Her Family Left Canada for Da Nang, Vietnam

This week on The Cost of Living Abroad Podcast we talked with Mai from Kitchener, Canada. Mai escaped the cost of living crisis and lives with her young family of 4 on $2000 Month and $24000 a year in Da Nang Vietnam. 

She shared her Cost of Living in Vietnam on this episode of The Cost of Living Abroad Podcast. We compare the best affordable places to live and retire early in SE Asia, including a full monthly budget breakdown of the cost of living in Da Nang Vietnam and discussion of the pros and cons of life in Vietnam in 2025.

0:00 episode highlights
2:00 Cost for food for a family in da nang vietnam
9:30 Healthcare and family medical costs in Vietnam
17:00 Travel and visa costs in Vietnam
20:30 4 bedroom family house rent cost in Da Nang Vietnam
23:00 Monthly total cost of living in Da Nang Vietnam for a family
24:30 Cons of Expat Family Living in Vietnam
26:00 Pros of Expat Family Living in Vietnam
28:00 Why do you live as an expat in Vietnam?
38:30 how do Locals treat foreigners in Vietnam?
43:00 Biggest misconceptions of Vietnam
49:00 Education and School in Vietnam
53:30 Weekly Outro & Links

If you're ready to escape the cost of living crisis and start a new more affordable and sustainable life abroad, we can help you get started with resources, courses and community: https://www.costoflivingabroad.com/signup

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This week on the Cost of Living a broad Pod,
we talked to my from Canada. She told us why
her family sold their house in Canada, how living in Danang,
Vietnam is significantly more affordable than the West, with her
average monthly expenses of just two thousand dollars. She also
told me how the stress of financial burdens have disappeared
in Vietnam, allowing her family to enjoy a higher quality

(00:23):
of life compared to more expensive living abroad locations like
Florida and Mexico, where they lived before. Stick around to
the end to find out how she's built a successful
side hustle as a digital creator. I'm eban A and
you're listening to the Cost of Living a broad Pod.
For full interviews, find us on YouTube at cost of

(00:44):
Living a broad Pod. But before we get started, I
just wanted to let you know that if you're struggling
with the cost of living crisis and looking for a
sustainable and affordable way to relocate your life abroad, check
out our resources, courses, and community at cost of Living
abroad dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
I feel like you're just less stressed because everything's so
affordable here. You're not so worried about money. I think
we average about fifty million BND, so that's almost like
two thousand. It's four bedrooms, four five bathrooms, like I'm
paying twenty thousand in the city and right now the
house markets it's just going crazy like and then opened

(01:22):
our eyes to like, oh, we can live like this.
My husband was working remote, so we did live in
Florida for a couple months. Also Mexico. We went to
play to Carmen and we also went to Kankoon and
it was really hard, and I think that's why we
were homesick. Actually, I think Locos really like English speaking
people because whenever if me and my kids are just
talking at a local place, they're like looking at us,

(01:44):
where are.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
You from supporting a family on twenty four thousand USD? Yeah,
how do you find not just costaline with quality of
living compared to your home in Canada?

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Okay? So I was like born and raised in Canada,
so I have a certain standard or living. Canada is
different from Vietnam. I feel like people talk about how
portous and that they don't have anything here, which I
found everything I need to live here. It's a bare minimum,
I believe. When we were in Canada, which was like
two years ago. It cost us minimum just essentrals about

(02:14):
five thousand. I think it affected me because I felt
like I wasn't confident and independent anymore. You know, I
always wanted my husband to come with me.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
I guess about like the motivation part of it too,
like why did you finally make the.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
Leap to come?

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Okay, So we came to Vietnam because we saw was affordable,
that this wasn't my first choice. Somehow a YouTube convinced him.
A YouTube video convinced him, and he decided, like, let's
go try it out. So that's what we did, and
since we got here, we just never wanted to leave.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
This is mine, a Canadian mother with a family of four.
They moved to Vietnam two years ago and today on
the Cost of Living Abroad, we'll find out why she
left Canada and hear the story of her struggle to
adapt to a new life abroad.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
My name is my I am a Canadian living in
Vietnam now and Danang and I have a YouTube channel. Well,
I started going more full time last year talking about
guides about xpot living resource searching other countries to live
in for families that are looking out to look going
somewhere else and where their home country is finding out

(03:14):
how to make money else while doing that.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Well, that's sort of basically on the cost of living abroad,
but we like talk about people's different costs of living.
Break it down line by line budget.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
So let's do that.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
Let's jump into like what you and your family eat
in the day breakfast, lunch, dinner, and then what.

Speaker 3 (03:29):
The totals are for the month. If you're eating out,
if you're eating local, international, if you're grocery shopping.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
In the mornings usually be like eating in more often
we've been really like lazy lately and it's so affordable
to eat here, so we usually like bun me and
bun bow and those are like simple things, and that
can actually be around twenty to fifty thousand D which
can you do the commersion?

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Yeah, so it's I mean I did a USD, so
twenty to fifty is like about.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
A dollar or two.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, So we usually eat a dollar, so think about
it for each person. We're buying one perpose, so we're
eating like four dollars breakfast, all four of us, and
then at lunch we'll eat more like soups and that
like that, which could go around. Let me double check.
My husband usually pays, but I do the budgeting. We
aim around fifty to eight thousand k V and D

(04:15):
to eat lunch and then dinner time we eat, we
average around fifty two one hundred k B and D
per person.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Also person, so lunch you're talking like breakfast from one
to two dollars, Lunch two to three, dinner.

Speaker 3 (04:27):
Three to four.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yes, we eatually local food because we're like so used
to it. My husband's Vietnamese so and I'm Asian, so
I'm just used to eating like loco Asian food. But
there are some times I do miss eating Western food.
So that's a bit more pricier here. But that's once
in a while, and those aren't as expensive either. I
think it's about like one fifty to two hundred thousand
per person a plate.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
So do you do, like like whatever, pizza night once?
So weues we.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
Will do that. We just found out a good pizza place,
so I need to go there. Pizza four Piece?

Speaker 3 (04:56):
Have you been?

Speaker 2 (04:56):
So I want to go there, But apparently it's a
little bit pieced pricier.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
I have a son who like only eats pizza, like
I mean, sure, he eats other stuff. He also eats
like ketchup off his finger, but it's.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
His sweet spot.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
And we found one called I think it's like kind
of it's like they do Mexican food too. Oh okay,
so they have like a wood fired pizza.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
Then oh okay, you gotta let me know later the link.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
I mean, we get it on grab. We've never actually been.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
Oh okay, well either way, we can grab it too.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
Nice. So would you say you're like, what's your monthly total?

Speaker 2 (05:26):
We average our budget for monthly is usually about my
husband says, our aim is six hundred thousand daily food.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
Yeah, that's really clear. So that's like twenty four dollars that's.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
What we Yeah, that we aim for that usually every
day because like we said, we eat really simple and
even then, like now we're moving towards the beach and
we're not so far from everything, like all our kids activities.
I think we're gonna cook a home more so that
you can even go lower than that.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
Now, Yeah, we struggle with that because we we cook
at home, but it often ends up not being cheaper, right,
like oh really yeah, because I mean because when we're ordering,
we order a lot of grab.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
We don't eat out that much. We order a lot
of grabs.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
It's almost always locally at food, it's usually really affordable.
It's just like the things from psychon My Wife listeners. Okay,
but if we go to like Latte Mart or like
the grocery change, Okay, yeah, we end up spending more.
Like we end up spending whatever two hundred dollars or
one hundred dollars on groceries, like maybe two.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
And a half to five million. You know, we don't
do like we probably grocery shop once.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
A month, yes, yes.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
But it's like we end up buying all the like
important things like olive oil and chips like that, right,
and then it's like it never feels like like when
we look at the math, we think like this is
it's like two full weeks of eating out or something, right.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
Like three meals a day.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah, I think that's We've been saying we want to
cook at home, so we'll see how it goes from there.
I feel like we will most likely eat out more,
but make the simpler food like eggs in the morning,
something that we have been doing, just eating eggs and
toasts in the morning, and then we'll kind of go
out for lunch and dinner or it just really depends, right.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yeah, we did that into or fruit like so that's
that's when they like there's a local market down the street,
and fruit is so much cheaper if you go to
a local market.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
Oh yes, like the coconuts.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
Everything is like.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
I think coconuts are like the one that we found
what we could find one for ten k ten thousand.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
UND yeah, which is like forty cents US and like that. Yeah,
that's super realistic. Same like when we go down there,
it's like the prices for a kilo at the local
market are like what the prices for one fruit in
a grocery store. Yes, yeah, it's like it's like a
dollar for a kilo of jackfruit instead of like a
dollar or two for like a little piece of jack.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
Any sort of like nightlife for going out, whether it's
like movies or if you have a date night with
your husband, or if you do like maybe kids cafes,
like literally whatever you consider you're like going out.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
Okay, so obviously like adult nightlife. Me and my husband
don't have a life because we have young kids. How
are your kids, Well, they're like five and eight. But
I mean, like I don't know, are late nights are
just eating in or snacking at night time. But what
we do for fun is usually there's a lot of
cafes with playgrounds for kids, so we do a lot
of that, and I think each time we go, every visit,

(08:11):
we usually spend two hundred m D two hundred thousand MD.

Speaker 3 (08:16):
It's like eight dollars you asked, Yeah, for both kids.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
Yeah, yeah, that's how much we usually spend.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
Like total costs and total.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
Class and we always go like three or five times
a week. Yes, So we do meetups like kids meetups.
So it's always at cafes. So that's what we do.
And plus it's born to be at home, so we're
always like being out by the cafe. We'll do homeschooling
there or like just some cross or activities like right
now my husband's out doing crafts with them at a cafe.

Speaker 3 (08:44):
Yeah. What are some of the spots, Like, I know
ABC is one.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
ABC was one. There was one that we went a
lot was called Ego Ego Kids, and there's other ones
I found like sky Kids I believe it's called and
there's a new one on called Rainbow also nice.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
So if you're going three to five times a week
at eight dollars, it's about kind of like one hundred
and twenty or one hundred and fifty.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
U s a month, and and the kids have gymnastics,
so that we pay for that. One's a bit more
expensive because I feel like it's more like, uh, international
people we pay about maybe let's round it up, it's
like three million a month and they go three times.

Speaker 3 (09:20):
A week one hundred and twenty dollars a month. I mean,
that's so that's so that's really.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
So cheap because in Canada it's like two hundred for no,
two to three hundred per person a week.

Speaker 3 (09:32):
Yeah, that's that's what I was in.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
I was in like at home, in that cost that
would be like the one time cost, yes, right, like
like the one hundred and twenty a month would be
the cost of taking kids to gymnastic once on like
Saturday afternoon. It would cost one hundred and twenty dollars
for kids, right, it'd be fifty or sixty bucks yes
a session. Yeah, and they're going three times a week.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah, there were three times a week an hour and
a half.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
That's amazing. Yes, it is also childcare.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
Childcare, I know, I mean like, oh, yeah, that's.

Speaker 3 (09:58):
Done being gone for ninety min that's.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Yes, that's when we get our break, that's when we
go on our date. Nice and really we're just snacking.

Speaker 3 (10:06):
You're doing like afternoons. Oh that's great.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
Sometimes I like to like say the totals out loud
as we go. Just go ahead to remind myself. Right,
So we're talking like six hundred k a day in
food and then one hundred and twenty a month the gymnastics,
and what was the other one we said already we
said the oh the kids cafes, which were about also
about one hundred and twenty a month.

Speaker 3 (10:27):
What about health insurance?

Speaker 1 (10:29):
Obviously you're Canadian like me, so you're used to having
government social health care.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
What do you do anything here?

Speaker 2 (10:36):
I have not got used to it. No, we don't
mean buy health insurance. We actually just go as you go.
But we do put money on the side for health
if something happens, So we have a health I guess
you can call it like health insurance. It's a safety
night like a savings Yeah, a savings account for that
I want. Yeah, but I did hear it's really cheap
it's very cheap cheap here.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
It can be you can get extremely good healthcare here
for really great prices. It can be tea like how
much great because although there's public services here, there's also
like extremely high cost, high end you know, private services
all the way to like super affordable local clinics or
pharmacy stuff is really cheap.

Speaker 3 (11:13):
Yeah, I had a knee surgery here. It cost me
twelve hundred bucks.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
I think people just need to calculate, like if you
need insurance or not, like how many times you go yearly.
I guess you just have to estimate. But like also
it isn't like an emergency thing if something happens and
you have that safety net.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
But there's like the misconception because it's so locked in
our heads as like North America and our Westerners, like, oh,
if something happens, it's going to cost me one hundred
thousand dollars, right, Like there's that idea that like you're irresponsibile,
you're reckless if you don't have health turance or like
sometimes legal too, right, it's like illegal to drive a car, yes,
without certain kinds of insurance at home. So you know,

(11:49):
it's really like in our heads. But yeah, often you
just you do the money, the budget. It's it's not
worth it.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
I had someone coming up to me like health insurance,
Oh my gosh, you're sover irresponsible. Someone here as an
x fact. She was a Canadian. Also, I'm like, I
don't know. I just didn't think anything of it, because
I do believe in like putting into savings and putting
it into an interest savings and make interest on it.
It's the same thing kind of concept what insurance companies do.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
Yeah, I mean I guess the exception and you can
tell us in the comments what you think. The exception
is if you're elderly or you have a certain long
like a long term care needs. When my parents come
to visit, yeah, they spend a huge amount. They spend
like one thousand dollars a month. Okay, cancer survivor slash
living with cancer. They're elderly, they're you know, they're basically

(12:33):
paying for an enormous travel health insurance package that would
involve like an airlift to Canada, right, which is like,
I don't think you really need if you're living here
as next path or since everyone's choice basic utility stuff,
So like, what do you pay for electricity, water, Wi
Fi phone, if it's included in rent, leave it till later.

(12:54):
So just to like to add on a Netflix subscription,
any kind of monthly.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
Things are not included, but I heard some places do.
But we bought, we got a house. The electricity is
five hundred k V and D in the winters, up
to one point five million B and D during the
hot summers because you have AC going on. Water is
about four hundred k per month for US and mo
mile it's about seventy five kV and D per person,

(13:23):
which is super affordable compared to Canada.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
All of the utilities forty to eighty dollars talking like
eighty dollars in high season, which two months of the
year at this part of being Yeah, and that is
that for like air conditioning a whole house.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
Certain parts, but because you know how they have different
units in every room, so where we're whichever room we're
going to be, and then we'll get it on there.

Speaker 3 (13:43):
When you go to sleep, like twenty four twenty two eighteen.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
No, I actually leave it at one pace at twenty
two twenty two twenty because I like having like get
on me. Anyways, if it's a bit colder A might
be a Canadian thing.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
I don't know, Okay, And what about shopping kids? Close
your clothes just like your monthly sort of budget or
spend on stuff.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
I don't have a budget. I'm just joking. I'm like,
I spend a lot on clothes, but I actually stop
because we don't need that much. But because my husban's
like we don't need it, stop buying things. We buy
a lot of clothes. Let's just say I spend. I
can say I can spend maybe one meal, that's maybe
one to two meal, but that's only spurging some months.
But even then I barely buy monthly. Like if I
have a month I really want to go shopping, I'll

(14:26):
spend about one to two mil.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
We're gonna we're gonna go high. We'll say eighty dollars
a month, okay, which is still for a family of four.
You're talking, it's under one thousand dollars a year, right,
so it's still very affordable.

Speaker 3 (14:37):
Buy lots of clothes with that, yeah, I mean we
do too.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
We order a lot of clothes, like shopping on the
Zada y clothes, shoes, all the things you just find
yourself doing and there's you get more for your value
here too, right, even though it seems maybe relatively you're
spending a lot.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
Like I had a bunch of these.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
Made their tailored shirts, and they were like they're ten
dollars us.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
Oh nice? Did you do a juen?

Speaker 3 (15:00):
I didn't when I lived.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
Oh okay, I literally at the start of every school year,
I get Like when I was a teacher, I got
like new shirts made all nice, which is ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
No, it's cool, it's like it's your back to school clothes.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
It's also just like it's ridiculous because like at home,
you would have to be like a high paid lawyer,
oh to do that, right, ye, Like yeah, it's like basic.
I'm a school teacher and I would literally go.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
I should start doing that. Just get it tailored, just
so it fits to your body.

Speaker 1 (15:24):
What about transportation, taking grabs, taking cars?

Speaker 3 (15:28):
Did you buy motorbikes, rent motorbikes?

Speaker 2 (15:30):
We bought a motorbike which was about twenty mil I
believe it was ae thousand dollars Canadian. Okay, I think
that was high. My husband was saying when we bought
our motorbike, we grabbed once in a while when it's raining,
which is not too much because usually a trip could
be only like fifty to seventy five B and D
seventy five thousand. But with gas, I believe that we
spend we go around a lot, so I think this

(15:52):
is pretty high. For regularly fifty to seventy thousand k
weekly on the motorbike, we spent on gas two to
three dollars a week, Yes, a huge difference from Canada.
We used to spend one hundred dollars Canadian or one
hundred and twenty now gas weekly or more than more
than weekly.

Speaker 1 (16:10):
Going from five to six thousand dollars a year to
one hundred and fifty dollars yea, which it's like some
of the numbers. And I know, I think that's why
I'm fun doing this, is why people find it's engaging
that it's like it's really hard to believe if you
haven't experienced it.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
Yeah, I think obviously it's.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
Fun just to meet people and have conversations with other
people who are living the same kind of lifestyle. But
the other thing is that when you just say you're
one cost of living over and over again, a bunch
of people are just going to see a video where
you only see you and be like, as guy's full
of shit.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
Yeah that's true, that's true. So they're haring up from
like multiple people. Yes, I'm one of those people now exactly.

Speaker 3 (16:50):
Yes, how long a so far?

Speaker 2 (16:52):
Two years in Vietnam it'll be like two years month? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (16:57):
Wow, so two years on eight hundred dollar motorbike roughly
eight hundred dollars. You're talking thirty five dollars a month,
a dollar a day for transportation costs, something like that.

Speaker 3 (17:09):
To get the whole family on.

Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yes, where those people now too? Yes, I should send
you a picture. People have been taking videos of us,
like our XPAC friends and like, how do you guys
do it? We're like, I don't know. I didn't want
to do it at first, but my husband's like, just
try it, let's try it. Yeah, all four of us
can fit. But eventually I think the girls are going
to get bigger and we can't do that no more.

(17:31):
But I am planning. I want to get those scooters
that they're the three wheelers. Have you seen them? I
know it looks so like old school or I think
old older people use it because they don't so they
don't fall over. But I said that's my future car here,
because back home, I'm like, oh, I want a Mercedes,
but now it's like, no, I want a three wheeler.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
Here, I should definitely get like an image of a
Mercedes and an image of.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
Yeah literally yes, Like seriously, that's my new car one Vietnam.
That's the luxury here.

Speaker 3 (18:03):
Do you still travel?

Speaker 1 (18:04):
So what about I'm very curious to know this is
I have a really different visa work thing than most
people who watch the channel are.

Speaker 3 (18:11):
Mostiple year I came on a work visa.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
I had a temporary residence car handed to me when
I landed here. Yeah, and then eventually shifted to a
spousal one. But I've never done visa runs. I've never
been in that situation. So you said, your husband's viet Yes,
what's your visa situation and what's your travel situation? I
guess I include them in the same line. I'm going

(18:34):
to edit my blogging out, but I include them in
the same line because a lot of people I've talked
to so far, that's their travel cross like right, like
every ninety days they take a trip, oh, which is
like their visa.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
Someone asked me about that when I did a breakdown
because I forgot that. Yeah, you have to put that in. However,
I heard that there are ways to get out of
visa runs. I'm not sure. I don't know if it's shady.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
I've heard from everyone in the noun that Lin's visa runner.
There's a woman named Land and a company Linz.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
I just realized allowed it could be a man too. Anyways,
be a guy girl.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:07):
Anyways, there's like.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
A company Linds Visa and they do visa runs like
fun of Us, right, okay, and apparently they're very good
and very reliable, but you tell me your your travel.

Speaker 2 (19:18):
When we first did it, we tried the visa run
by going. We were near Saigon because we were at
my husband's hometown near there, and it took us four
hours to Cambodia to do a visa run. If we
got it, we hired a driver to take us, and
it wasn't the best experience. I felt like it took
too long. I have kids, and it was really hot,
and we didn't know what we're doing, and it just

(19:38):
didn't feel nice to go out of a border and
coming right back in. It just didn't feel I don't know, authentic.
I guess you can say, so we're not gonna do
that again. And that was probably like one of the
cheapest I believe when we hired the driver. I don't
even think we paid him that much. It was probably
maybe one say it out out. I think it's one
to two million. It was something. It wasn't high so

(20:00):
him taking it, but we had to get the visa.
We had to pay to get into Cambodia, which I
think it was like forty dollars USD actually, and then
coming back you didn't have to pay anything. So overall
it was the cheapest. But we're not going to do
that again. But yes, the visa that we have, I
peractually mentioned that we actually used the visa service that
they figured out what visa that we could apply for

(20:25):
back in Canada. So when we went, she said that
my husband could apply for this five year visa. But
we had to leave the country every six months, so
it's not as much as like I know other people
have to leave like three months every three months, so
ours isn't as bad. So now we think of it
as like, oh, every six months, we're just going to
go vacation. It's not like a chore thing. So after
that experience going to the border. We just decided that

(20:46):
we're just going to go to places that we wanted
to see around Asia anyways. But we just came back
from a visa run. We went to Kal Malaysia. The
flight I believe cost us. Believe it was four hundred
dollars Canadian to go there and back with four four
of us and to stay at a place we probably
paid two hundred dollars Canadian. And yeah, that was the
total cost going there and back.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
So seeah, about six hundred dollars Canadian. I'll do the
conversion on that to us, but it would be roughly
like three hundred and sixty to four hundred dollars. Yeah,
like that and twice a year.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yes, So they say that KL was actually the cheapest
flight to go on visa runs. So if you don't
want to go on the bus, go to KL.

Speaker 3 (21:25):
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. It's good.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
That's the hub for the former age, just like yeah,
KL Malaysia. Hong Kong has really cheap flights from d
Nang in particular, but Hong Kong's not as cheap as
Malaysia when you get there.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
Yes, that's what I heard too about Hong Kong, but
maybe that might be a next trip.

Speaker 3 (21:41):
So what do I rent? Or Doiona has no?

Speaker 2 (21:43):
We rent? Maybe later we'll Yeah, we're renting now. We're
actually moving in a week to closer to the beach.
And we found somewhere that is twenty million n D,
which is about a thousand Canadian I believe that's how
much we pay.

Speaker 3 (21:58):
Same old place, new place.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Same by, because that's what I said to the new landlord.
I was like, I'm paying twenty thousand in the city.
And right now, the house markets it's just going crazy,
like whenever we find a house, someone's already taken it
and they're just bumping the prices up that are like
the same thing that I'm living in right now. So
we've got it for twenty million. And the one that
we're living in the city is twenty million also, And

(22:21):
that's further out.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
From the beach in Sancha and this side is.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
Camer Villages, okay near there.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
Yeah, how many bedrooms? How many bathohole?

Speaker 2 (22:31):
So the okay where we live now, it's four bedrooms,
four five bathrooms. Yeah, it's a big home. I think
a gated community with a pool.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
Four bedrooms, five back gated community with a pool eight
hundred dollars US. I think, I know, I think I've
actually looked at a house in the place you live
now when we're moving up here, because you in one
of your videos, you have like a shot of you
in their pool, right, it's like the White town.

Speaker 3 (22:58):
Yeah, say, yes, we.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
We looked at those as that we now live sort
of close to here. I'm going to edit this out,
but yeah, we literally went and saw a couple of
houses in that place.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
Right, there's like a it's like a little like quite small,
but like a little to see. It's a little gated community.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
So rent eight hundred dollars US in a gated community
with a pool.

Speaker 3 (23:16):
It's beautiful.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
I've literally seen this gated community four bedroom five they're
big townhouses and they're they're almost brand new.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
Yeah, they are a lot of there's a lot of
empty ones still there, and some of them are renovating. Yeah,
there's so many. There's probably half the street is still
getting renovated.

Speaker 3 (23:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
Yeah, So yeah, we looked at like the houses of
the real estate there too, and very newer development, probably
two or three years old at most, about fifty or
sixty percent occupancy but big, beautiful, full family homes. Looked
like some people maybe a couple were like airbnbing or
using the home state.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
And they have some businesses in those buildings too.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
Yeah, like like some nail salons. Yeah sure, Yeah, it's
not that close to the beach. But there's outside the community.
Like as soon as you walk outie the gate, there
was everything, street food markets.

Speaker 2 (24:03):
There was a gym right in front of our house. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:05):
So what's the total monthly spend the budget for a
family for Canadians living in Danang, Okay?

Speaker 2 (24:13):
So we average my husband was saying, I think we
average about fifty million BND. So that's almost like two thousand.

Speaker 1 (24:19):
Two thousand years. I can link it here. I have
the very first cost of living video I made in
d Nang. I did the like it's five hundred llars
a person. For that exact reason, we have a family
of four. Our budget here is fifty million. Some months
we're under Yeah, we have been over on months where
we do a travel or a trip or something, but
it's just yeah, that is our sort of same baseline,
fifty million, two thousand US a month for four people.

(24:42):
Sometimes we have another adult in the house, like a
grandma scenario. Yes, but like another sometimes we're literally feeding
more than four people too, right, we're doing dinner for
five and six.

Speaker 3 (24:52):
Sometimes very realistic to do that.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
Talking about twenty four thousand dollars a year for everything, yeah, house,
for food, for clothes, for healthcare, for school, for lit
you name it. The entire hole in supporting a family
on twenty four thousand USD. Yeah, how do you find
not just costaline with quality of living compared to your
home in Canada?

Speaker 2 (25:15):
Okay? So I was like born and raised in Canada,
so I have a certain standard or living. Canada is
different from Vietnam. It was a cultural shock and I
did feel homesick a little bit. There are certain parts
that are modernized, but I feel like it's still growing.
Where am I getting at?

Speaker 3 (25:30):
What are the cons?

Speaker 1 (25:32):
Then let's start with the cons, right, because that's what
you're saying. It's talking about the anxiousness of your first cast.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
Okay, shock here?

Speaker 1 (25:37):
So what are that you get here? What are the
big cons? The negatives? The things as a Canadian that
you're like, this is shocking.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
I don't I know, haping it's not. But like when
I go to restaurants and like there's no soap at
the bathrooms. That's something that bothers me. Like I think
health and safety at restaurants, but there are certain restaurants
that we know of that like they are clean and
they do have all that, but it's just I guess
when you go really local, you don't know if you
can trust that. And like the food, I guess when

(26:05):
they sell raw food like on the markets. That was
something that I'm not used to too, because it's really
hot out and then how long has it been there.
I hate talking about bathrooms, but like the toilets when
I saw it on the ground.

Speaker 3 (26:15):
That you have to sit water.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
Okay, other than that, like those little things just bother me.
But it's not a huge thing. And I guess the
houses how they built it, I just wish she built
it a little bit better. Here mold can grow fast
and the airflow inside the houses. I think that was
a big thing for me because I really want to
make sure my kids are healthy and not breathing in mold.
When we went house hunting, we saw a house. Everyone
was fighting for it, but I didn't know why, and

(26:38):
there was so much mold. They say they'll clean it up,
but still it was the whole wall of the kitchen
that was moldy and you could smell it. So like,
I just the standards here with the housing. I think
there's probably more, but like, but there's a lot of
pros here too.

Speaker 3 (26:50):
Okay, tell me some of the pros. Okay, some of
the things that when you, yeah, when you climatize, what
were like, this is great.

Speaker 2 (26:55):
I don't like that the moldor bikes and all that.
But other than that, the pros about it is like
we can live like a slow life here. The people
here are really nice, the beach life, the weather well
like the weather when it's warm, the rain season not
so much. And the people. I feel like since we
got here, we actually met a lot more like minded
people here, the community XPAX and locals. So I don't know,

(27:18):
it's something that we just were looking for and we
found it here. Yeah. And I felt like the homeschool
groups here more like minded here versus when I was
in Canada when I found a homeschool a community there.

Speaker 1 (27:28):
And did you find have you found your communities mostly
through like Facebook groups or what's that?

Speaker 3 (27:33):
Like? How have you connected with these?

Speaker 2 (27:35):
So like we were like loners for the first year
being in Canada, I mean not Canada, I mean in Vietnam,
and it was really hard, and I think that's why
we were homesick. So when we actually went to go
visit Canada and came back here, I made it a
goal that I was going to find a community. So
what I did was I went on Facebook and that's
how I found it. And from there you kind of
just talk to people and you'll meet and they'll kind

(27:56):
of refer you to other groups like already there.

Speaker 3 (27:59):
Yeah. Yeah, it's hard.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
But the other thing too is, especially if you have kids,
easy to get stuck in your house and it's it's
hard to like actually make plans to actually do stuff,
even just like this kind of interview. Like one of
the reasons I wanted to do this too, is like
to get away from my computer and like I need
to connect with.

Speaker 3 (28:15):
People more often.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
Right, yes, yes, and my wife too, she's yet but
still like she's not from here, okay, Yeah, And we
both work promote on our computers at home. It is
just like way too easy to close off. What about
We talked a little bit about the direct cost of
living comparison with like the gas and a few other things.
If you can live here on roughly two thousand US

(28:37):
dollars a month, which is about under three thousand Canadian
twenty eight hundred Canadian a month, what is your cost
of living situation if you were to live the exact
same lifestyle back home in the GTA in.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
Toronto, Okay, for even just the minimum basic not even
living like how because I get massages here and self care.
I can do that regularly here, So not the same,
but this is the bare minimum. I believe when we
were in Canada, which was like two years ago, it
costs is minimum just essentials about five thousand Canadian five
to six thousand dollars Canadian.

Speaker 1 (29:10):
I think it's fair to say you've like had your
costs of living right, Like you're living on half the
amount of honeyward in Canada.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
Yeah, and we're living a little bit more luxury here, yeah,
and Canada would just be the basic things.

Speaker 3 (29:21):
I definitely find that.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
And also if we found that a little bit from
moving from Hoa Chi minh to here, like I left
a better paying job to go remote to work online
and work for myself, we really cut our costs of
living down when we moved from like a big sort
of expat wealthy suburb in ho Chiman City to a
beach town to denying. Quality of life has gone up.
We can afford things we wouldn't be able to afford.

Speaker 3 (29:44):
Yeah, anywhere else, I.

Speaker 2 (29:45):
Feel like you're just less stressed because everything's so affordable here,
You're not so worried about money.

Speaker 3 (29:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
Honestly, the only money concern we ever really talk about
in that sort of like stressful anxious way is when
we talk about doing big.

Speaker 3 (29:58):
Trips back to North America.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
Oh yeah, family just idea, like we have to do
it every year, Chris, how long do we go? Like
that becomes a real yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
We My husband and I have been like through arguments
like because I did My goal was to at least
go once a year. But when we did go last year,
it was so expensive. I think it cost us about
ten to fifteen thousand Canadian to go back.

Speaker 3 (30:20):
How long were therefore?

Speaker 2 (30:21):
Only a month? A month and a half, so it
costs about ten to twenty thousand.

Speaker 1 (30:25):
So I have family obviously in Toronto Stille, and my
wife has family she's born and raised Vietnamese, but she
has family in Atlanta. We like cost out this idea
of like, what would have cost to bring four people
to Atlanta for two weeks Toronto for two weeks and I'm.

Speaker 3 (30:38):
Back here and it's like, it's the same thing.

Speaker 1 (30:40):
There's no way you can come up with a number
that's under to fifteen thousand dollars the most basic, right, Like,
because we know it's five thousand fly. Yes, it's five
thousand dollars to get on the airplane.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
Yes, and we had we just stayed with our family
and friends. We didn't even get an airbnb. Luckily we
had someone to like get this car to borrow. We
didn't even have to get a car, but if we
included that, that would have been a lot more higher.
And we didn't even go to see his other side
of his family, which was his family was in a burda,
so we only went to Ontario. So if we had
to go see everyone, it would have been maybe double
the price.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
So this is yeah, like this is one of the
real psychological costs of living abroad, right, is that you
are going to be detached from certain friends, family, community
I have back.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
Yeah, it's really hard. So keeping in touch with my
best friends just so hard. We live in different lives
and going back you don't mean know when you're gonna
go see them, when you're going to go see them
and you're missing out on their There are things. I
just found out my best friend pregnant, so it's like, oh,
I'm not going to be there, and we're like best friends,
we're supposed to do everything together, but we chose this lifestyle.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
It is it's I mean, that is real. There's a
real cost benefit analysis right of like how much things cost,
what you get socially, psychologically, what you get in real
stuff too, Like like we're talking about you really get
a nicer house, better, better food, better healthcare, better like air,
like those things are all real, but then it is
tough for sure.

Speaker 3 (31:57):
Okay, let's go back to money talk. How do you
and your husband make money as expats living abroad?

Speaker 2 (32:01):
Okay, so my husband, he's still doing some remote work
from Canada. He's a mortgage broker, he's doing trading, and
we're investing long term in markets also, so when we
sold our home, we kind of used that money to
start investing into the market. And then for me last year,
I just started to learn about online businesses. So I've
started my YouTube channel.

Speaker 3 (32:20):
A little graphic float graphic.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
Yeah, and then I just also creating like digital products
now you know all that online stuff I'm so intrigued of,
like how you learn money online. And also I learned
about a little bit about UGC, so I actually started
getting UGCUGC Travel they're both kind of different. But I
started UGC travel because it made sense because I'm traveling,
so you get paid for making videos for like hotels

(32:42):
and all that.

Speaker 3 (32:42):
Oh nice.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
I feel like the risks of working for myself or
trying to do something along here are less because if
you have any kind of savings, like you're talking about
the like the amount of time you get and the
amount of mistakes you can make along the way, there's
a lot more run.

Speaker 3 (32:58):
Out of time.

Speaker 2 (32:58):
Yeah. So I felt like when we in Vietnam, I
was more relaxed because if I was doing YouTube in Canada,
it wouldn't be the same. I think I would be
counting all the costs I'm spending, and here it's like
I'm like laid back and I'm okay to like, okay,
if I made a mistake this month and it was
only like a five dollars mistake, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
No, I know exactly like that, Like if I put
out a video and it's like, no one's a dad.

Speaker 3 (33:19):
It's like disappointment. Yes, yeah, And it's not like a.

Speaker 1 (33:22):
Like, oh crap, I'm not going to be able to
pay rent and a thing. Whereas at various times I
was doing like all kinds of side hustles at home
on top of being a teacher, like I'm a real
licensed teacher I was. I wasn't like teachingsl like I'm
a school teacher.

Speaker 3 (33:34):
Yeah yeah, like I worked for.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
The Calgary Board of Education. Wow, I'm like a legit
school teacher.

Speaker 3 (33:39):
Right.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
And it's like at a home in Canada, I would
sometimes have two or three jobs, especially when I tried
to live in Toronto.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
Yes, since I don't know how you live there.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
That is where you're from, right, It's where I'm It's
where I'm from. So if I was going to live
in Canada, and have you guys tried living in other
countries or have you experiment.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
With that or so when we first starting what opened
our eyes is we actually were building out our homes.
So we decided to sell our one home to travel
and then when our house was built, we were going
to go back. So when we did that we actually
went to Florida and that's opened our eyes to like,
oh a week live like this. My husband was working remote,
so we did live in Florida for a couple months,
not long term, so we've been to these places really

(34:16):
short term, but like long enough to know. We went
to Florida for three months. Also Mexico, we went to
Plata Carmen, and we also went to Kenkoon. Yeah it
was Kenkuon where else we try Where's the island?

Speaker 3 (34:29):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (34:29):
Yeah that place? Yes?

Speaker 1 (34:32):
Were you experimenting sort of the idea of like how
much it would cost to go live somewhere remote, like
with the family in the sun. Obviously both of Mexico
Florida are great, you know retirement or sort of wintering options. Yes,
And what did you find direct cost of living comparison
Mexico versus Florida versus now in Vietnam.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
Okay, so obviously Florida was the most expensive one. We
blew a lot of money there, I think even renting
it was just a small town home for like three
thousand a month, and we airbnb that. Everything else was expensive,
like food, everything. Mexico was a bit cheaper and we
could live We actually lived in a two bedroom for
maybe sixteen hundred.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
So Mexico is about half the fast Florida and now
Vietnam is half the cost of Mexico.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah, so we thought Mexico would be a lot cheaper,
but people were saying it's going up there because a
lot of Americans are going there. More expensive being in Mexico,
and the food's more expensive too. Now it's like regular
prices at American prices, but I guess if you go
to like tourist areas, it is more expensive.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
But like fifteen years ago, I lived in Mexico and
taught there, and it was like I was in like
the central highland mountain parts like Guanajuato, but it's near
a big like retirement American hub in San Miguel Ende, Okay.
And I found that, like anywhere the expat or like
living abroad, American communities there, they're mostly American and a
lot of them have been there for thirty years forty years, right, Yeah,

(35:53):
And because of that there, if you're in any of
those places like either the coasts, right, like if you're
like Porto Ayerta or pliadel Karma in yeah, or Sam
Miuel Ende or any of the nicer sort of communities
in Mexico City where digital nomads and expats or retirees live.
They're slightly more affordable than Canada, but like it's still
like it's seventy five or eighty percent of the cost.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
Yes, that's what we saw, and that's why my husband
didn't really want to stay there. But also we're, like
you said, I like eating Asian food, so in Mexico
there's not a lot of Asia options there who are
trying to make full there. And yeah, it didn't work
out well.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
Okay, So when you arrived in being how did you
feel do you speak yet? Does your husband speak yet?

Speaker 2 (36:33):
My husband speaks to yet.

Speaker 1 (36:34):
Okay, so how did you feel as like non native
language speaker? How did you feel you're treated by the locals?
And then also how did you feel the language barrier.

Speaker 3 (36:43):
Sort of affected you?

Speaker 2 (36:44):
Okay, so I can say straight up, I was nervous.
I didn't notice it, but I didn't want to go
out on my own for a while. I just started
to I use like Google Translate, and even when you
use Google Translate, it's kind of hard to like go
like this to them. I think it affected me because
I felt like I wasn't confident and in anymore. You know,
I always wanted my husband to come with me.

Speaker 1 (37:02):
I guess like the motivation part of it too, like
why did you finally make the leap to come?

Speaker 2 (37:07):
Okay, So we came to Vietnam because we saw was affordable.
That this wasn't my first choice of a country. It
was actually Japan or Portugal, because I didn't research that
Portugal there was a lot of people going there. However,
I did question Vietnam because I kept seeing it was
really affordable, but that wasn't my number one priority. It
was more like just raising my kids, making sure they're okay. However,

(37:27):
I asked my husband. Event he said no at first
because all his family members said it's not good to
go back home. And I think they only say that
because they kind of moved out of Vietnam to go
to Canada to have a better life. Anyways, somehow a
YouTube convinced him. A YouTube video convinced him, and he decided, like,
let's go try it out. I still have family here.
Let's just make that our base for now, and we'll
figure out if there's somewhere else that we want to

(37:48):
go live. Relocate it'll be easier because he could speak Vietnamese.
So that's what we did, and since we got here,
we just never wanted to leave. Basically, he does alt
most of the talking. But I noticed that my daughters
and them are actually learning more Vietnamese here, and which
is good because that's the roots. While they're learning, I'm
kind of learning on the side with them. So it's
been okay, it's been better. It just takes time with

(38:09):
the language Areer.

Speaker 1 (38:10):
I don't know if I learned to speak Spanish fluently
and like not very long in When I was living
in Mexico, I picked up a bit. I spent a
year in China and I picked up a bit of Mandarin.
But here I'm just like I'm stumped. You know, you
can read Vietnamese because it's in the Roman letters. Yeah,
is helpful, that's a real thing. But I just find
as far as like I don't make enough effort, maybe
but people don't understand my accent or they just like

(38:32):
don't even maybe an apt coperson anything, like you go
to Quebec in Canada, yeah, and like you try and
speak French to someone, and even if you speak French
or trying to like, shut up, I speak English.

Speaker 3 (38:41):
Better than your French.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
And maybe I'm probably gonna cut this out because I
don't feel like putting it in, but I feel like
that's what happens to me here, Like even if I'm
trying to speak Vietnamese, my husband makes.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
Fun of me. And maybe that's why I don't want
to try, because every time I try, it's like, if
you don't have that accent, it won't sound what you're
trying to say, because I think if you don't use
a certain sound or it will say something, you're saying
something different. It is hard. It is a bit hard,
and like maybe I'm not trying either, but as an hon't,
I'm like trying to do so many different things, so

(39:09):
it's so hard to just add a language for you
to learn. I don't know, I might have to take
some Vietnamese lessons or watch those. Uh there's a Vietnamese
A Me Baby show on me too.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
But hey, the flip side is I think getting easier
and easier to live here full time without speaking Vietnamese
and I don't find I'm judged. Yeah, right, I don't
find any judgment from locals for not speaking their language.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
Ye In fact, actually, I think locals really like English
speaking people because whenever if me and my kids are
just talking at a local place, they're like looking at us,
where are you from? You know? Or they're just so
interested of like knowing what we're saying or who we are.
Maybe they don't see a lot of xpacts.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
That's why sometimes too, it feels bad or negative or
like makes you self conscious sometimes when you can't speak Vietnamese.
But the flip side is I'm judging myself about it.
I never feel like I'm being judged by Vietnamese people
for not speaking vat right.

Speaker 3 (40:00):
Do you feel safe here?

Speaker 1 (40:01):
Like how do you feel whether it's going out at night,
your family with your kids or alone.

Speaker 3 (40:06):
The traffic situation, I actually.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
Feel pretty safe, even when automotibike. I feel like everyone's
really careful, even though everyone's going like this, I haven't
seen that many accidents here, and that's so crazy because
there's so much traffic. But yeah, I feel really safe
with my kids being out. I actually let sometimes my
daughter walk out to her class in front of our building.
I feel like a lot of XPAX and locals with kids,

(40:29):
we're all looking out for each other. Anyways. So I
just feel like it's been really safe. Even at the beach,
we're always everyone's always helping each other. When you see
a kid in trouble, they'll like say something, or they'll
come up to you and let you know.

Speaker 3 (40:42):
Nice. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:42):
So do you feel like safer and more community minded
here than at home in Canada?

Speaker 2 (40:47):
Yeah? I actually feel more easy here for some reason.
I think back in Canada, I don't know if it's
because the news and all that's scarier. You're not allowed
to let your kids walk alone anymore because yeah, weird
people out there. Yeah, I don't think you eve can say
that word and youtobe. I don't know. I think back
in Canada, like, I don't know what's the news that
makes you scared of letting your kids out. But I

(41:10):
never really let my kids go walking on their own
in Canada, But here I'm actually okay.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
With We have like literal like kids play in the
street in front of our house and my kids aren't
quite old enough to play with them yet, but like
they always want to go out there, and like I think,
like I'm not worried about safety in that broader sort
of like creepy sence. Yeah, yeah, I'm just worried about
like my kids are too young to play in the road,
I think, yeah, yeah, older.

Speaker 3 (41:33):
Kids other than that.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
Yeah, like even okay, if we're near the roads, of
course my kids can't be near the road. It will
be safe there. But I mean, I just feel like
nothing really does really happen here towards the kids. I
just feel like everyone's so friendly and there's so many
people with kids, so I don't know, maybe it's just
because my community.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
Also, traffic here in Dnang and in the central coast
is way less stressful and intense than in Houchiman City
or Hanois okay, right, like when you see all this
sort of like on YouTube, the like.

Speaker 3 (42:01):
Traffic and Vietnam's insane. Yeah, I can't even cross the street.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
It's always like in Old Quarter Hanoi or in District
one and Hochi right like it's in like the most
busy central places of those like twelve million person mega cities, okay,
whereas here it's like we don't ride a scooter right now,
but both of them we have baby seats on our bicycles,
oh okay, and I feel like fairly safe bicycling.

Speaker 3 (42:24):
Yeah, in traffic here, like on this street or whatever, Like.

Speaker 2 (42:27):
Yeah, I haven't like encounter a lot of accidents here,
which is I'm just amazed because there's so many accents
in Canada. I don't know. Maybe because I don't know,
everyone's just more careful here.

Speaker 3 (42:36):
I believe I found that.

Speaker 1 (42:38):
I noticed a lot in Hochim and city and like
it was scary, like I found it. I stopped driving
a motorcycle for a while, so oh yeah, and I
knew like a bunch of people have been hit by
cars and stuff like Okay.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
So maybe it's just standang, but I.

Speaker 3 (42:48):
Feel like here, I don't get that vibe as much. There.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
It felt like especially where we're living. We're living in
a suburb, and there was like big trucks and like
you know what I mean, Like it felt intense. It
felt like you were like on a highway on a
tiny little bike surrounded by big scary vehicles. Yeah, literally
just crush you.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:05):
And other than like the tour buses at the beach here,
I know, I don't get that vibe. Yeah, I gotta
push a stroller down the street here.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
Yeah, I'm trying to think. When we went to d
La and we were going down the mountains and there
was trucks around that. It was kind of that was
a bit scary. I can say that because the way
they drive, I feel like they try to get through
and I'm like, why are you guys turning and trying
to pass someone at a curve because you know, usually
that's the rule not to do that. But I think
the rules here for driving. Oh you know that there's

(43:32):
new laws right too. Yeah, there's new laws, and we've
seen it's a bit better now, but there are there's
the odd one that you will still run the red light.
But apparently if we do do that, you get fined,
like a big fine.

Speaker 1 (43:44):
Yeah, I have heard that. It's funny too. People are
making comments on old videos.

Speaker 3 (43:49):
Being like there's a lot you're full of shit.

Speaker 1 (43:51):
Like I'm like, oh my god, YouTube stop. Yeah, it's
running red lights.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
Yes, and driving in the wrong side.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
Driving in the wrong direction, yeah, all of I'm on
the sidewalk, that's one. I have a video where I'm
like on the sidewalk and blacks and drives on the
sidewalks and I knew it was illegal then, but everyone
still does it. And like now there's all these comments
chirping me before you get here, or if you're talking
to someone back home. What do you think the biggest
misconceptions about Vietnam and Vietnamese people are.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
I feel like people think it's like a very very
it is a poor country, but I feel like people
think it's like poor that they're living in like bamboo homes,
which is not like that. I know there are places
here that are still like that, and I think people
are still helping that out, those communities out, but it
is a bit more modernized, and I feel like people think,
you know, I didn't know that you were going to
ask that. My head's going blank.

Speaker 3 (44:41):
That's okay.

Speaker 1 (44:42):
Like the cities are really there's a big urban rural divide, right,
There's a lot of the cities are super modern and
super everything is exactly.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
I think they try to make it scary. I always
see Vietnamese news. They always talk about how scared it
is to come here, like how dangerous is and like
people get sick and all that. I remember my husband's
mom be like, Oh, people get sick there and they're
so poor. Oh they don't have this and this. I
remember she's like, oh they don't have like good two pace.
But then I was like, I came here, they have

(45:09):
the same two pace that we have back home, sensine
or something, because she bought like ten thous like literally
she bought like boxes from Costco to bring it here,
And I was like, they have this brand here. I
feel like people talk about how poor it is and
that they don't have anything here, which I found everything
I need to live here perfectly.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
Anyways, that's an interesting one toecause I think be a
cute friends from home. Yeah, some people I know, like
second generation Vietnamese in Toronto are really like, I want
to go back.

Speaker 3 (45:38):
I want to learn about where I'm from, I want
to learn about my history, I want to learn mout roots.

Speaker 1 (45:41):
Yeah, but then there's definitely other people in that community
who are like yes, right, like and it's just like
it it's like hardline, don't want to go back, don't
talk like it's it's they're done. Maybe that's part of
how it is in all immigrant communities, right Maybe if
we're I.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
Think it's because like what we were talking about, like
they sacrifice so much to leave Vietnam to come to
Canada to get to have a better life, which I
understand that, and I remember back then it was a
bit harder here. My husband and we were just talking
about the other night yesterday that like they just don't
understand that it's another time now and that it's growing
here and there's so much opportunities here that you can

(46:16):
come back here. Because even in sister Law, we're like,
you should come here and open a restaurant here, because
there's a lot of like basic food here, like we
could actually open something really good here. And she's like, no, no, no,
I don't want to. And it's like you don't make money.
It's like, no, you don't, Like I seen businesses here
growing and they're making good money.

Speaker 3 (46:32):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
So I don't know. Their perception of Vietnam is just
so weird to hear that, But I understand how they
think that they came to Canada to have a better life,
and the better life is in Canada right now.

Speaker 3 (46:43):
It is hard.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
It's hard to I mean, I hope that part of
the like the cost of living a broad pot and
the episodes of doom talking to people and Vietnam is
that like that's breaking misconception, Like that's not the point
of it. The point is talking about the financial thing
and like living here. But it is I do hope
that too, because like my audience, almost all, I don't.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
I don't like it when they think people are poor.
If you come here, you're poor because they think my
kids are going to learn to be poor.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
Yeah, they don't understand that it's a it's a development country.

Speaker 3 (47:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
I mean the math for me was so simple. I
planned to come for one or two years, for one
or two year contract. Sure I ended up meeting my wife,
falling in love, et cetera. But also in like a
really straightforward way, all of a sudden, I was making
at least sixty percent of what I made in Canada,
salary wise, at least sixty percent. But the reality, because
of taxes and deductions and stuff in Canada, maybe more

(47:32):
like my take home might have been three quarters of
what I was getting in Canada. Like the actual money
hitting my man account, like I was making seventy five
percent of what it was in Canada, and at the
time when I was single, all of a sudden, I
was living on twenty percent and it was just crazy, right,
It was like, all of a sudden's all this money
left over at the end of the month. Yea like really,
I was like, what the fuck like without trying, you

(47:53):
know what I mean, going out living my life at
the time, drinking beers, going on holidays, going out to
dinners with friends. Yeah, five nights a week in Hochivan City,
a big, modern, you know, developed city. Yeah, living in
a nice condo and the suburbs. Like, yeah, it's different.
It's not Canada, obviously, but in this real way, I
felt like, wait, what I had to whatever, like be

(48:14):
self reflective.

Speaker 3 (48:15):
Or my own misconceptions?

Speaker 2 (48:16):
No, I get it.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
What's one piece of advice Matt person or those people
who are not who have misconceptions but who are sort
of like still on the fence, the thing about coming
to Vietnam or to Thailand or to the Philippines, but
they're still back home in Canada or Australia or the USA.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
What I would say, like, do your research, go experience it.
I feel like people don't. They're so in their bubble
that they don't. You don't know when you don't know
when you didn't try it yet, Go try it for
a month and see how you like it, but make
sure you have something planned for me. I would say, like,
if you were wanting to become an expact. I would
say look into your income first. I feel like you

(48:56):
have to have some kind of savings or coming here,
you should explore your options and see the world more.
I don't mean to be like Yolo, but I mean
it is after COVID, why are you going to stay
in Canada in lockdown? That's what happened because after lockdown,
my husband I like, how of this ever? Have sinquins again?
And our kids are going to live like this. We're

(49:17):
going to live like this, like that's when we started,
when we made that first move. Let's go see Florida
and live there for a couple months and see how
we like it. And that changed our perspective of life
that there's more out there and that we need to
go see the world.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
And what about is there a set number or a
baseline amount of money? You've done it, you're leaving. What
do you think someone needs to have in the bank
minimum to go away for that first year or even
lesseners say that whatever, saying like.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
If you everyone should always have like I feel like
one or two years of income whatever your budget is,
how you live on right, but I believe you should
have one or two years savings just for backup. That's
what I think. I don't know if other people do
the same, but that's what we basically made sure we had.

Speaker 3 (50:00):
That's really great.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
So if you're saying, if you know really simple equation
that your budget's going to be about two thousand dollars
a month, here, make sure you have twenty four thousand
dollars in the bank.

Speaker 3 (50:08):
Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 1 (50:10):
Last one, What's something I didn't ask you that I
should ask the next guest on the cost to live
in abroad pod.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
If it's a family person, I would like maybe talk
about like what does family look like? Education?

Speaker 3 (50:22):
We didn't talk about that.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
That was a big thing in my channel that people
have been asking because they're family people and they're asking,
how are you dealing with education with your kids?

Speaker 3 (50:31):
Okay? So yeah, well we can do that. How are
you dealing with that? Okay?

Speaker 2 (50:34):
Education? What we do is we homeschool. I think we
started homeschooling back in Canada because after COVID I decided
to take that in my own hands versus online learning.
We learned a lot about it, but we stand by
that concept of homeschooling just because it's a bunch of fluff.
When you go to regular school, no offense to others.
So and we want to teach the kids like obviously
they have their core subjects like English, maths, science or

(50:57):
social studies, and then we want to like do a
like of some things that we think it's important, like money.
I believe money and business is very important for kids
to learn, even a young age. But yeah, we do
homeschool which we do an online an online course, so
they do independent working on there. There are some workshops
that you can do here in Dunang and then homeschool
meetups that we meet up and that's how they have

(51:18):
their social skills and all that. And those are the
things that we've done. However, I did when we went
to Nyajang, I put them half days in private schools.
I did half days in the mornings, they went in
and then they came home in the afternoons to do
some homeschooling. It really depends on what you want and
what you want to do.

Speaker 1 (51:34):
Yeah, that it can be such a huge financial cost
here too. That one of the things we've experiented with
our kids are younger than yours, but with the three
year old is bringing them into like preschool kindergarten whatever
you wanted.

Speaker 2 (51:43):
Yeah, yeah right yeap.

Speaker 1 (51:44):
For half days like three times a week or something, right,
like a really like part time thing. But just and
it's more, it's not for the education aspect. It's for
the socialization. It's for to run around with other kids
and be in like a play area like just that
aspect of it is the only is the thing we
think about. I mean I agree with you completely as
somebody who's been a real legitimate licensed teacher for almost

(52:05):
twenty years.

Speaker 2 (52:06):
And oh I E forgot you were a teacher.

Speaker 1 (52:07):
No, No, I mean COVID is basically I didn't need
it really made me rethink education in schools, in the
whole school system. And I think if I've been working
at home, it would have been even the effect would
have been even stronger. Yeah, that's the thing I think
about now, right.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
It is like there's so much resources, it's.

Speaker 1 (52:21):
So real, it's so realistic to get your entire like
knowledge information education online now for kids, for adults.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
For it's a scam.

Speaker 3 (52:31):
It's really questionable. It's not for everyone.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
Yeah, like I went to again this, I don't think
it's making like I went to share it in college
when I was like twenty one for like six months
or eight months.

Speaker 3 (52:42):
Awesome. I ended up doing working photo and other stuff
by life.

Speaker 1 (52:45):
And then later I went back and went to UT
and did teachers college when I was like twenty seven.
And I don't regret that decision because at the time,
it was really like I was working as an ESL
teacher in Mexico making no money, and I was like,
if I go back to UT, I can all of
a sudden make real money doing the same job I'm
doing that, so that it really made sense for me
as an adult making that decision. But I did take

(53:05):
on loans, real loans to do it. That's a long
time to pay back. I definitely the system of like, ah,
you're eighteen, go spend two hundred thousand dollars on university
or one hundred thousand dollars. Why And like the kids
I'm teaching here, yeah, that's their dream, that's their parents' dream, right,
It's like the Vietnam But I just feel like.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
That people have put that in your head, like you
know what I mean, like that you have to do that.
That's why I didn't like the traditional schooling anymore, because
I feel like we were programmed for so long that
that was normal, and I don't think that's normal anymore.
Like I believe in homeschooling just one percent, just because
you can. You can find everything that teachers are teaching online,

(53:45):
and you can pay for those textbooks that they're using
and teach it yourself. And I don't pay. I can
give it. Like teachers, they have learned how to deal
with kids, and they're probably better with garmar. I suck
at all that, but I can get tutors to help me,
or I can really basically get online things to teach them.

Speaker 3 (54:03):
That for sure. Well, and even this is later.

Speaker 1 (54:06):
This is a high school age but as Canadians like you, specifically,
your kids can do Ontario high school through TVO.

Speaker 3 (54:14):
You know, like TVO like television Ontario. You know what TVO? No,
I know the public TV.

Speaker 1 (54:20):
Oh yeah, TVO has has a literal like online high
school program.

Speaker 3 (54:25):
It's like forty bucks a class.

Speaker 1 (54:27):
Oh really, this is not I'm not going to put this.
This is only for like if you're a Canadian. If
yeah right, I'm Embana And thanks for listening to the
Cost of Living a broad pod. For full interviews, find
us on YouTube at cost of Living a broad pod.
Before we wrap up, I just wanted to let you
know that if you're struggling with the cost of living
crisis back at home and looking for a sustainable and

(54:48):
affordable way to relocate your life abroad, check out our resources, courses,
and community at cost of living abroad dot com. Thanks
so much. New episodes air Sunday night.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
Backsta