Aaron

Not the person you’re responding to but I did the same thing for in part the same reasons.

We had significant fiscal privilege in that we were old enough and willing to go into debt enough early in our lives to purchase a house before things got stupid, and each time we moved we sold the house for a profit. We are renting again in our new country (New Zealand) until we build back up and get at least permanent residency (can’t buy a house here unless you’re a PR). Buying a home was the most stressful and most impactful thing financially, but that’s not feasible now for most people.

We got lucky enough, and purposefully saved for escape for 10 years by living with things that weren’t comfortable (concrete floors for years rather than replace water damage, going above and beyond to keep electricity and gas prices low even at the cost of comfort, working too much to put money into savings and neglecting family, no eating out and limiting grocery budget for last two years, pulling out ALL investments like 401k to make the final push and starting from scratch in our new home, etc.).

I can tell you it was all worth it. Live below your means (while increasing your means incrementally), beans and rice rather than packaged foods (balanced with how much your time is worth), make every sacrifice with a clear goal in mind. Like I said, it takes years, and you’re operating at a disadvantage just because we did this starting 12-13 years ago when prices were significantly different, and average wages haven’t compensated. We have kids, so the other benefits were things like the child tax credit increase in 2021, which gave us unexpected increases.

I’ve seen people do all this just to have to go back to the US because they didn’t scope out their landing enough: make sure you know how much you need to survive in your new country, know the cost of visas, limits on what you can earn in your job, know what jobs you can even fill based on visa and qualification restrictions… and then plan for having 5-10% more in total liquidity than you think you need. Things change, accidents happen… in our case our kid had to have emergency surgery the week before our flight, that same day our car died so we couldn’t sell it for as much as we wanted, and a year after arriving they increased the cost of visa renewal by over 100%. Luckily we had planned for things going haywire so we were still able to escape.

It’s not easy. I wish you all the luck in the world. Sorry for the novel and basically saying “be born earlier and get lucky” 👀

Exactly my thoughts. 80+ is already a horrific number, it’s not going to make people more likely to act to artificially balloon the number 3x. There could be 1000 school shootings in one year and I doubt the US people or Govt would do a thing. They actively choose this every day.

Hi, it’s me, a non extreme feminist! (We agree, except on the word never and always, so just read)

Sometimes it looks like extremes because in order to have equality, or equity, you have to change existing systems that promote the inequality and inequity. This to some may look like favouring the minority (power not number), when in fact it could just be trying to undo some of the damage. For example, changing a system that promotes men over women would involve maybe extra research into women’s health, because studies almost always don’t take into account that women’s bodies are different. BMI was built for men, dosages for medication are typically figured out for men, etc. Same goes with other minorites, btw. This extra research may make a majority group member feel like the system is prioritising others to the detriment of their self, when in fact it’s just trying to establish an equilibrium, as that research (from the example) is already there for them.

Now from people? Yes, you are right. Sometimes (you may say often or a hyperbolic always) adherents will be wrong about what feminism is. That’s a struggle that the idea has to contend with just like every other movement. But feminism itself isn’t about extremes of hate, though the systemic change to bring about feminist goals may feel extreme due to the scale of work to be done.

I’d settle for inventory sorting