This US couple spent a year exploring the world with their young family | CNN
Yes, you too can enjoy this life if you came from wealth and accumulated wealth on the job.
She has a BA in French from Vanderbilt, an MA in French from private Middlebury College, VT, worked in France for 3 years, eventually returned to the U.S. and rose up the ranks to become a Managing Director and Partner at a NYC marketing agency. She now works as a self-employed illustrator and writer. Her husband is an “entrepreneur”, and was previously a SVP at Dick’s Sporting Goods, among other titles. He is a graduate of Duke and Harvard MBA program, and the St. Alban’s private school before that.
Clearly, there is wealth in this background.
This is great that they could do this – but why does the media continuously run these fluff stories that are aspirational nonsense for most people? As I have documented here, most of the “we moved abroad stories” are about people who already had family ties, right of descent immigration privilege or already had dual citizenship – privileges that most of us lack. Probably less than 1% of Americans retired abroad – and half of those generally had family ties/right of descent and/or pre-existing dual citizenship.
Yet from the frequent stories about retiring abroad you would think a lot more people are doing this – but they are not. Indeed, for most Americans, when they reach 65 they are eligible for Medicare, which is not too far away from a public health system, in many respects. If they then move abroad, they lose their Medicare coverage. If they plan on moving back to the U.S., they still have to pay Medicare premiums while living abroad – if they do not pay premiums but later rejoin, a 10% penalty is added to future Medicare premiums for every year they were gone. That mean if you were gone for 10 years, you pay a 100% penalty on your premiums – every year into the future.