My life in Vietnam as Russian Woman & Why I chose Vietnam over Europe

(00:00:00) Intro
(00:01:50) Meet Irene, a Russian Woman Living in Vietnam
(00:04:43) Daily costs to live in Vietnam
(00:08:47) Her $250 grocery budget in Vietnam
(00:14:10) Why She left Russia and Turkey and Europe
(00:16:40) Cost of Travel and Health Insurance for Russians
(00:18:38) Why she went from hating to loving motorbikes in Vietnam
(00:23:37) Renting a $300 Villa with a Pool in Hoi An, Vietnam
(00:24:16) $700 Monthly Budget Totals in Hoi An, Vietnam
(00:27:49) How does she make money online living in Vietnam?
(00:34:15) Pros and Cons of living in Turkey
(00:40:17) Pros and cons of living in Sri Lanka
(00:42:55) Language barrier in Vietnam
(00:45:17) Advice for someone moving to Vietnam or SE Asia in 2025
(00:48:49) Make more money online while living abroad
(00:52:38) Was she afraid to travel and live in Vietnam as solo female traveler?
(00:58:08) Full episodes of The Cost of Living Abroad Pod

This week on The Cost of Living Abroad Podcast we talked with Irene, a Russian single mom living with her daughter in Hoi An, Vietnam on a $700/Month budget and $300 rent in a villa with a swimming pool.

Why So Many Russians Live in VIETNAM? Irene broke down her cost of living and quality of life and why she chose live in Vietnam over living in Sri lanka or life in Turkey.

Full episodes available on Youtube @costoflivingabroad

0:00 intro episode highlights
1:30 Irene, a Russian Living in Vietnam
4:30 Daily costs to live in Vietnam
8:30 $250 grocery budget in Vietnam
14:00 Why I left Russia and Turkey
16:30 Cost of Travel and Health Insurance for Russians
18:30 Why she went from hating to loving motorbikes
23:30 Renting a $300 Villa with a Pool in Hoi An, Vietnam
24:00 $700 Monthly Budget in Hoi An, Vietnam
27:30 How does she make money online living in Vietnam?
34:00 Pros and Cons of living in Turkey
40:00 Pros and cons of living in Sri Lanka
42:45 Language barrier in Vietnam
45:00 Advice for someone moving to Vietnam or SE Asia in 2025
48:30 Make more money online while living abroad
52:30 Was she afraid to travel and live in Vietnam as solo female traveler?
58:00 Full episodes of The Cost of Living Abroad Pod

Thanks for listening to The Cost of Living Abroad, make sure to rate and review the show on Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Full episodes available on Youtube @costoflivingabroad

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This week on the Cost of Living a broad Pod,
I talked to Irene about why she chose Vietnam over Europe,
how she lives on seven hundred dollars a month as
a single mother in a Hooian villa with three hundred
dollars rent, and her experiences living in Paris, Russia, Turkey,
Sri Lanka and her current home Vietnam. I'm evan A
and you're listening to the Cost of Living a broad pod.

(00:22):
For full interviews, find us on YouTube at the Cost
of Living Abroad.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yeah, my name is Irena or Irena in Russia, and
I come from Russia originally. Actually it's a Greek nine,
so it's it any in Greek, so it means peace.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
By the way, you're living in Vietnam now.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
I live in Vietnam now with my seven year old daughter.
So we've been here for six months around since September.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
And we love it here wonderful. Have you lived abroad
other places in the four other countries.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
With my daughter? So we've lived in three countries. So
we've lived in Turkey, Russia, Turkey and then Sri Lanka
and now we are in Vietnam. I was born in Kazakhstan.
I wasn't even born in Russia, but then I moved
to Russia. When I was eleven years old, I moved

(01:19):
to France. So I lived in France for around two years,
and then we moved to Turkey when I gave birth
to my daughter when she was ten months old. Since
twenty eighteen, I haven't lived in Russia seven years. Yeah,
seven years. She wasn't even raised in Russia. So that's

(01:42):
why she's bilingual, and she speaks fluent English and Russian obviously.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
And I know this from having two young children who
aren't full school age, but they are daycare and childcare
that I think can surprise a lot of expats or
people living abroad that education care often becomes one of
the biggest expenses.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, but I homeschool my Okay, we have World schoolers,
you know what it is, literally, So there are a
lot of families who homeschool their kids or even unschool
day kids, and they travel around the world while homeschooling
and unschooling. I'm not into unschooling yet, but like a

(02:26):
lot of things that we do, is unschooling literally. Don't
get me wrong. It broadens your horizons and it teaches
you how to think outside of the box.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
I was a teacher for a long time, but my
opinions on education have shifted a lot through a combination
of technology and internet and full access my teachers.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
I've been a teacher for over sixteen years. I know
what it is. I truly believe that our education system
is really rusty. We just need to find more ways
to educate our kids in different ways.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Yes, and my original YouTube channel started by uploading lessons
during pandemic when I was and I was there were
literally four my class of students who were just distance
separated from me. And I think that that process really
accelerated it, like accelerated the shift of the transformation from
the older traditional sort of factory style schools that were

(03:27):
still used to to whatever it's going to be in
the future. Let's talk a little bit about what your
days look like here in Oian. And you know, it's
costs for breakfast for yourself, your daughter, lunch, dinner, Like
literally just walk me through. You get up in the morning,
your daily costs just to live and.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
To eat to start with breakfast. But the thing is
that we don't eat out that much. I know that
a lot of people live in here, like expats to
live in here, they eat out mostly we don't. I cook.
I would say ninety five percent of our meals because

(04:07):
I try to eat healthily. If you eat out, you
never know what kind of oil they use. And I
know that in Vietnam in other countries, Asian countries, they
use a lot of margarine. It doesn't align with the
with the healthy diet that I'm trying to stick to.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
So are you shopping at like local markets? Are you
shopping at like a grocery store?

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Do you buy both? I do both. I try to
do both. I try to find the more organic food
if it exists, so I try to find the best
for me and my daughter.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Okay, so maybe we should think about in terms of
like a weekly grocery But I just say in dollars
or and what I'm what you're buying whatever, how many
dollars is costing and what it's getting.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
Okay. So I'm not a vegan nor vegetarian. I eat meat.
We definitely buy some meat and fish, fresh fish. I
know a lady who's husband is a fisherman, so we
get like fish directly from the sea, and like she

(05:14):
she always kept some some fish for me, like because
normally I didn't even know. He goes to the sea
in the afternoon and he comes back he gets home
around depending on how much fish he can get at

(05:34):
night and early morning. She just text me and I
get the fresh fish.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
You pay like by the kilo or like what's that? Okay?
Charging for all.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
Depending on the on the fish I paid, like a
normal price, which is ten dollars or less than ten
dollars for K or two hundred and thirty k.

Speaker 3 (05:58):
It's like eight or nine dollars.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, but I know that it's super fresh and you
can taste. It's just taste the difference, and I don't
want to that. The only problem is like why I
can't go to the market and buy fish the market
because I have to wake up at five in the
morning to buy super fresh fish and no that I

(06:19):
pretty struggle with that. So I find that another solution.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
The biggest like cost discreparancy in groceries is buying things
available in Viennam domestically or important things. And so if
you go to like a Korean lattem art or a
goal or like a big day, definitely every often everything
there is important, like even the same fish you could
buy fresh air is going to be important there because

(06:46):
of you know, taxes, et cetera.

Speaker 3 (06:48):
The prices are going to be high.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
So yeah, like, for example, meat, I buy imported meat
from Australia or New Zealand because the quality is higher
than the local meat. But it's still affordable. There is
some places where you can buy like but the only
downsid for me is that it's frozen.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
There's a lot of cattle rays here for dairy or
for meat. What are you paying for a kilo?

Speaker 3 (07:10):
Bee?

Speaker 2 (07:11):
Like yesterday I bought some bree buy bee food was
three hundred and fifty.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
K fourteen dollars.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, for fourteen dollars for half kilo seven bucks for
two hundred and fifty grams three fifty.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
We buy it Mspray Bakery and there we get it
costs like fifteen fifteen.

Speaker 3 (07:33):
K it's just sixty cents.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yes, so and it's pretty good. It's pretty good. So
I don't eat some band meat or yeah, but it's
a bread band.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
It's like the rice flower by gut.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah, No, I don't need that. I don't really like it.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
Yeah, there's some very specific texture for bread, I.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
Know, and for me, it's like it looks like the
flowers has been late or something.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
I mean it's box A bundred is literally rice. Yeah,
it's like a mixed blended flower rice.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
Oh good coffee, is it?

Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yeah? Very addicted to coffee. And in fact, before before
I came to Vietnam, one of my I've never been
here before. I've lived in other countries. I lived in
China and I traveled around Asia, but I've never been
to Vietnam even for a day a minute. And when
I was doing my research, I found out that they're
a humongous coffee producer and also that there was bread,

(08:33):
and I was like.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
Oh coffee, I mean, off we go.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
Yeah, I mean that's a if you spent any time
in China or other you know certain other parts of
Eastern South Asia, bread and coffee are are not readily
available or they're very expensive, very expensive. So didn't know, like, okay,
they're both there. They're both cheap. I think I have
to go there. Yeah, very appealing. So what would you
say if you had to put a number on it

(08:57):
for your monthly grocery costs?

Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yeah, I would say in dollars two hundred and fifty
and fifty.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
Dollars and that's a course for yourself and your daughter.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah, for myself and for both of us.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
She's quite tall. I mean I would, I would count
her already as a whole person.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
Sometimes she has bigger potions that especially she's addicted to pasta,
so I don't know. Sometimes I feel like she's Italian
because she can eat pasta three, I think, three times
a day easily.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
Can you access Russian specialty goods or like the things
you missed from home? Is there a couple restaurants or
cafes in Denying?

Speaker 2 (09:37):
Sure, Yeah, there are. I think there are at least
four or five four or five Russian restaurants and yeah,
but honestly, I don't I don't miss anything or some
probably sour Koream sometimes like a really craved but I

(09:58):
found the other day I went to Nang. I find
Russian stark really fatty, and I love it.

Speaker 3 (10:06):
How do you call it?

Speaker 2 (10:07):
Smithana Smith?

Speaker 1 (10:09):
Yeah, seen all the Russian restaurants in the name, but
I haven't. I haven't jumped in yet.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
So that was it Rahad Bakery?

Speaker 1 (10:16):
Interested I think I've literally been to that bakery before.

Speaker 3 (10:19):
Are they Kazakh or Uzberg?

Speaker 2 (10:22):
I know that the cook is Uzbek. I talked to
the owner. He said, like, they're planning to open a
Tadjik or Taji or Uzbek restaurant in Dana and soon.
I'm looking forward to it because as I was born
in Kazakhstan, I really like Asian cuisine, so like Middle
Asian cuisine.

Speaker 3 (10:41):
The earls are the stands.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
It's like the classic spice route, the direct route between
Iran and Fijing or Japan in the end, but that.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
Whole They definitely know how to cook good, good.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
Yeah, I would love to. I've never traveled that part
of the country. I've been to both sides, but I've
never been individual.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
But I have friends now, expats who used to live
in Vietnam and I taught with in Ho Chimin City.
One is living in Tashkent and the other is what's
the type of Kazakistan.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
Now it's Astana, right.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah, so I know I have a friend who's teaching
at the Canadian school in Astana and another one teaching
at the Canadian school in Tashkent.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
Interesting.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
Of course, being naive, I was like, it's great, I'm
so close, so visit both of you at the same time,
and then I looked and they're like sixteen hours apart.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
It's not that cloch far.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
They're farther away than like Vietnam and Australia.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
Nightlife or like after dinner recreation.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
So maybe for you a child, it could be like
kids cafes, play stuff, any sort of expenses not food
related to entertainment, to going out.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
My life is is quite a limited, I would say
is I'm a single mom. Most of the time we
spend like in the evening because we normally have such
busy days because here in Hoayana as well as in Danai,
there is a huge World schooling community and there are

(12:13):
so many things to do and so many activities for kids.
I mean, the community of World school is really big
here and there are so many activities. For example, my
daughter does acrobatics, and you know who they teach is
the instructor? Is the performer from Bamboo Circus have you
heard of or like Lunar Production, one of the biggest

(12:37):
performances in Vietnam. So she's their instructor.

Speaker 3 (12:42):
Beautiful.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
We are so blessed to help her. We have so
many activities for kids. Parents, really, I would say contribute
to their time and energy and then know only to
teach our kids. And it's really beautiful.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
How did you connect with it? Here's specifically, and you know,
I'm through.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
We have a WhatsApp group, what's a Facebook group? But
I'm now I'm still promoting the community because now it's
become huge and there are a lot of families who
come and go, like they stay here for like let's
say a week or a couple of weeks. We are
more interested in people who live here.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
This is a classic part of like the ex patter
living abroad community right that high high turnover and look
high exactly be saying I have two wonderful friends from
Saigon who live in Kazakistan and Pakistan. Means I also
lost two of my wonderful friends from Segon before I
left there. And sometimes related to money, sometimes to visa,
sometimes for work. But you do see that a lot

(13:45):
of that sort of nomadic or transient movement.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
But at the same time, you can make a lot
of friends come to you, right, so you meet a
lot of people you can from all over the world.
Here in Vietnam. You can make a lot of friends,
but they at some point you just need to say goodbye.
Sometimes it's really sad, but.

Speaker 3 (14:05):
That's kind of beautiful.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
So essentially you're saying your whole social life, for yourself,
for your daughter coming here as a single mother, and
did you know people here before you came?

Speaker 3 (14:14):
No?

Speaker 2 (14:15):
No, and you've been able to build say it happened
when I came to Sri Lanka. My daughter was five
years old. First we moved to Turkey from Russia. My
daughter was nine months old, but my parents were that
they moved with us, so they helped me with her
like care of her. But when she was five, I
made a decision to leave Turkey and just to go

(14:37):
to Sri Lanka. And I was like, I didn't know anyone.
I had never been to Sri Lanka before, and same
as in Vietnam. I've never been to Vietnam before. I
have friends who lived in Natrank, but that's it. I've
heard some good stories. I just made a decision to

(14:58):
come here and I really love I love it here.
The more you realize that you just need to overcome
your fears, the better opportunities you can get.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
I read a memoir recently by a pretty well known
Canadian actress director and she has like a line of
running at her fears made me. The name of the memoir,
I forget the title, but I think it's like, you know,
like go straight at It direct.

Speaker 3 (15:21):
Books by Sarah Polly. I don't remember the title, but
you can google.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
In your social life, your recreational life is a free
or community based, cooperative based What about do you have
a gym membership or health insurance any kind of like
monthly fees for sports?

Speaker 2 (15:40):
I play pickle ball here, I play badminton. We have
a huge group of badminton players in joyan.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
Huge badminton facility right in the middle of the ice field.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
Yeah. I do acro yogurt, so I don't need any
gym membership. I do exercise at home.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
The big tennis courts by my house and the name
we're just converted into pickleball court. And now that it's
a pickleball court, it's busier. Until a PM, it's absolutely packed.
Do you do health insurance? Do you have health in home?
Do you just have a savings How does that figure
int your budget?

Speaker 3 (16:15):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (16:15):
So basically I don't believe in so I don't take pills.
I've been sober for three years so far, prevent rather
than cure. I don't have to see any doctors, but
I in case of emergency, I have some insurance. But
fortunately I've never had any accident.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
Is it is like a monthly premium.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
Yeah, it's monthly payment, but it's a Russian insurance company.

Speaker 3 (16:43):
And how much did it costs for yourself and so.

Speaker 2 (16:46):
Round thirty dollars per month. But I've heard that some
foreigners get scammed, yes, and yeah, they get charged a
lot more than a local person would be.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
There are I have, I mean, I have a scam
video I can link that. There is still scams here,
and some of them are more pernicious. I had a
healthcare incident that was a payback scam where essentially, like
the hospital is working with the insurance company because like.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
I'm not paying for it, my work is.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
But like that's still a scam, right, there's still illegally
funneling money out. Okay, let's talk about a couple of
several things, things like electricity, water, your phone bill, your
Wi Fi. Any of those you're paying separate, if they're
tied into rent. Let's leave rent to the end.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
Yeah, the utilities, I only pay for electricity, and I
pay around monthly but I don't use AC, I don't
have a TV. I pay from five hundred to K
to six hundred K per month so, which is twenty
dollars to twenty five dollars.

Speaker 3 (17:54):
I think that's pretty realistic.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
If you're in a like an apartment or a condo,
it's going to be around twenty dollars thirty dollars, maybe
a little bit higher in July and August if there's
a real heat. Wavenue have their kindiss on. What about
your phone and your WiFi phone?

Speaker 2 (18:07):
I used the package with one gigabyte per a day so,
which is thirty gigabytes per month. So I pay a
ninety kiney.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
K so three dollars a month, three dollars a month.
When Will Travels came on, he's live streaming YouTube from
his phone and has some package that's like twelve or
twenty gigabytes a day and he's actually using it.

Speaker 3 (18:29):
I think it cost him ten dollars a month or
twelve dollars a month.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
Great, What about your transportation and that can only be
like local, you know, renting motorbike, buying motorbike or grab
or car services.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
Yeah. I've always been the anti motorbike person. Let's say,
but I've lived in Asia for now for over three years,
or if Turkey is in Asia, then for over six years,
six ver seven. I've been this motibike anti motorbike person.
But then I realized that it will give me a
lot of freedom. So when I arrived here. When we arrived,

(19:05):
I cycled a lot with my daughter. That was pretty hard,
obviously because sometimes we had to cycle for thirty kilo
movies per day, and that's a lot. Like I cycled
for two months and then I just was sick of
it and I was ready to get a scooter. So

(19:26):
I got a fifty cc scooter. I ride a scooter.

Speaker 3 (19:30):
Is it electric? Is a guess?

Speaker 2 (19:31):
Now? It's a Castle petrol Yeah, sure, yeah. I go
to the nine once a week.

Speaker 3 (19:37):
So one of the modus of the fifty cc is
that there's street legal, so.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
You don't there's no license issue, and you have to
check with your own healthcare or health insurance from home,
because in some of them they're just going to be null.
The second you touch a motorcycle with your finger, you
would still be driving legally here as oppost like one
hundred and twenty five cc twenty five for that to
you rent it by the.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
Money I do.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
First month I paid one zero point three mil million.
I negotiated, and now the price dropped up to one
point one million, so which is forty five Well.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
Yeah, one point one is forty four years dollars and
the one point three is fifty four years dollars. So
that's a good rate for sure. I think in the
big cities you can find it even cheaper.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
And Deni I was told that you can get it
for one million.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
Rental motorcycle rounders are one of the best ways to
get scammed, the most various, send frequent scams if you're
doing it monthly for a few dollars a day, and
you get essentially a brand new bike. Eddie talked about
buying an actual motorcycle, so you can watch the video
with him if you're interested in that process.

Speaker 3 (20:39):
But it's certainly not necessary. Okay, So we're at.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
Forty four dollars, yeah, per month and about two ninety
so you're up in this sort of like three thirty range,
three thirty five maybe.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
And then for the petrol I pay almost mething. They
amounted so little, and like two weeks ago we went
to who on a motorbike on a scooter?

Speaker 1 (21:04):
Well, what about the travel? So are you doing weekend trips,
travel within the country, travel around Asia?

Speaker 3 (21:09):
Do you have any travel costs or travel that you do?

Speaker 2 (21:12):
I do, like, so we went to where two weeks ago.
We went there on a mount of like on a scooter.
I drove, I rode, yeah, through the hivan pass and
I absolutely loved it. And as a person who was
an anti motorbike person, and now that was really a challenge,

(21:39):
shall we say, And I had to get out of
my comfort zone. But yeah, I loved it. I loved
the experience. So and I paid I don't even know,
I think around ninety K for the petrol.

Speaker 3 (21:54):
Yeah, two or three dollars, three dollars.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
And what about cost like accommodation, eating food out, et
cetera for your weekend away? How much did it cost
you to take a weekend So? Huway is like the
old Imperial City, beautiful, very touristy. Quite a small town relatively.
It's about two and a half three hours up the
coast drive from Danang.

Speaker 3 (22:16):
And Vietnam, and it took me five hours.

Speaker 1 (22:19):
Well that's okay, I mean, it's a very very beautiful
trip by bike or by train. It is by car
you go through a tunnel that they bomb through the mountain,
So by car it's not that exciting. But if you
take a motorbike or a train, it's gorgeous.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
I loved it. And so how might we stay there for?
I think four days? I had to do my visa
run from wh it because there is a direct bus
to the border.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
Okay, so that's I mean that's actually a frequent travel cost.
So are you paying sort of a couple hundred dollars
every three months?

Speaker 2 (22:48):
I pay around one million one point two for both
of us.

Speaker 3 (22:54):
Oh, it's very affordable. Yeah, but it's more frequent than
ninety days.

Speaker 2 (22:58):
Yeah, it's forty five days. You have a different so
you have visa free for forty five days. So and
we don't need a visa to Laos. It reduces the
cost of Wow.

Speaker 3 (23:14):
Yeah, well, I mean this is a benefit.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
I mean, uh, formerly USSR benefit and Vietnam have always
been close allies. I don't think it's an exaggeration to
say that, uh pre doi moi when the US was
sanctioned here, I mean being able to starve to death
like in a very literal way the country to starve
to death if they hadn't been getting food from the SSR,
and it was the doing more really only happened when

(23:37):
when the power, like when Moscow started to fall and
they couldn't supply the country anymore. That's literally why Vietnam
was forced to open. Fascinating so that your cost of
living living abroad as an expat is because you're so
you're on a forty five day I free visa exemption.
There's I think there's twelve countries of the visa exempts.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
Yeah, but I know that Panama and Chili they can
get ninety days. These are free. So Russia has gone
on the forty five days like Russian citizens.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
I have to recalculate.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
It's not I incorrectly presumed and assume that your visaround
was costing a couple hundred dollars every three months. It's
actually costing you forty dollars every forty five days. So
it's eighty dollars every three months. So you're talking about
a little over twenty dollars day. Okay, So by my calculation,
before we get to rent, you're at about three hundred
and sixty.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
Dollars total monthly cost for you and your daughter to
live here. So what do you pay rent?

Speaker 2 (24:40):
I pay six point five million.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
Two hundred dollars and then two forty plus five hundred
and two sixty five to.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
Sixty five around seventy and now water Wi Fi.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
They included in you're living here with your daughter comfortably
and well, you would say for six hundred dollars a.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
Month around or maybe seven hundred, six hundred.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
Dollars a month is seventy two hundred US dollars a year,
you know, so somewhere in that seventy five hundred to
eighty five hundred usd living here with the child is
in dependence.

Speaker 3 (25:20):
Incredible.

Speaker 2 (25:21):
It's really a portable, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
Yeah, it's really I think it's really realistic too. Had
I had a thumbnail that said six hundred dollars is
realistic and it was like a quote that someone said,
and I had to change it and take it down
because people just shit on it. They don't they don't
think it's real, right, So you have to just say
one thousand dollars. If you say less than one thousand dollars,
it's just really it's a pile.

Speaker 3 (25:40):
On people refusably. You're full of shit. You can't do
that anymore. It's not nice.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
I come out and talk to people, and again and
again people do go through the quoteity in day to
day of what's the costing you to live? I mean
my family, we're a family of four. We spend under
two thousand dollars, and we we sometimes have a fifth.
I don't dependent in the house for family reasons. But yeah,
I want to say easy. Life's never necessarily easy. But

(26:06):
it's very realistic for us to sit on a fifty
million long month budget for a family of four or five,
and we're spending significantly more money than most of our
Vietnamese neighbors, is what I would say about. Right, So
in a very real way, right, like we're on the
block we live on, we're spending way more money than
the people who are living and the houses on either
side of us.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
Yeah, I know that. For example, in who you can
still find it a house for four million for four
million dollars, yeah, which is.

Speaker 3 (26:35):
Like one hundred and sixty dollars.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
Yeah, a house, a two bedroom house. Now in Huayan,
the prices have gone out insanely and now it's just
a I would say, you can get a house for
maybe six hundred the cheapest up to thousand.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
This is an area not just for people living a robot,
for tourists, right, So there's a lot of a lot
of the property here gets pushed up for short term stay.

Speaker 2 (27:03):
But the good thing is that there are still some
rural areas in Huayan where accommodation is really affordable. For example,
I pay less than three hundred dollars. Yeah, like around
three hundred dollars for a months. We live in a
villa with this I would say, massive swimming pool. It's

(27:26):
really long, beautiful, surrounded by lush greenery.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
I'm going to edit this so to you saying we
live in a villa surround with the massive pool and
lush greenery, and then it's going to cut and I.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
Mean we shared it with the owner. Yeah, because it's
also really convenient because they live downstairs, so if anything happens,
if I have a question or any emergency occurs, so
they're always there, and it's really safe.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
You're living in a flat, yeah, in a flat in
I mean, we'll talk a little bit about safety more,
but I think there's Vietnam could still be one of
the safest places in the world for solo travelers men
or women.

Speaker 3 (28:09):
Yeah, how do you make money living abroad?

Speaker 2 (28:12):
I work online, so I'm a tutor and that's my
main income. Like, I don't work full time. I work
only part time.

Speaker 3 (28:25):
How many hours a week?

Speaker 2 (28:26):
Not that many, like because around fifteen because I cannot.
I cannot do that due to the fact that I'm
a single mom. I cannot work full time. That is
the reason why we are here. Like, I can still
afford living comfortably and not working like long hours and

(28:51):
living a dream life because it is for some people
they can't even dream of that, because they need to
think outside of the box just to be able to
move to another country and be quite adventurous probably and

(29:11):
really bright.

Speaker 1 (29:12):
You know, you can't be too risk averse, you can't
be too afraid to sort of take the first step.
But I think definitely with these interviews, talking to you,
talking to people, part of the idea is to just yeah,
and there's only so much I can say when it's
just my story, right, it's just one person me saying well,
I do this, I do that, and it's real. But
I think by trying to bring other people's other voices

(29:32):
other perspectives, other lives, other budgets.

Speaker 3 (29:35):
Hear about the cost of living abroad.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
For other people a rule hopefully really sort of expand
a lot of people's idea of what they could do
or how they could change their life. The budget money
stuff is over. Now, will just sort of talk about
your lifestyle, your experiences, comparisons of here versus home, or
versus the other places lives.

Speaker 3 (29:57):
Have you lived in other countries before you mentioned Sri Lanka,
you mentioned Turkey, Turkey, you mentioned France.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
What are some of the sort of the upsides or
downsides that you found of living in Sri Lanka as
opposed to in Vietnam.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
I've been asked those questions so many times.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
Of course, So do you have a rehearst answer ready?

Speaker 2 (30:17):
Know I did feel safe there in Sri Lanka too,
I feel safe everywhere. I think safety like, first of all,
is it starts in your head most of the times.
The thing is why we left. I was at some
point I was sick of but not being able to

(30:38):
get the variety of foods, for example, because here in
Vietnam you can find anything and it's not it's not
that pricey compared to Sri Lanka. Whereas in Sri Lanka,
if you want to buy something important, so you pay
not even triple price, you pay like ten times more

(30:59):
like there. For example, meat here I can buy like
for fifteen fifteen dollars per kilo, right, but there it
will cost you around two hundred dollars per kilo.

Speaker 3 (31:12):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (31:13):
Sometimes you would I would go to a supermarket. It's
a huge supermarket, and I wouldn't find any eggs, for example,
with the scarcity. Yeah, the scarcity. And here I have
a veggie stall just near my house and I buy
everything from the nicest lady and it's it's really cheap.

(31:36):
So the variety of foods, I would say. But it's
not only that it is not easy, it's it's amazing.
It's an amazing country. So it's one of the beautiful,
the most beautiful countries in the world. But it's good
for traveling living there, it's just it's pretty tough, especially
with the kid. Or probably I was not ready yet,

(32:00):
you know. So I lived there for a year and
a half and then I was like, okay, so now
it's time to move.

Speaker 3 (32:06):
And were you in Colombo or in.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
Gaul And my daughter was enrolled in a British school
there which was super affordable, and it's run by a
British lady. So she's been there for thirteen years. Amazing,
amazing school. Amazing. So that was the reason why we
stayed that long, otherwise I would have left early.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
An extremely prohibitive thing for families expat to live abroad
in Vietnam is that the cost of international schools.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
Here is insight.

Speaker 3 (32:41):
What was the tuition or cost of the school and
in Sri.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
Lanka that was around two hundred less than two hundred dollars.

Speaker 3 (32:49):
Per month, kind of like a double edged sword, like
a blessing and a curse. Here.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
Education is extremely highly valued in Vietnam. It is especially
the population born after nineteen ninety is very well educated
and becoming better and better educated by all standards, including
now speaking English. But what's happened is that the private
schools and then international schools like it's a multi tier system,

(33:15):
and at the top end, your schools in Vietnam are
now charging the same prices as Singapore or Hong Kong,
and places like Singapore and Hong Kong the salaries are
seven to ten times higher than you. So there's a
big discrepancy. It's going to cost thousands of dollars a month.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
It's going to cost a fortune.

Speaker 3 (33:32):
Yeah, it's going to cost.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
An absolute fortune coming here with a job lined up
on a work viz. Are temporary citizenship like a TRC,
and their work or the school is somehow provided through that.
If you're paying out of pocket for education here, it
it's extremely challenging. And part of that is because a
lot of local people, upper middle class people, are willing

(33:55):
to pay fifty sixty seventy percent of their salary towards
their child's education, which is its not.

Speaker 2 (34:01):
Right, It's not right, It's not right. That is the
reason why I homeschool, one of the reasons why I
homeschool my daughter, but it's not the main reason.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
What about Turkey, So you came Sri Lanka Turkey. Were
you in Istanbul or no, we.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
We lived in Alania. Have you been to Turkey?

Speaker 3 (34:24):
I'd love to go to I read that the beautiful
memoir by the.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
Yeah, it's beautiful, but Turkey is so varied, So I
would say, then Istanbul is just a small part of Turkey.
And then then nature wise or beauty, beauty of Turkey
is underrated, I would say, and because everyone who's been

(34:53):
to Turkey, they either go to Istanbul or Antalia.

Speaker 3 (34:59):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (35:00):
How did you find sort of those basic things like
the cost of living, the safety, education.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
Yeah, it has changed a lot. When we moved there
in twenty eighteen, it was really affordable. Now it has
changed a lot. With the inflation, the prices have gone
up insanely. So for example, meat, I know that I've
seen some numbers that meats has increased by I think
nine hundred percent or something. Now it's it's really pricey,

(35:29):
not nine hundred percent, but around like three hundred percent
it has. The price has increased, so now it's not
that affordable. Before it was, especially during COVID, it was amazing.
There were a lot of restrictions. We could travel anywhere.
That was super fun. During COVID, I organized a group

(35:52):
of people who would travel every weekend.

Speaker 1 (35:55):
It briefly shifted at the sort of ladder stages of
the pandemic here in twenty twenty, but Vietnam it was
very much like that for the first couple of years.
Restrictions in other countries, Vietnam was essentially like a club
with no ins and outs. If you were in the
club within the country, there were essentially no restrictions. If
you're out of the country, you weren't coming in, and

(36:16):
if you left, that was it. You weren't coming back.
Their COVID measures which were very effective for a long time.
We're just about border control. Tri Lanka really is one
of the few places that I think is in some
ways cost of living wire is comparable to Vietnam.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
Not no, but not no, no, no, Now it's more
expensive than Vietnam. Vietnam. I would say it's a very
affordable destination, but Sri Lanka. The main reason why it's
not that affordable is because you can't really eat Sri
Lanka food like local.

Speaker 3 (36:47):
Food spicy, super spicy super.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
When they say no, no, it's not spicy, it's like
it's burning spicy.

Speaker 1 (37:02):
Sri Lanka food is the only food I've ever been
that is at least as spicy as Southern Thaire food.

Speaker 2 (37:07):
I think even spicier. I met an Indian girl in
Bangkok and she before she lived for a couple of
months in Sri Lanka, and she was like, no, even
I am indeed, I cannot eat that.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
Doesn't joke about it's like shaped like a tear drop, right,
and when you eat their food you cry.

Speaker 2 (37:29):
That was the main downside because you cannot eat local
food and if you eat out you pay European prices.
In Sri Lanka, I would say.

Speaker 3 (37:38):
Yeah, Vietnamese food, it's it's still very realistic.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
Vietnamese food is just two dollars. Noodles will beef two dollars.
We went to tom Ki last weekend, I know it
was last week in the south of Oyan, where the
Mural village is. We went to a restaurant there and
I paid thirty five care for this rice plus beef,

(38:05):
rice noodles plus beef meal.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
A lot of the meals and soups and things here
are water based and not oil based, so they also
tend to be healthier. Quite a lot of people who
move here tend to lose weight, built in portion control
and a lot less fat and saturated ba than you
need anywhere in the West. Why did you start living abroad?
What was the shift to twenty eighteen to leave Okay?

Speaker 2 (38:28):
I had lived abroad before, like in Friends, but I
was married at that time, so we lived there with
now my ex husband and I gave birth to my
daughter in twenty seventeen, and she was seven months old
when we broke up, and that was the reason why

(38:52):
I just decided to move on and give other opportunities
to my uh to my child. And also, you know,
winters in Russia, now that's severe that in like in
a Moscow, because we lived in Moscow compared to probably Siberia,

(39:15):
they are quite okay, fine, but it's still with all
the snow and the lack of sunshine. Yeah, because there
is no shine the sun.

Speaker 3 (39:28):
Like I mean, as a Canadian, absolutely exactly the.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
Date where you you in the winter time, you see
the sunshine. Yeah, it's just once a month. I'm not
even kidding, like once a month. And I would do
that when I was living there. I would I would.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
Take the calendar where I'm from in Toronto. For me,
the most depressing are affecting part about winter is that
if you're working a full time job, it's dark dark
when you go to work, and it's dark when you Yeah, that.

Speaker 2 (39:59):
Is the main thing. It's dark, always dark, and it's great.
That was the main reason for me too. And as
I'm a cold and toiler in person, being Russian, I know,
so it's funny I just wanted to change my life

(40:20):
and I had to rethink it, and you know, just
broaden horizons and they see other opportunities.

Speaker 1 (40:33):
Totally about the safety living here as a sort of
solo traveler, solo female traveler, what do you feel is
the sort of most difficult or challenging or dangerous aspect
of it?

Speaker 3 (40:44):
When you're here in Southeast Asia, your nam.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
I don't find any It's like everywhere. So do you
feel safe in Canada? Or did I feel safe in Russia?
You may feel safe or unsafe depending on your mindset.
I truly believe in that it's just because we think.

Speaker 1 (41:02):
When I lived in New York and San Francisco, lived
in places that were unsafe, they were physically unsafe, like
especially at night. I lived in Mexico too for many years.
The US is the only place I've ever seen people
active fire, shooting guns on each other in broad daylight.
I've never seen that good good San Francisco. I lived
in a part of San Francisco called the Tenderloin, and
people got robbed and attacked there all the time, really frequently.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
I lived in a city which is nine hundred kilometers
from Moscow, Sarato, and that it was very unsafe district,
Like I lived in a very unsafe district where people
get robbed, and like drugs are involved. Steal my mindset.

(41:47):
If I know that nothing can happen to me, nothing happens.
If I feel like, okay it might, I might get
into trouble, then you will definitely get into trouble. And
I truly believe in that.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
What about the language bearer, how do you find the
three places we've talked about, primarily like Sri Lanka versus
Turkey versus Vietnam.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
Fluent in three languages? So speak English, speak Russia, and
I speak French. I'm fluent in three and I also
speak some Italian, some Turkish, some German, and I can
understand Spanish.

Speaker 3 (42:27):
Sri Lanka, Turkey, you were able to adapt and learn
some of the language.

Speaker 1 (42:32):
My experience living in Latin America was essentially that it
just without without anythinking about it.

Speaker 3 (42:37):
You had to and it came naturally.

Speaker 1 (42:41):
How long did it take you to sort of pick
up Turkish they speak Arabic too, or just Turkish?

Speaker 2 (42:45):
No, just Turkish now. In the beginning, I'm just being honest,
I didn't really like how it sounded. We lived in Alania.
It's very international and there is a huge Russian community.
The Turks have to they have to learn Russian. I
didn't really need it in the beginning, but then when

(43:06):
I started doing these stores, we started traveling, I realized
that I really need to speak some Turkey issue. I
never learned any school or like, I didn't take up
any courses. It just came naturally.

Speaker 3 (43:22):
Yeah, like A probably got Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
And what about Sri Lanka a very small island but
also very multicultural, multi lingual. How did you find that
language experience?

Speaker 2 (43:31):
They speak Tamil and seeing helo, but almost everyone speaks English. Yeah,
due to the history, and it was easy. It was
so easy. That was the reason why we stayed there,
because it was so easy as everyone you could communicate

(43:53):
with people, whereas here it's quite limited in Vietnam. But
at the same time, it's easy because most of like
the majority of Vietnamese educated people speak English. For English.

Speaker 1 (44:10):
In a place like this, joan more even than denying,
like a lot of shopkeepers we deal with day to day.
You finally speak at least enough English for business English
or possible English.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
But if you go somewhere father. Than that, then you
might have some issues. But everyone uses Google Translate. People
don't speak English, they will like locals don't speak English,
they will always use Google Translate. So that that is
the reason why I haven't learned that much of Vietnamese yet,

(44:42):
because I don't really need it, and we are not
we might not stay here for for a while, for
a long time if we do. If we stay so,
then I will have to learn it because at that
at this point, I don't see any reason why I
would learn, and I'm not married to a Vietnamese person,

(45:02):
Like I don't work in an environment with the Vietnamese people,
I don't.

Speaker 1 (45:07):
Really need it because they use a Roman alphabet like adopted.
You can learn to read signs, to read menus, I
would say, quite quickly if you want to, if you
want to, without even taking lessons.

Speaker 2 (45:20):
But if you're motivated enough, if you're motivated, If you're
not motivated, there is there's always a menu in English, but.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
The menu in English, the prices are higher, fair enough.
The flip side of that, though, is that you can
be very motivated and study for years, and if you're
not don't have the proper adopted mouth or throat muscles,
your total pronunciation will be off and people have no idea.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
What you're saying.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
And the other day I was trying to say Russia
in Vietnamese and some people don't understand like I've been trying.
I was like, but I'm just saying the same thing.
They said, oh no, because you didn't use the nasal,
said you didn't say it correctly, so we couldn't understand
what you were saying.

Speaker 1 (46:05):
People don't have a lot of experience to hearing thing yet,
like hearing the local language with any kind of accent.
So if there's even a fractional accent, if your pronunciation
is off at all, it will completely ruin the meeting
and there will be lost in translation. Hanoian to move
south off and have trouble communicating with Saigonese for a while.

(46:26):
And even this I find as someone who lived in
Saigon for five years, and the fractional or small amount
of Vietnamese that I was speaking was with a Saigonese accent,
I had.

Speaker 3 (46:36):
No idea what anyone was saying. As soon as we
moved here.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
Yeah, well that's like lexicon stuff too, so like literally
the words for like saying yes, or agreeing are different
in the North and South.

Speaker 3 (46:45):
It's not.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
It's even like Vietnamese WhatsApp yallow? Some people say yallow,
some people say.

Speaker 3 (46:52):
Zalo Yeah exactly, yeah, how letters are pronounced.

Speaker 2 (46:55):
I don't feel like diving into that yet.

Speaker 1 (46:58):
Cardin already talked about sotually how you're meeting people. You're
meeting people the sports activities through pickleball and getting out there.

Speaker 2 (47:04):
I meet people everywhere. And also we attained a lot
of workshops. There are so so many workshops here in
Yana and in Danang, and most of them I'm not
even joking, they're free. The other day we went to
Danang and was on Sunday for to workshops. It created Danang.

(47:25):
They were celebrating their two year anniversary, so we paid nothing.

Speaker 3 (47:31):
And what we're learned at that workshop.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
Canvas painting.

Speaker 3 (47:36):
And did you find those through a Facebook group or
through work.

Speaker 2 (47:39):
Because a lot of the like the information is posted
on Facebook, Danang Expats group and Expats group.

Speaker 3 (47:49):
But that that's how we met, right, That's how we met.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
The immersion, the sort of like saturation point of Facebook
and Vietnam is really hard.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
That is the main source of the inform I would say.
And then sometimes I feel like, oh, I've had enough,
Can I just please stay home? And I don't want
to go anywhere. And then there's another one.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
Help, what's one piece of advice for someone considering moving here?

Speaker 3 (48:15):
Sight unseen?

Speaker 1 (48:16):
This is the first piece of you know, research video
content on living abroad or the cost of living abroad
coming to Southeast Asia.

Speaker 3 (48:24):
What would you tell that person?

Speaker 2 (48:25):
Just do just do it if you feel like dated,
just to do it. Don't be scared, because otherwise you
can still come back to your corporate job life. But yeah,
why wait, why wait?

Speaker 3 (48:39):
Oh that's a good one.

Speaker 1 (48:40):
Okay, So I've started this little sort of past the
question thing where I finished by asking whoever I'm interviewing
to leave a question for the next person who comes
on the cost of living a broad pod. Last time
a guest named Eddie, who I'll link the interview with
him up here. Eddie left the really he'd left the

(49:01):
question that for me, it was a real eye opener.
What is the thing you're not doing right now that
you know you.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
Should be doing making more money?

Speaker 3 (49:13):
Yeah? Yeah, sure of course.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
Do you think there's a certain amount of money people
you said, just do it or why wait, is there
a certain amount of money that you think people should
have in their pocket before they, you know, head off
to Southeast Asia or to Vietnam or the living abroad lifestyle.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
Not necessarily, I would say they should have at least
some income, maybe passive income or remote work or some
some some sort of income, otherwise they won't be able
to make it.

Speaker 3 (49:46):
Yeah, that's a really bad.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
Depending on their occupation, they might also like, for example,
teach here in Vietnam or in other Asian countries, they
can be like become teachers, and a lot of Native
speakers teacher abroad, just to get a certification and start

(50:08):
to do that.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
That's true, I think in some sense, even if it's
a really small amount, as we've seen, you can live
on a small amount. Having five hundred dollars coming in
a month, knowing that you're going to have money hitting
your account every month is probably more valuable psychologically to
than having a chunk of money. Right, a chunk of money,

(50:31):
You're just like, okay, and better have both.

Speaker 2 (50:34):
I don't want to stop traveling, and like everyone asks
me where I'm from, and honestly I don't know, like
when they ask me because I've lived in six countries
and now I feel like I don't belong to any
So I belong to the world.

Speaker 3 (50:53):
You feel like a real and a world citizen.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
And I don't know. I don't want to limit myself
to one country. Okay, I'm a Russian passport holder, which
is true, but then why would I why would I
limit myself right to just one country? Or I don't
I don't want to stop. I like I love living

(51:19):
on the move, like like yeah, like I travel, I've
traveled a lot, and I just want to go on.

Speaker 3 (51:28):
What about your daughter? How has she reacted to be?

Speaker 2 (51:31):
She feels great and in the beginning, and she was
raised most of like her life she spent in Turkey.
She was raised in Turkey, and she loves the country
and she feels like she feels like it's our homes,
home base because my parents still live there, and not

(51:53):
even Russia. For her, it's just Turkey. She she loves
traveling like mom like a child. They say, right, maybe
it's a bad thing. Maybe she she should be going
to school like everyone does. Like living in Russia. Seeing
there's a uh, there's sometimes a miserable people, miserable lives.

(52:16):
Maybe she should be doing that. She has to experience both.
Maybe I don't know, but at this point of my life,
I feel like I just need to give her other
things and show her a different perspective of life, because
it's what I had to go through, right, and I
have I had to break it through somehow, right, because

(52:41):
that was to decision just to to live the country,
and and I was full of fears obviously, like people
get scared when they have to take the lip, right
and especially being a single mom with the with the
kid going to Asia, full of and expectancies, right, you

(53:02):
just do it it, Just be brave and take the lip.

Speaker 3 (53:05):
No doubt that it requires faith, right, like that that.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
English saying, like to take a leap of faith, and
it really is about that, Like there has to be
a level.

Speaker 3 (53:15):
Of bravery or courage.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
Yeah, courage, a lot of courage. Sometimes I feel like
we went to who on a motorbike on a scooter.
It's like even a year ago, I always think of
myself like are you are you insane? But now I
can do that, So I feel like sometimes I feel
like I'm in such a badass mam, And I just

(53:40):
want to give the best to my kids. It's not
always black and white, obviously, Like there is some tough days,
tough moments, and tough decisions to make.

Speaker 3 (53:54):
I agree conclude everything you said, and I would add
to that too.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
All of those things were also real when you weren't
living abroad equally through If you stay at.

Speaker 2 (54:04):
Home, then you're surrounded by your family by things that
you are used to, right, So you just don't want
to get out of your comfort zone. But once you
get out of the comfort zone, there are a lot
of opportunities. You just need to take them.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
Saying yes or like the big you know yes theory thing,
we think of things in terms of like one plus
one plus one, right, as if we're like going moving
up a staircase one step at the time. Yeah, but
the way the world tends to work is in a
totally you know, networked, exponential way, and saying us once

(54:44):
can actually lead to four opportunities, right, Like you're saying
you have too much to do. If you say us
to those four opportunities, now you might have sixteen opportunities, right,
And things can really snowball and grow faster than you
can imagine.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
Because a lot of people don't believe in abundance, and
they think that they don't deserve that, and they're scared
of it. Even if they get something. If you're like, oh,
probably it's just a coincidence, it's not it's not a

(55:18):
really me, it's just I haven't done much, or like yeah,
sometimes it happens too because they don't believe in themselves.
They feel like they don't deserve that. Like, if you
feel like that you're capable of doing it, you're totally
aware of what are you doing. If you take responsibility

(55:39):
for what you.

Speaker 3 (55:39):
Do, then go for it, and you do deserve it.
I mean, truly, you do deserve it.

Speaker 1 (55:45):
I think that the reality is that what's being opened
up before you, the possibilities are so great that it
really seems like like you're sharing this small secret, right,
We're sharing these tiny, little small and I'm not paid
for that. You just need All you need to do
is like you don't even need to break down the door.
Some of the doors you just need to knock and

(56:06):
someone else will open.

Speaker 3 (56:07):
It for you.

Speaker 2 (56:07):
Just yeah, or just open them right, or literally need
to walk not locked. The problem nowadays with the parenting styles,
like everyone Wednesday like to put their kids on the pedestal.
You know, do the best for my kids, and they

(56:27):
forget about their lives sometimes because they feel like they
need to fulfill this task by giveing the like a
lot to their kids, which is also good, right, But
at the same time, I truly believe that kids are
a part of your life, right.

Speaker 3 (56:49):
Yeah, like you get you still deserve to have a life. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:53):
Absolutely, the world does not revolve around the kid only.
She's living a part of my life. But my life
is beautiful. I will give you an example. Last year,
so we went to the Maldives and she swam with
the whale sharks and mentor rate when I first so
they see when I was sixteen years old, she's got

(57:13):
great possibilities.

Speaker 3 (57:15):
I had a conversation with my father, who's actually he's
visiting right now. Good for him too.

Speaker 1 (57:18):
He's seventy nine years old and still traveling, still taking
the long haul flights. So for the older viewers out there,
you're not too old either, as long as you feel
mentally young. I'm young to someone. They say they look
in the mirror and feel you know, they're always shocked
by seeing an old person there because they expected.

Speaker 3 (57:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:36):
So I was talking to my father about just that
sort of experience swimming in Sri Lanka thirty years ago
in the sea. He was thinking, Oh, do you remember
the big, beautiful tortoises and the sea turtles. I have
a very specific memory. I'm seeing an inflated cow stomach.
I don't know why, right, God knows why that this

(57:58):
is the thing that's stuck in my memory thirty years later.
But his memories of these beautiful turtles dripping by, and
my memory is, you know, I thought it was cool.

Speaker 2 (58:06):
Right, I was a little kid, so you remember that
it was something cool.

Speaker 3 (58:09):
There was this big, huge, believe and I was like,
what is that thing?

Speaker 2 (58:13):
Like, what what is that that?

Speaker 3 (58:15):
Like?

Speaker 2 (58:15):
What is that?

Speaker 3 (58:15):
I've never seen that?

Speaker 1 (58:16):
And he's like, I think that's a cow stomach, you know,
cows of multiple stomach and it looks like that's the
floating cowstomer.

Speaker 3 (58:21):
I was like, wow, And that's kind of stuck.

Speaker 2 (58:24):
So you never know what kind of memories they will
keep right when they become adults. But at least you
live in there the best of your life.

Speaker 1 (58:36):
What's your question for the next person that comes on
the cost of living a broad pod.

Speaker 2 (58:43):
Oh, that's a tough one because I haven't thought of that. Yeah,
why are you still not here?

Speaker 1 (58:54):
I'm Evan A and you're listening to the Cost of Living,
a broad pod. For full interviews, find us on YouTube
at Cost of Living Abroad