Over the past couple months, the most frequent questions Eric and I have received basically center around two main themes: a) how did you decide to pick up your life and move to Spain, and b) how are you affording to do this? Wanted to take a few minutes to try and address them in a blog post, maybe we can encourage someone out there who's considering taking a sabbatical! The answer to the first includes a lot of different considerations, so in some ways it was something we thought about for a long time, but in other ways it was sort of a snap decision. The answer to the second question is less complicated...I have a strong tendency towards budgeting and saving and planning out how each dollar we have is going to get spent, and Eric grudgingly tolerates my craziness :)
Several years back, at an annual 'check in' with our financial advisor, he posed a question to us that maybe got this whole ball rolling. We were putting money into our "rainy day" savings account each month, so he asked what the plan was for that money, what we were saving for...and we didn't really have a good answer. Well, I suppose it would be more accurate to say we didn't have an answer that we both agreed upon - Eric could've spent it all on a few climbing trips without too much trouble at all!
Fast forward to the more recent past, and a somewhat regular topic of conversation for the two us was the idea of working abroad. We'd both studied abroad, both love traveling, and watched a lot of House Hunters International, so we thought it was basically a perfect fit for us! Europe was our first (and really only) choice for location because of the proximity of so many places that we wanted to visit together. The main challenge was that neither of us worked for companies that had opportunities in Europe :( This was a major bummer since we both enjoyed great jobs at excellent companies. It started to dawn on us that the dream of working abroad would mean both of us quitting, and I think once that really sunk in, the seeds for the sabbatical were starting to grow. If we were both going to quit our jobs, why should we get new ones right away that would inhibit our ability to travel as a family and experience all the things that made living in Europe so appealing? The window of time in which we could really do lots of travel (before Colette started school) wasn't going to be open forever.
In addition, some health issues in the family reminded us you can't always count on traveling and seeing the world in your later years. What good would all that "rainy day" savings do us if we kept putting off fun ways to spend it?! After a bit of research, we learned that Spain offered a visa that grants temporary residency without permission to work in Spain if you prove you can support yourself off savings and that you're not a criminal. That seemed ideal since we aren't criminals and didn't want to work, we both spoke a little Spanish, we wanted Colette to get exposure to a foreign language, the cost of living (outside of Madrid/Barcelona) is moderate compared to the rest of Europe, and the weather in southern Spain is pretty nice :) Also, there were at least two other families who had done the same thing and written really informative blogs about the logistics of getting the visa - we had a little bit of a roadmap to follow.
For the first time since our arrival, I'm also sitting down to go over our budget and see how closely we're adhering to the plan. I think it might be ugly, since we've been booking tons of travel for the upcoming months, plus there are some "start up" costs I didn't account for (deposit on car lease, rental agency fee for the apt, etc). Overall, I was anticipating we'd spend ~$7700 per month for everything from travel to groceries to health insurance to our PO Box back home. Nearly 40% of that is earmarked for Travel, which is the biggest category by far. Will be interesting to see if we have to start staying in the tent instead of in hotels to stay on budget there...
Another big chunk is the Rent/Utilities/Parking category coming in at $1350. We could've cut that in half by going with a place outside the centro, but thankfully Eric held firm that a great location was worth the money since city life is really what we're trying to experience. Instead, we are being more frugal in other ways...parking spot across the river means a 15-min walk to the car, but we don't drive every day; haven't gotten cable; only run the A/C when needed, since electricity is really expensive here.
Groceries/Eating Out is budgeted at ~$1100, and I'm very curious to see where we come in there...so tempting to grab a couple beers and tapas when you're walking by a cute cafe and everyone else is doing it! Automotive (car lease, insurance, gas) is expected to be $850/mo and I'm on the fence about whether or not it makes sense to keep the car once we start traveling by air/train more. By cutting out that cost (plus $100+ for parking each month) we'd be able to rent a car the few times a month when we want to road-trip from Granada and probably still come out ahead. The other half of Team Swanson feels otherwise...stay tuned to see how that plays out!
A boring category called Expenses Back Home takes $800 for things like life insurance, disability insurance, funding Coco's 529 account, the PO Box and storage unit, and Eric's Verizon plan (it was the only way we could easily keep his US number, need to remain accessible to Tom's care providers). Sure we could cut some of that, but we are still trying to be pseudo-responsible adults here :) Last but not least, things like Daycare ($330/mo here, which is less than what a week at home cost) and Health Insurance ($160/mo for what I think is a decent plan with low copy's that includes dental, another thing that's way cheaper here vs the US) and Stuff ($250/mo for clothes, souvenirs, gifts, etc).
Overall, it feels like it should be pretty manageable to maintain that level of spending, but the proof will be in the receipts. As the past decade has been, it will probably continue to be a balancing act between Eric encouraging me to spend money on making memories and me trying to rein in the spending so we don't run out of money :)
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