Ep. 35 Dawn Fleming

My guest this week is Dawn Fleming. She and her husband moved from the United States to Mexico. She shares her experience in the new book,  Claim Your Life. How to Retire in Paradise . She  has a podcast, Overseas Life Redesign, which is available on all major steaming platforms. She also hosts workshops to teach people the information that they would need to know when considering moving to another country. 

We discuss the myths around moving such as access to medical care, safety and financial costs of living. She discusses doing beta tests prior to moving and what things you should consider such as access to grocery items, weather conditions or a strong internet connection.

Claim Your Dream Life (claimyourdreamlifebook.com)
About Dawn (dawnfleming.com)
Dawn D Fleming (@overseasliferedesign) • Instagram photos and videos

Filled Up Cup - Unconventional Self Care for Modern Women
Ashley (@filledupcup_) • Instagram photos and videos

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the filled up cup podcast. We are a different kind of self-care resource one that has nothing to do with bubble baths and face masks and everything to do with rediscovering yourself. We bring you real reviews, honest experiences and unfiltered opinions that will make you laugh, cry, and most importantly, leave you with a filled up cup.

Ashley: 0:32

I am very excited today. I have Dawn Fleming joining me. Dawn is the author of claim your life. How to retire in paradise on a shoestring budget. She is an experienced traveler entrepreneur, international business attorney, lifestyle consultant her and her husband also own and operate overseas life redesign. Thank you so much for joining me today

Dawn: 0:54

oh, my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Ashley: 0:56

Can you tell us a little bit about your book?

Dawn: 0:58

Claim your dream life really started out as a workshop. Tom and I moved to Mexico five years ago and he would just. Strike up conversations in this lovely Caribbean island where we live and people were very interested in our move overseas. How did we do it and how could they do it too? So I was like, Hmm, I guess people wanna know this stuff. So I just started doing free workshops and the workshop lend itself to becoming a book and covers a lot more than I could possibly cover in a workshop. So it worked out really well.

Ashley: 1:30

I think it's something that a lot of people fantasize about the idea that they wanna move somewhere else. And for whatever reason, we get stuck in this idea of wherever we're born is where we have to stay. I love that your book opens up that opportunity, or even just that thought process of potential other destinations for people.

Dawn: 1:48

Yes, absolutely. That's kind of why I created the workshop. I was like, people just didn't know where to start. I mean, that was one of the biggest questions that I got. So I'll give you a little sneak peek. I'm actually just putting the fitting touches on page to register for my new workshop, which is not gonna cover what's in the book cuz the book covers it. But the next iteration is what we call a beta test. Which is basically where you, quote unquote, move overseas for a month or two, if you can afford the time away to test the waters before you take the big plunge. And so teaching people how to figure out whether a place is a good fit or not, and what the criteria is and how to do the research and all that. So I'm really excited. About the next iteration and it's gonna be free. I'm really dedicated to serving as many people as I can, whether they pay me or not. I'm really excited to share this next adventure.

Ashley: 2:39

I think that's an important point too, is the idea of going and testing places. I think we all sort of have potentially that fantasy destination in mind. So I think like, from me, I always think of Italy I think it's important to go to that place and actually see is this somewhere I would wanna be because the idea of somewhere versus the actual reality and lack of wifi somewhere can make a big, huge difference.

Dawn: 3:01

For sure. That is so true. And of course, you know, it's different traveling on vacation versus living like a local. Part of the beta test is like, Hey, don't go stay at a five star, all inclusive resort. Like that's not where you're gonna live. Right. So if you want to have a living experience, you have to stay at a place that does more realistically like what, you would live in.

Ashley: 3:23

Were you and your husband, big fans of Mexico, or did you travel there lots before you decided that that was gonna be the place that you would end up in?

Dawn: 3:32

Well we did actually my husband's from Newport beach, California, and I lived in orange county for 20 years. So you know, frequent trips south of the border were, part of what we did there, but also I discovered this lovely little island Isla Mujeres back in 1992. My girlfriend from Minnesota actually turned me onto it. So I had been coming here for 30 years now. It always felt like home, it was just one of those places, like. Soon as you got here, I was like, oh, this just feels really good. When we left California in 2010, we sailed our 50 foot sailboat all the way through the Panama canal and up this side, we actually stopped here on our way to Panama city, Florida. When we got here, it was like, We have to leave, but we, like it here, but all of our stuff and our cars and everything, we had just moved and put in storage that were waiting for us. So I was like, oh, I guess we gotta go. That was kind of where we committed to going, but we really didn't wanna leave here. So it's interesting, six years later, We ended up saying, Hmm, let's give it a try. Of course having the boat was great because our house moves. So we could do that test and say, well, we can go try it out. If we don't like it, like our house moves, we can go somewhere else. It was nice to have that flexibility.

Ashley: 4:43

Absolutely. It's also really important to trust your intuition, that way of like really connecting and going. This feels right. Instead of it being a situation where you feel like you almost have to talk yourself into it,

Dawn: 4:55

I'm a lawyer, but I'm also, I have a very creative side. I paint murals. I have a very woo woo side to me, if you will. Mercury just went out of being retrograde. I dunno if you know about that, but

Ashley: 5:06

I'm very excited its ended

Dawn: 5:09

I'm a really big believe in energy. I talk about energy, a lot in my book. So there's this balance. I think it's this dance that we have to do between our logical methodical checklist side of being organized and, planning, but also not losing sight of that important. You know, sort of touchy, feely, instinctual side of things too, and really kind of seeing if you can line those up is, the best way to move forward in my opinion.

Ashley: 5:38

I think the fantastic thing about moving or something for people that are maybe nervous about it, is that it doesn't have to be permanent.

Dawn: 5:47

That's right.

Ashley: 5:47

You literally could move back or you could cancel your trip and go somewhere else. There is that flexibility in a choice like that, where you aren't 100% like to some degree, obviously it wouldn't be as simple as just like snap your fingers and it's undone, but there isn't this all or nothing mentality with it.

Dawn: 6:05

That's actually one of the homeworks exercises that I did in my last workshop was what's the worst case scenario. If your plan doesn't work out, what's your plan B? What's your backup plan? A lot of people would just say, well, I just would move back to where I came from, and just kind of pick up with my life and carry on the way that I was, I have a podcast as well, the overseas life redesign podcast, and one of my interviews, the guests, they did that, they moved down here. They actually moved down here twice. The first time they had to leave because a family member got ill and they needed to go back and care for them. And then they tried it a second time and it just didn't work. Health wise, I don't know if it was allergies anyways, for some reason she. Was sick while she was here and ended up going back to Missouri, where they were from lovely couple retired librarians, but she said, you know, I'm so glad we did it because now we're not gonna wonder, like what if, and we tried it didn't work out but we went for it, and you can feel really good about that.

Ashley: 6:58

Sometimes those what ifs cause the most disappointment or the most resentment almost mm-hmm, that fear of what we don't do when people are thinking about moving somewhere else or retiring somewhere else what are some of the misconceptions that you commonly see?

Dawn: 7:14

I kind of covered three of'em in the workshop and I kept those in the book and that was number one was, oh, it's too expensive. I can't afford it. Nothing could be further than the truth. I have a budget in there. My friend Diane was living in San Antonio Texas. She cut her living expenses by more than 50% moving here to the island. I talk about geo arbitrage. So basically maintaining the same level of income, but moving to a place that is less expensive. So you're leveraging that, difference in price points. There's no other financial strategy that I know of that can. Increase your income, reduce your expenses more than geo arbitrage. I mean, especially with inflation that we're seeing in the United States I mean, housing is a huge expense. I also talk about how taxes are a huge expense. That was one of the reasons we bought property in Mexico. Our real estate taxes are literally about$150-175 a year for a double ocean front lot. Like we were looking in Florida, it was for waterfront property all the way from Sarasota, Bradenton. I mean, you're talking about seven,$8,000 a year in real estate taxes. And then you're adding hurricane insurance on top. Everything's concrete down here, like nothing's blowing away, but there are, stick houses like you have to pay lots. So you're talking probably close to a thousand dollars a month and you haven't even talked about a mortgage. Just taxes and insurance. And I said, I'm not doing that. You really have the ability to either save more or have a better quality of life. You can travel more. You can go out more. I give the example of my friend, Becca, that I also interviewed single mom lives like a millionaire three children. She makes six figures, she's a remote worker. She said, I could do okay. In the United States, but I don't have all my children in private schools. I don't have six employees helping me. From cleaning my house to meal planning to laundry, to, groceries to everything. I don't take four vacations a year with my girls as a single parent in the United States. The quality of life is just so much better. The other thing I talk about is the healthcare. Oh, oh, the healthcare's not good. Well, actually US number one in healthcare expenditures. And ranked number 37 in the world in quality. So people think, oh, I can't get yet. I mean, I pay I start out as$110 a month. Now I pay like$130 a month. It's gone up 20 bucks in three years, it's a global one policy. 5 million in coverage,$2,500 deductible, half that if it's in network, but things are so cheap out of pocket. That I haven't even made a claim because, it's$75 to go into a modern dental facility and do complete cleaning and, they even repaired a chip tooth. It's just unbelievable. We did a whole. Series of blood work for both my husband and I, we're healthy. We don't take pharmaceutical drugs. We hadn't been to a doctor in five years. We're like, yeah, we should probably look under the hood, get our oil changed, you know, check the tires, all that. We could walk into a lab. It was$220 for both of us for full blood work that was sent to us. Not our doctor didn't need an order. We go to see Dr. Greta British physician on the island. She spends 30 to 45 minutes a piece with us comparing our 2017 blood work. And our 2022 blood work. She wrote me, a script for a mammogram. It was a thousand pesos. That's$50 for both of us.

Ashley: 10:44

It's just mind boggling.

Dawn: 10:45

It's a different mentality because people are thinking coverage, coverage, coverage, and it's like, no, no, no, no, no cost cost cost. What is that costing you? The average family affords over$22,000 a year for insurance coverage. And then you still get bills for stuff that isn't covered or, still high deductibles and all that. Then the third thing is oh, there's not as much opportunity, which couldn't be further from the truth. Now obviously with, remote work. you can work from anywhere. The reality of it is there's plenty of opportunity whether you wanna work for someone else or whether you wanna start a business, there's never been a better time in the history of the world to start a business.

Ashley: 11:23

If we just take the COVID piece and look at sort of the pandemic for the last two or three years, I think. Speaking from my own experience, I am so sick of my house. Like I don't wanna look at the same things. And really realizing what is important to us. I think that we got stuck in the, we have to work Monday to Friday nine to five. It's really about work life and a little bit about family life and trying to balance it all. We really realized that balance is such a myth and we really do need to focus on how do we wanna spend our time, the idea of spending such a big chunk working for potentially a corporation that we really don't care about. And they really wouldn't care if they had to replace us. I think really has gotten a lot of people, really thinking about what they want their lives to look like. Time is the biggest asset that we really have,

Dawn: 12:13

yeah, for sure. I couldn't agree more. The reality of it is we are living longer. It's one of the things I talk about is, in 1860, you know, life expectancy was like 40 and now it's 80 in it's projected to be 85 by 2050 we've been given this whole adult lifetime tacked on to what used to be a normal lifetime. We have all this time, but we don't have the training or the skills or the guidance to figure out what that means and what our life looks like as we go through these different stages. That's one of my goals is to help like the midlife folks, which now, I mean, you're talking really from 40 to 80 is midlife, right? If we're living to a hundred, I mean, that's a four decade long period. It is our middle life and elderly, is really 80 to a hundred. Everything's shifting in terms of our perspective about aging as well, but we still talk about retiring at 65, like I believe, and I talk about it in the book. The soul did not come here to retire. Like if we're still alive, there's purpose and meaning that's there and it's just our job to discover it.

Ashley: 13:22

When we think about the 40 to 80, in a lot of cases, our kids are grown and outta the house, and we really do have that ability to still feel good and wanna travel and wanna find things that are exciting and new and have fun and focus on that adventure of our life.

Dawn: 13:40

There's no reason that we can't. I mean, if we take care of ourselves I always say the best healthcare plan is good health right. We dig our graves with our teeth. So if we can, eat well, we can exercise. I mean, it's not rocket science. We know what it takes to be healthy. I just had the pleasure of spending about 10 days with my mom in February, she turned 80. We all went back for her birthday celebration in Tucson. But my brother said to me, we were for his daughter's graduation in Nebraska. And he said, you. Mom doesn't seem any different now than she was at age 60. That couldn't be more true. She takes care of herself. She eats right. She's remarried. She outlived my dad and he's gonna be 85 they have an RV. They, winter in Tucson, they go cruise. He's got, six children. There's three of us. So they go around, they visit grandkids They're just really enjoying their lives. They're slowing down a little bit, but I'm just so excited for them because they're just living such a great life

Ashley: 14:38

My great-mother lived to be 94 and she couldn't hear us very well, but she could still carry on a conversation like it. Aging is just a number

Dawn: 14:48

mm-hmm there's a lot of research that shows that it's how we view aging as well. That affects our longevity. So my husband's 10 years older than I am. I turn 60 in October. He turns 70 and occasionally I'll catch him. And he'll say something about being old and I'll say, no, you're not. Don't say that cuz thoughts are things, right? So if you are thinking that then you're sending signals to your body. Like, oh, I'm old, you know, I'm gonna act old. I shared an article recently. Oh, a Japanese doctor at 118 in Japan was still practicing. He died practicing and he probably wasn't practicing much, but I mean, that was his purpose. In life and how wonderful to be able to live to that age. He looked great. They had a picture of him. I was like, that's so cool.

Ashley: 15:34

I love the idea that we don't really run out of purpose. We just need to find the things that we love and the things that are gonna motivate us to keep going so that we don't get caught up in the I'm old mindset.

Dawn: 15:45

Right. that is one of the biggest reason that it's worse for men who retired 65 and die shortly thereafter. You're basically sending a signal to your body that there's no need to stick around.

Ashley: 15:58

That's the thing when we focus too much, I think of our time and our. Friendships and our personal goals within our work versus what do we do after work? What friends, what hobbies, what things actually bring us joy. Those are the things that are gonna sustain us. I think a lot of people, when they put all of their eggs, sort of in the work basket, they really do struggle once that ends or once that is taken away. Yes. Yes. For sure. Now thinking sort of about age and the idea of moving, do you think that there's a certain age that people should. Start to think about retirement in the idea of moving, or do you think it's something that really any age can have that adventure and figure it.

Dawn: 16:41

I think really any age can. I look at these digital nomads, I've interviewed a couple of them on my podcast and they just they're foot loose and fancy free. They're just remote workers. This one gentleman, Chris, I met through the Cancun Expats group. He's like, yeah, I had this job in Manhattan. I had an apartment. I should have been happy, but at age 29, he was like, I was miserable. He ended. Meeting a guy who had been traveling in Europe for a year. The guy's like, well, why don't you just go? A couple weeks later, like he literally, he quit his job. He broke up with his girlfriend. He went and after his year sabbatical, he is like, I don't wanna stop. He connected with other remote workers and was like, I wanna keep this going. I think back my first husband and I, we did the. Backpack around Europe, on our honeymoon, we bought the Euro passes. We had no credit cards back then we had travelers checks, and all we had was our return plane ticket and our Euro passes and our wad of, travelers checks. It was really great experience. I'm so grateful for that. You know, at age 20/21, whatever it was that I had that experience and I loved to travel. But I think what happens, in the research that I've done, it seems like we do hit that middle age. Some, it comes sooner closer to 40 others, more 50, but I think at some point, and it's cross culturally as well, you kind of get to the point where you're like, I think there's more to life, right? Like the first half of your life is really about achievement and, getting settled, getting established as an adult and all of that. And then the second half, you're kind of like, Hmm, what gives me meaning and purpose and joy it's actually interesting that the less wealthier cultures tend to be happier than the ones with more toys and material possessions. if you study this happiness effect cross culturally. Especially in the United States, because it's such a materialistic culture, and with the inflation and with people thinking about maybe. Doing something a little bit different. I had to get outta practicing law. I was like, I see my future. And it's dying at my desk. you get on this treadmill, you create this lifestyle, you've got this monthly overhead that you have to feed all the time and you can't get out. And that's what a lot of them do. So I said, no, that's not, the kind of future that I want. I need to make a change. And I did, but I think a lot of people, it's hard. I mean, Tom and I both had really complicated lives. Part of why it took us longer, but also why I think we were more determined than ever to go was the crash we got killed in the 2008 financial crash. We had made a plan in 2003 that we wanted to get out of Southern California. And it took us till 2010. It took us seven years because in the interim, like we were gonna sell our house in 2007. Well, Right. Things just worked out that way, but it made us even more determined cuz we realized it was like we're making a quarter million dollars a year and we're really living paycheck to paycheck. I just read an article about that last week that said about a third of people in the United States. Making$250,000 a year say they're basically living paycheck to paycheck. It sounds crazy, but I, know what that looks like if you own a business, right. There's lots of revenue, but it's going out as fast as it's coming in. How can you ever get ahead if you're on that sort of path and we knew we wanted to make some serious changes and we did, but it's really kind of that commitment in saying. Mm. Okay. I've done this so far, but I'm ready for what's next. What's the next chapter in the book?

Ashley: 20:01

The idea of living paycheck to paycheck, I think is so. Normal and such the way of all families to some degree, it's a very few that are lucky to maybe not be in that position. But I know historically, like the idea of having, mom and dad or dad and dad and mom and mom. In a nuclear family that they were sort of set this two income family. And he now even two income families let alone like a single parent it's almost impossible. So many people don't necessarily have the opportunity, even with the rising costs of things, whether it's food, whether it's taxes at all of it. Just the idea of being able to put away the savings so that if something happens, you have a little bit of a nest egg. So I do think that it is really important to think even our sort of creature comfort. If we were to go to a different country, they still have Starbucks. You can still go to a movie theater. You can still do all of these things, but actually have the money and the time and the freedom. To be able to do those things and enjoy it without thinking, oh shoot. I went out for dinner. When am I not gonna be able to do next time?

Dawn: 21:09

That's right. And in fact, it's Wednesday, we're gonna go down to our favorite, happy hour place. Our favorite band is playing vintage duet. It's all eighties and nineties music love them, but the place, I mean, they have a whole menu of all these happy hour appetizers from 4:30 to 6:30pm. We're talking.$5 and$6 an entree and, beers are like two bucks. Frozen mojitos like three bucks. We can go in there and have dinner off their menu with drinks. And it's$15.

Ashley: 21:39

Yeah. Just mind boggling. Cause I don't think anywhere in north America that you can really find that anymore.

Dawn: 21:46

That's it and I tell people that, and they're like, well, that's what you pay for one entree or one appetizer. Right. Not for the whole meal. You can do that all over, down here. And not that we go out a lot, we do like to cook, cuz we like to. Like I said, know what's in our food and eat healthy. You can't always do that when you're eating out, but it's nice to have that luxury to be able to say, oh yeah, we can go out and not worry about, is it gonna break the bank?

Ashley: 22:10

Absolutely. When you were thinking about moving, what are some pros and cons that you had to take into consideration of actually making the move.

Dawn: 22:22

Well, there's no trader Joe's so, I talk about this and claim your dream life, there will always be trade offs, there's no such thing as utopia, a perfect place where everything's gonna be, at your disposal. So you really need to kind of determine what are your non-negotiables, what are the fundamental things you absolutely must have? As you pointed out, Strong internet is pretty important. If you're a remote worker, like that's a big one. So where are you gonna be able to get that? But you know, one of the reasons we chose this little island, I mean, it's an 18 minute ferry ride to the mainland, and then it's 30 minutes to the Cancun airport. I can get anywhere I don't do snow. So, you know, that was a big,

Ashley: 23:01

I don't do snow either.

Dawn: 23:03

I'm from Minnesota. I did that for 28 years. I'm never going back to it. I, let Tom know that right out of the gate. So knowing that I would rather be too warm than too cold. One of our tennis partners is back in Texas and she informed me. It's 103 in San Antonio, Texas this week. It's low eighties and breezy in the tropics here. People. Have this idea. Oh, it's so hot. Well, guess what? It gets pretty warm in the summertime in a lot of these places too. Right. So just kind of weighing those things out and I think it's chapter three, I do talk about like all the different criteria whether it's climate or activities. Or safety or whatever your most important things are to kind of prioritize that. That's something I'll be working with them in, the beta test workshop is figure out like, what are the most important things to you so that you can figure out what it is that you can't live without. I can't get my favorite rice crackers. I bring them down. You know, they're light. I just put'em in my suitcase case, Southwest is great. Two checked bags, plus a carryon, you know, so if you need to schlep a lot of stuff back and there's people who come down frequently there's mules as they call'em and people will post in the Facebook groups, Hey, I'm coming down. Does anybody need anything? You know, which is awesome. Yeah. So there's networks that you can get involved in and be able to have some of your favorite things brought down, if you can't do it yourself,

Ashley: 24:26

That is awesome to build that community that you can say, like who's bringing the cookies this month or whatever the case may be. I think you made a really good point too, is like safety. When we listen to mainstream media or we're trying to Google stuff, I think the safeness of different locations, I think can be a little bit misleading because I know that they'll say, oh, this dangerous thing happened. And it did, but that doesn't necessarily mean that if you went there that it would be unsafe.

Dawn: 24:53

Well, that's right. We laugh actually, and people say, oh, is Mexico safe? We hear about how dangerous it is. I say, well, is the United States safe? I mean, there are places you don't wanna be like downtown Chicago, like probably from 2 to 4:00 AM. It's not safe there. Right. So it's very localized. So that's what I talk about is that's part of that research is look locally where you're. Contemplating a move to not just in general, because there are safer areas and not safer areas, one of the things is like you talk about the movie theater. There's a lovely movie theater in Cancun. I think their VIP tickets are like five bucks and they're barca loungers, and there's tableside service. You can order off the menu. There's a waiter that comes, you can order drinks and food and. I don't ever worry about somebody coming in, in an AK 47 and shooting up the place.

Ashley: 25:43

Yeah.

Dawn: 25:43

I mean, for real, that's reality. So there's some cartel violence down here, but they're targeted hits. They kill each other. They don't typically spray random, innocent by standards. And certainly not school yards. When, you talk about quote unquote violence in Mexico they don't miss, you know, that's the sort of violence so I'll take that any day of the week. You're not involved with the cartels. You don't try to go into a business that they are, operating in, compete with them. Do drugs deal drugs. You're not gonna have a problem,

Ashley: 26:16

which I think is really important. Cuz I think in Mexico, especially gets such a bad rep and anything could happen anywhere. Unfortunately because situations do continuously happen and there is no fix or they throw thoughts in prayers versus actually policy changes at a lot of things. At least, if you were to go into some of these other countries and something happens, there usually is a shift in adjusting the safety or moving towards change and good things and bad things. Realistically, it really wouldn't matter where you are. They could really happen to you anywhere that the idea of there being safe spaces is really just sort of a myth and really more reflects our comfort zone versus being outside of our comfort zone in a lot of the cases. What are some of your favorite destinations? If people are just wanting to maybe even experience a new destination.

Dawn: 27:09

Panama is very popular as a retirement destination. We spent some time there because we did take our boat through the Panama canal. So there was lots of paperwork and processing that we had to go and a scheduling process. I got to spend some time there. Panama city Panama is really a modern wonderful city. It's very safe. Love that, Area. The other area that's quite popular that is on our list to check out is Portugal. I know a lot of folks have moved to Portugal. We love Spain. My husband actually did a fair amount of work. For the Spanish government back in the early two thousands. It's a lovely country. The people, the food, the, scenery is really a great one. I love Italy. I haven't been there in years, but Italy and Greece were two of my favorites when we were there during the honeymoon trip I. Still have Ireland on my bucket list. I'm a quarter Irish and I've never been there. the weather can be a little chilly. I gotta figure out how to get there in the summertime. Right. There's so many wonderful places in Mexico. We really took our time. When we came south on the Pacific coast and spent a lot of time in a lot of those cities Mazatlan Manzanillo Watuko. There were so many great cities on the Pacific coast and it's a little more arid, not quite as pretty beaches or pretty water, but if you don't care for the hot and humid tropics that's a good choice. A lot of people like Costa Rica that was real popular for a while. I've had several people come back and say, Hey, just wasn't what they expected. The people weren't as friendly, the water wasn't as pretty. What we noticed is it seemed like the locals and the expats didn't mix as much, like there was gated communities. That's one thing that's great about Mexico is for the most part, you don't see that people are really blended

Ashley: 28:46

I think I would appreciate more, I wouldn't wanna kind of have a, this versus them mentality that I would like it also be like, we're all home

Dawn: 28:54

for sure. I love Chile. I had a chance to travel to Santiago, Chile, but it's a long ways away. It's very much like California, just opposite seasons.

Ashley: 29:04

The seasons are really, really important to factor into people like us, not liking winter or. snow at all that it is really important to kind of do your research and see does this place have the climate that I actually would want to live in? Am I gonna be sweating and have my hair out to here all day? Am I gonna be, having to bundle up and be freezing and miserable? You really do wanna find somewhere that is gonna be comfortable and you love and thinking about Portugal for anybody who. Maybe doesn't work remote or has the ability to work sometimes remote or has a large savings. Portugal is one of those places where the entry requirement isn't as hard as some other countries. I think it's like, you have to, I can't even remember what the budget is, but it was a fairly low, monthly budget that you would have to make every month. And then I think it's after three years or after five years, you can actually apply for what's essentially their green card there and become a part of the European union, which gives you a lot more flexibility if you wanted to mm-hmm move over to Europe.

Dawn: 30:06

Yeah. And if anybody has a citizenship by heritage is another way to go. In fact my husband is first us born British. His dad was a British citizen. So that's something that we will be looking into as a, second passport and being able to get that pretty easily through heritage. So. That's another thing to look into.

Ashley: 30:26

I wish it was almost like we are all born in the earth. I wish that it could be as simple as like, I wanna go live in this country without there being as many hoops. Do you do workshops just online or do you do in person, ones as. Well

Dawn: 30:41

due to COVID yes. I haven't really had too much of an opportunity. I do retreats actually. I do semi-private retreats at our Caribbean ocean front Villa. I did one last year and then COVID kind of started back up again. And so we put the pause button on, but it is a really great spot to be able to come down and, really immerse and learn a lot. But I definitely have live events on the horizon going down the road with overseas, live redesign as well as, getting out more myself, just speaking at events and summits and so forth. So I'll I'll definitely keep you posted on that.

Ashley: 31:17

I would love that. Can you let everybody know if they're looking for you online, where they can find you?.

Dawn: 31:23

Sure. The overseas life redesign podcast is on all the major platforms. So you can just look that one up and find it easily. Or you can go to opats.com that stands for overseas Patriots. I don't like the word expat who wants to be an ex anything. So I'm going new word and that's an opat. And so opats dot com's slash podcast is another way that you can get there. I have dawnfleming.com is my speaker author page. There's a link to my book, the claim, your dream life book.com. Pages is active. That for right now is all just going to the major retailers. So that just goes to Amazon Barnes and noble. What have you but you can pick that up anywhere and that's a great place to start. It was written with the intention of, I don't even know where to start. Where do I start? It's, an inexpensive buy and it'll give you just tons of wisdom.

Ashley: 32:12

I can't wait to read it myself and help pick out my next destination. Thank you so much, Dawn.

Dawn: 32:19

All right. My pleasure.

32:21

Thank you so much for joining us today for this episode of the filled up cup podcast, don't forget to hit subscribe and leave a review. If you like what you hear, you can also connect with us@filledupcup.com. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll catch you in the next episode.