properties is a viable additional income stream for your future!

   If you rent, have roommates and be aware of scope creep & unnecessary amenities

   When I first graduated from college, I had a plush job in Management Consulting, and splurged on a 1 bed new construction apartment in South Lake Union, Seattle. 6 months later the financial crisis hit and I lost my job. you can imagine the stress that caused. A close friend of mine for comparison, landed an equally financially lucrative job at BlackRock. He was making more than enough to get an apartment just like mine. Instead, he found 3 roommates and a much older house in a neighborhood a bit further out from the core of the city. He was paying half what I was paying - think about how far that extra money could go towards your future when you can set aside $600, $700 or more each month.

   Move (States, Cities, Neighborhoods)

   It doesn’t matter if it is a small adjustment like moving a bit further out of the city, or a grand change like moving across state lines - anything you can do to lower your cost of living will make an impact.

   You’re already in the mindset of wanting to move abroad - so hopefully the idea of changing states or cities isn’t daunting. But this does require a spending power comparison. What I mean by this is to assess even if living costs are lower in another city, you need to ensure you can maintain or at least have a pay rate that results in a net positive financial benefit for you if you make the move.

   For me this opportunity came in 2017 when I found out that I could make a move from Seattle to Minneapolis while receiving a promotion at the company I was currently working at, Tableau. The result of this was a major increase in the quality of life that I could have and the amount of money that we could set aside for savings for the future.

   I recognize a move across the country is not something everyone will be able to do and it doesn't always need to be something this grandiose. It's important to also take a look at whether a city that is in close proximity to where you live could have a lower cost of living even if it comes with a slightly longer commute.

   On an even more micro scale, similar to my story of my friend in Seattle, if you can just move to a different neighborhood where housing is less expensive but it still has bus routes that are easily accessible this is another great way to use a move to make progress in your financial goals.

5. Diversify your income streams

   When you start thinking about income differently, it opens up all kinds of doors. At first, you may not think of investing as generating income streams because the amounts from gains, dividends, or payouts can be so small. But as those grow and the amounts increase, it starts to take on a new life for me.

   That mentality shift happened for me when I bought my first rental property, stabilized it, and began seeing actual, meaningful cash flow from it. From there, I kept increasing the amount I put into real estate, whether through properties I bought directly or services like Arrived.com, as well as new tools with higher returns to keep growing my income streams.

   Today, we have income from over 7 different sources - W-2 jobs, Consulting, an Etsy Store, Real Estate, Private Lending, Stocks & Bonds, Arrived.com and more. And I’m always look to add more. It is the age old advice of diversity being key to managing risk.

   The key is not to get discouraged at the start. Each revenue stream will likely produce only a small trickle, or even no income at all, at first. Over time, though, they’ll grow as you add more funds or as they stabilize. For example, the Etsy store didn’t see substantial growth for the first few months, but now, 2 years in, it generates four figures of profit consistently month over month.

6. Don’t get a pet

   This will likely be the most controversial suggestion on this list, but it’s one I can speak to firsthand.

   First off, getting a pet makes it much harder to move abroad and limits where you can go. We realized this when it became clear our dog would not do well moving to another country. The flight alone was something we were not comfortable with, since he’s a corgi and would be too big to fit under the seat. He also has severe anxiety, which limited the places we could bring him. Mexico had been very high on our list to the point that we had booked an appointment with the Mexican Consulate to work toward residency and had taken multiple trips to explore cities that interested us. In the end, we realized that our pup would not do well with the fireworks and thunderstorms that were prevalent in the various cities we liked, and we recognized that we needed to wait until he was no longer with us to make our move abroad.

   Secondly, pets are expensive. I track all of our expenses and can say that after nearly 10 years with our pup, it has cost us close to $40,000 to have a dog. Don’t get me wrong, we’re still glad we got him, and it’s money that’s been well spent, but if your goal is to move abroad in the next couple of years, there are just so many limiting factors that come with getting a pet, from the risk of not being able to take them abroad to the overall financial cost. It just isn’t a good fit if you’re working toward financial freedom and making a move abroad now.

   If you’re set on getting a pet, however, depending on your time horizon, a great option could be adopting an older pet. We have a friend in Minneapolis who made this choice by adopting a retired greyhound. It was a great fit that matched her timeline and interest in moving abroad in the coming year. She was able to give the rescue dog a wonderful last few years of life, got a great companion for the remainder of her time in Minneapolis, and was able to transition to the next phase of moving abroad on her planned timeline.

   Overall, just think through how a pet fits into the short- or long-term horizon of your plan: when you want to move abroad, what you want your lifestyle to be, and the costs that will come with it.

7. Stop buying first hand or name brand

   This is another one I wish I had started doing much earlier in my life. Unfortunately, I let vanity and appearances get the best of me. In reality, if you're willing to get creative and put in the work, it doesn't need to change anything about the clothes or style you're going for.

   What can this look like?

   • First off, if you stop buying brand-new clothes at full price, you're going to make an impact. Waiting for sales on those Lululemon pants will save you some money, but we can do better.
   • What if, instead of buying Lululemon, you decided to buy similar pants from a brand like Quince? I'm not saying the quality will be the same and I get some of you won’t want to support the fast-fashion brands, but if we set those aside and instead focus on getting creative or thinking of clothing from a different lens - this is going to help you come out ahead financially - our primary goal.
   • Let’s see if we can do even better. Have you ever looked at clothes at places like Costco, where you can often find similar performance-style pants for men for under $20? Again, the cut and look won't be the same caliber as Lululemon, but if you're okay with that, the cost savings is huge.
   • Finally, if you're open to thrifting, it can be a great way to find the exact same brands you were paying full price for at a steep discount. We have a friend who actively searches thrift stores for clothes to sell on Poshmark and eBay. Some of the great name brand items she's kept for herself and her husband. We’re talking $300 pairs of pants for $10. This is huge. If you're willing to put in a little extra work, the money you save by avoiding full-priced items from name-brand stores can help you set aside substantial amounts of money.

   Also, the best advice I can give on this is to forget about fast fashion. For me, this has meant buying pretty basic-looking clothes and wearing them consistently. Yes, I've learned that I do love the Lululemon ABC pants, so I buy them, but I have 4 pairs in basic colors and they’ve lasted me 7+ years per pair, which let’s me justify the “We Made Too Much” sale pricing.

8. Change your phone plan

   This is another example of a "do what I say, not as I do" and to learn from my mistakes. We're currently locked into a multi-year plan with AT&T because of the credits we're getting for our phones. I've done the math to see whether paying them off so we could switch phone plans would make sense, but so far it hasn't.

   What I wish we had done instead of moving to AT&T was switch from our expensive T-Mobile plan to something like Google Fi or Mint Mobile. These providers use the bandwidth and spectrum of other carriers like AT&T or T-Mobile. Yes, you're considered a second-tier user, and they note that your bandwidth could be restricted in high-traffic periods, but everything I've read and seen suggests that this hasn't been a problem for others. So why would you want to avoid being locked into phone plans?

   1. The cost savings are huge when you compare a plan from Mint Mobile or Google Fi with a provider like AT&T. It's striking how much you can save by switching to them.
   2. When you lock into a phone payment plan with a provider like AT&T, you're typically also locked in and unable to use third-party e-SIMs, so you're stuck when you travel abroad. You have to rely on their expensive roaming rates or international day passes. For example, when I went to Spain, I was paying $12+ for coverage, whereas if I had been able to use an e-SIM from a different provider, I likely would have paid only $15 or $20 for my entire time in the country.

   Take a look at your phone plan and assess the benefits and services you're actually using. If you're like me, you'll likely find that switching to one of the lower-cost providers like Google Fi is the better move, especially if you can sign up during a sale like Black Friday, when they often offer great rates.

9. Cook your meals at home

   If you enjoy cooking, this one is a no-brainer. If you're someone like me who doesn't always enjoy the process, just know that the cost savings are substantial enough that you might learn to love it.

   When you first start budgeting, one of the first things you'll probably notice is how much money you spend on restaurants and eating out. For us, having this visibility let us set goals for how much we wanted to spend when eat out and work on reducing it. It also helped us realize that we actually enjoy low-cost restaurants (think taco trucks or hole-in-the-wall restaurants) and high-end splurge restaurants. We didn't like eating in what we call the middle: those restaurants where you spend $40, $60, or $80 but leave questioning the quality of what you actually got. This again, let us plan for 1 meal out a week at a cheap spot, and 1 meal out per quarter at a splurge spot.

   Cooking at home has become something that Lisa and I do together and ends up being a lot of fun. Additionally what we found are some simple recipes that we can do on repeat and bulk produce at the start of the week to make cooking during the week fast and easy.

10. Shop at the budget grocery store

    Within a five-minute drive of our house, we have five or six different grocery stores, and we’ve found that while quality is pretty similar across the board, price is not. The best example of this is a Meijer and a Whole Foods that are located across the street from each other. In many cases, both carry the exact same brands or very similar ones, but the savings at Meijer are substantial.

    Additionally, when we focus on purchasing sale items, bulk items, and store-brand products, we can often cut our grocery bill to nearly half of what it would be if we bought the exact same items at a store like Whole Foods. Additionally, we like buying frozen vegetables and other items in bulk at stores like Costco. This helps us keep costs down even more and lets us stay focused on fresh produce or smaller-amount items that we need week to week.

11. Buy bulk groceries and prep where you can

    Buying groceries in bulk is another great way to reduce your grocery bill. Some good examples are:

    • Oatmeal
    • Eggs
    • Frozen fruits or vegetables

    For example, we buy oatmeal at Costco, and because we eat it every morning, we go through it quickly. If you compare the cost of the amount we buy at Costco with a similar quantity at the local grocery store, it's hard to argue that it isn’t a smart move.

    Eggs are another example. We eat a lot of them every day to support that high-protein diet everyone’s raving about, so we buy multiple five-dozen egg boxes at Costco each month.

    Finally, with items like frozen blueberries and frozen green beans, buying in bulk at Costco creates substantial savings compared with local grocery stores. It makes sense for us, as long as we have the freezer space to make it work and continue to eat them frequently - versus it just taking up space in our freezer.

12. Use a credit card that gives you points

    I’m not going to go deep into the credit card game, because there are plenty of websites and services like The Points Guy that cover how to maximize credit card points in detail. I use credit cards heavily, make sure to pay them off every month, and accumulate a lot of points. We use those points to cover the costs of vacations and other trips, where we can get the most value. We especially prefer high-end properties, where the points go further, and use services like SeatGuru to find flights that help us get the most value from our points.

    If you aren’t already using credit cards this way, take a look at sites like The Points Guy to learn how to get the most value and to find a good card to start with.

13. Allow yourself occasional planned splurges

    If all you ever do is save and plan for the future and never allow yourself any fun in the present, it can become difficult and demoralizing as you work toward your financial goals. Make sure you take time to think about what matters most to you and set aside funds for those things, letting yourself spend a little extravagantly (within reason) on a weekly, monthly, or annual basis.

    For example, coffee is something I absolutely love. I enjoy making a good pour-over in the morning and drinking single-origin coffees from Colombia, Ethiopia, etc. But good coffee comes with a cost. I’ve built my budget around the idea that this is important to me, and I’ve found a way to work it in to the morning routine a couple of days each week. On other days, I go with a still tasty, but more moderately priced coffee. It’s been a great way to still splurge on something that matters to me while keeping my budget in check.

    The key is ensuring you know what your splurge purchases will be ahead of time so that it isn’t a shock to the budget, but instead is a part of it! So go ahead have that cup of coffee, manicure, or other lavish treat.