Being underpaid at work isn't just about stagnant wages vs inflation. It's about wages staying flat while required expenses multiplied. Minimum wage: hasn't increased in 16 years. Number of bills you're expected to pay: tripled. 1990s worker expenses: rent, utilities, food, transportation, maybe cable. 2026 worker expenses: rent (doubled), utilities, food (groceries up 30%), transportation, phone ($100/month), phone replacement cycle ($1,000 every 2 years), internet, streaming services (Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO, Peacock = $80+/month), cloud storage, printer subscription, productivity software, AI subscriptions, health insurance ($600+/month), car payment ($734 average), car insurance (up 50% in 5 years), student loans (ballooned to unmanageable), childcare ($1,500+/month). Your wages didn't account for half those expenses existing. You're underpaid at work not just because your employer is greedy (though that's true). You're underpaid because the cost structure of being alive in America has fundamentally changed while compensation stayed static. The American solution: get a better job, side hustle, budget harder. The actual solution: take the same income to a place where half those expenses don't exist. No $600/month health insurance (healthcare is $20/visit). No $1,500/month childcare (costs $200 or is culturally handled differently). No $734 car payment (public transit works, or cars cost $8,000 not $40,000). Being underpaid at work in America vs being paid the same amount abroad = completely different financial realities. Link in bio when you're ready to make your "low" wages work by changing where you spend them. ๐๐บ๐ธ #TikTokCreatorSearchInsightsIncentive
@nomadveronicaTranscript
you are underpaid at work for a reason that you aren't even considering. I know we like to talk about inflation being the cause or wage stagnation because the federal minimum wage hasn't been increased in 16 years and corporate greed and all of those things are true. But additionally, the problem is wages aren't keeping up with new expenses that you have. And what I mean by that is 10 years ago, nobody needed to have subscription services for all the things in the world that you now have subscription services to. You need subscription services for your freaking printer at home. You need it to be able to access music. You need it to be able to access any AI. You need it for Netflix. You need it for your cell phone. All of these different subscriptions are new expenses. So as wages have gone up and they just consider that your bills are the same, basic housing, food, education, those kinds of things, there's now new expenses. You have childcare costs that didn't use to exist. You have student loan payments that really didn't use to exist. You have expenses like cell phones that are a thousand freaking dollars that you have on a payment plan. And the other technology you have in your house like a laptop is probably on a payment plan. Plus all of those subscriptions. So all of these new bills together combined with the things that have exploded like healthcare costs and rent is what's making it so that you are not getting paid enough. You're not getting paid enough because of the combination of all of these things. But the question is what are you going to do about it? Because these things now exist. You do have to pay for all of these things in order to basically just survive because you need a phone and the reality is phones are a thousand dollars. So how are you going to fix this problem? You can either create more income so that you can survive off of all of the things that you need to pay each month or you can drastically cut the majority of your expenses. And that's what I help with. The way that you can cut those expenses is by moving abroad. Your rent payment does not need to look like what your rent payment looks like now. Plus your healthcare costs can go down dramatically to next to nothing by moving to a place that has socialized medicine. Those expenses plus food and the fact that they don't have to pay for their higher education all can equal a very different budget for yourself and your children if you have children that are going to go to college in the future. That can be the answer. Moving abroad instead of just staying stuck in a place where you just don't get paid enough.
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Replying to @fireandwixx American retirees are living on fixed incomes in one of the most expensive countries in the world, watching their savings evaporate on healthcare and housing, and somehow convinced they're too old to move somewhere their money would actually sustain them comfortably. Meanwhile countries around the world have designed visa programs specifically to attract retirees because they're ideal residents: steady income, low crime risk, contribute to local economy without competing for jobs, generally stable and drama-free. This is not hardship relocation. This is being actively wanted by countries that recognize retirees bring financial stability and community value without burden on social services. But American retirees have internalized that growing old means shrinking world. That retirement means staying put. That fixed income means accepting decline in quality of life as costs rise around them. The mental model is backwards. Fixed income in America means watching purchasing power decrease every year as inflation outpaces Social Security adjustments. Fixed income abroad means choosing location where that income provides comfortable life indefinitely. You're not stuck. You're not too old. You're not limited to wherever you happen to be when you retire. You have options specifically designed for your demographic, your income type, your life stage. Countries want you. Not as charity case. As valuable resident who contributes economically and stabilizes communities. The question isn't whether you can afford to move abroad on retirement income. It's whether you can afford to stay in America on retirement income that buys less every year. Retirement visas exist because countries did math and realized retirees are low-risk high-value residents. You bring stable income, you're not having kids who need public education, you're past family-formation expenses, you spend locally, you're invested in community because you're settling long-term. That's attractive resident profile. Countries compete for that. But you've been told retirement means accepting limitations. Smaller world, tighter budget, diminishing options. That's American retirement narrative designed to keep you consuming in place even as purchasing power drops. Other countries offer different narrative: retire somewhere your fixed income funds life you actually want instead of life you can barely afford. Your generation was sold American dream that hard work leads to comfortable retirement. But American costs make that impossible for most people on fixed income. You worked hard. You deserve comfortable retirement. You just can't afford it in America. You can afford it elsewhere. With same income. Because geography determines what that income buys. Link in bio for retirees ready to live comfortably instead of scraping by. What would your retirement look like if your income went twice as far? ๐๐บ๐ธ
The most generous thing you can do for people you care about is stop sacrificing yourself to stay near them. There's pervasive guilt around leaving - like choosing better life for yourself means abandoning everyone else. But martyrdom doesn't actually help anyone. Staying in environment that's grinding you down doesn't make you more useful to community. It makes you exhausted, resentful, and operating from survival mode instead of thriving mode. You cannot pour from empty cup is clichรฉ because it's true. Burned out stressed person trying to help other burned out stressed people creates more burnout and stress. Not progress. The version of you that exists when you're safe, when healthcare isn't constant worry, when you're not chronically exhausted from unsustainable pace, when you have mental space to think beyond immediate survival - that version is exponentially more capable of contributing meaningfully to world. Your value to humanity isn't measured by how much you're willing to suffer for proximity to problems. It's measured by what you can create, offer, and sustain when you're operating from place of actual wellbeing. Happy people raise happy kids. Rested people have bandwidth for creativity and problem-solving. Financially stable people can take risks and support others. Mentally healthy people can hold space for complexity instead of reactive defensiveness. All of those things require you to be somewhere that allows you to be those things. If your environment is designed to extract everything from you, you don't have anything left to give beyond survival. Moving somewhere that lets you thrive isn't opting out of caring about the world. It's opting into being capable of meaningful contribution instead of performative suffering. The people who change things aren't usually the ones being crushed by the system. They're the ones who got enough distance and breathing room to see the system clearly and imagine alternatives. You can't see forest for trees when you're trapped in trees. Perspective requires distance. Clarity requires rest. Innovation requires mental space. All things American life is specifically designed to deny you. Your best ideas, your most effective advocacy, your genuine capacity to help others - all of that exists in version of you that's not constantly stressed about survival. That version doesn't exist in America for most people. Not because they're weak. Because system is designed to keep you depleted. Link in bio for becoming version of yourself that's actually useful to world. What could you create if you weren't exhausted? ๐๐บ๐ธ
The radical choice isn't moving your kids abroad. The radical choice is keeping them in America and pretending that's normal. Raising kids in environment where they practice hiding from shooters, where healthcare access determines which job you can take, where work-life balance is aspirational concept discussed in articles but not actually practiced - that's the experiment. That's the deviation from how most developed countries raise children. Moving to place where kids exist in public spaces safely, where getting sick doesn't create financial crisis, where parents have time to actually be present in their kids' lives - that's not brave pioneering decision. That's choosing baseline normal that exists in dozens of countries. American parents have been gaslit into believing the dysfunction is normal and leaving it is extreme. But if you described American childhood to someone who didn't live here - the drills, the healthcare stress, the absence of parents who work constantly just to survive - they'd be horrified. You're not depriving your kids of anything by moving them abroad. You're giving them childhood that doesn't include trauma training as educational requirement. The kids who grow up in countries where safety is given, where healthcare is accessible, where parents aren't chronically exhausted from unsustainable work culture - they're not missing out on American experience. They're experiencing what childhood looks like when systems are designed around human wellbeing. Your kids will not thank you for keeping them in America to prove your loyalty to geography. They will thank you for prioritizing their actual safety and wellbeing over abstract concept of patriotism. Link in bio for moms who decided their kids deserve baseline safety, not exceptional bravery. What would your kids' childhood look like without constant background stress? ๐๐บ๐ธ
Replying to @alittlestitious3 Trying is word people use when they want credit for intention without accountability for execution. You don't try to order passport. You order it or you don't. You don't try to research visa programs. You identify which ones match your income type or you continue scrolling content about countries without ever determining if you qualify for any of them. You don't try to build remote income. You pitch clients, get rejected, adjust approach, pitch more clients, land one, do the work, get paid - or you research business ideas indefinitely without ever offering services to anyone. Trying is perpetual state that requires no evidence of forward motion. Doing requires demonstrable progress or honest acknowledgment that you're not actually doing it. Year of trying with zero progress means one of two things: you're attempting strategy that doesn't work and refusing to adjust, or you're not attempting anything and calling the research phase "trying." Most people in year of trying are in second category. They're consuming information, thinking about options, feeling like they're working on it because they're mentally engaged with concept. But mental engagement isn't execution. If you've been "trying" to move abroad for year and you're not abroad or actively in visa application process with approval pending, you haven't been trying. You've been thinking about trying. Different activity. What does actual trying look like? Ordered documents that take months to get. Applied for visa and waiting on approval. Building remote income that's at $1,500/month working toward $3,000. Saving specific amount monthly toward relocation fund. Narrowed countries from 100+ options to 3-5 you actually qualify for and are choosing between. Those are concrete demonstrable actions showing forward motion. "I've been researching" for year straight with nothing to show for it isn't trying. It's avoidance disguised as preparation. The universe isn't keeping you stuck. You're keeping you stuck. And saying "I go willingly, universe" like you're passenger in your own life waiting for external force to relocate you is ะฐbdicating responsibility for decisions and actions that are entirely within your control. Universe doesn't move you abroad. You decide to move abroad, then you do things that result in moving abroad. Passport application, visa application, income documentation, plane ticket purchase, relocation execution. None of those require universe's permission. They require your decision followed by your action. Link in bio for people ready to stop trying and start doing. What have you actually done in your year of "trying"? ๐๐บ๐ธ