Dear Future Expats,

This is not the column I had planned for today. However, when I got this letter in my mailbox yesterday, I knew I had to share it with you ASAP. It’s from Leif Simon of Live & Invest Overseas.

I’ll have a few further comments at the end. . .

“The IRS is grabbing headlines again this week. Unfortunately, this time, it’s at the serious expense of a friend of mine, U.S. tax attorney Chris Rusch.

“Kathleen and I spent last week with Chris in Medellin. He was a presenter at our Live and Invest in Colombia Conference. We had breakfast with Chris Sunday morning at our hotel in El Poblado, confirmed our plans to have dinner with Chris and some other friends back in Panama City Tuesday night, and then waved good-bye as Kathleen and I left for the airport. Our flight was a couple of hours earlier than his.

“Early Tuesday morning we read the first press release, from Bloomberg.

“When Chris’ plane landed at Tocumen Airport in Panama City, U.S. and Panama officials were waiting for him at the end of the jetway. Only I guess they weren’t sure what Chris looked like. Other friends also on that flight have told us that officials were calling aside and checking the passports of every male gringo who appeared to be over the age of 30. Once they identified Chris, they confiscated his passport and escorted him away without a word. His Panamanian girlfriend, too (though she was quickly released).

“We’ve pieced the story together in the two days since. You can read the official version here.

“The charge, according to the press releases, is conspiracy to defraud the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Chris has been arrested and is being charged along with two former clients of his, who face a number of additional charges against them.

“Are the charges against Chris or his clients founded? We have no idea.

“However, what this still-evolving situation does show is that the IRS is going to extreme measures to make headlines…just as Chris has been saying for a long time. Chris made this point during his presentations in Medellin last week. The kinds of press releases being circulated and picked up by all the media right now not only make headlines. They also frighten some of the folks reading them into voluntarily coming clean regarding unreported income or unreported offshore bank accounts.

“And that, as Chris has been explaining to his clients and our readers for months, is the IRS’s current agenda.

“The IRS has just launched a new amnesty program, whereby people who haven’t properly reported offshore bank accounts or who have unreported income can come forward, pay back taxes and penalties, and avoid criminal prosecution. Previous amnesty programs in 2009 and 2011 generated US$4.4 billion in income for the IRS in back taxes, interest, and penalties. Chris wrote an article about this current amnesty program for this month’s inaugural issue of my Simon Letter.

“The bottom line of all this is straightforward. The U.S. government needs more revenue, and the IRS is doing its best to find it.

“We remind you often and want to remind you again now: Hide and seek doesn’t work. It’s a transparent world in this 21st century. You want to show and tell. File your forms. Declare your income. Disclose your bank accounts. Remain fully compliant.

“The trouble is that most Americans don’t understand all the current, new, and ever-expanding filing requirements. You need to work at keeping up right now, because the playing field is being reconfigured all the time.

“If you’re an American or a green card holder, you are required to file a form (it’s called the TD F 90-22.1, Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts) telling the IRS about any non-U.S. account or accounts that have held an aggregate of US$10,000 or more at any point during the previous tax year. This is required whether you are living overseas or not. No matter where in the world you reside, from New York to Nicaragua, from Poughkeepsie to Panama, if you have a non-U.S. bank account, your filing and reporting requirements are the same.

“And I strongly recommend that you understand and follow them.

“Keeping in mind that they are growing more specific and more complicated with the new FACTA rules, some of which still haven’t been finalized and will continue to take effect over the coming two years.

“Meanwhile, the IRS will continue working to do everything it can to create headlines. Just as they’ll continue to pressure the global banking system into divulging U.S. client account information to track down those who aren’t in compliance.

“I can’t make this point strongly enough. If you’re doing something you shouldn’t be doing or failing to disclose the existence of an account you should be disclosing, the tax man is going to catch up with you. It’s only a question of when. The IRS’s current amnesty program, as Chris detailed it in this month’s issue of my Simon Letter, could be a good chance for you to come clean.

“Once you do, stay clean. Disclose, report, and pay what you owe.

“That said, I want to make another point:

“It remains very possible to reduce your overall tax burden tremendously by relocating yourself, your assets, and your business to another country. We say this often. We’re right.

“And we’re speaking about fully compliant options. It can be complicated (or not, depending on where and how you earn your income), and it must be part of a deliberate, well-thought-through plan, but it is possible to organize your affairs within the rules (constantly changing as they are right now) to minimize your taxes and to protect your assets offshore.

“Legally.
“Lief Simon

“P.S. Speaking about all this publicly might be akin to sticking a target on my back. You never know, I guess, who awaits at the end of the next jetway.

“I’ll be in touch again soon. I hope.

“Meantime, Chris remains in custody, in Miami, where, three-and-a-half days following his arrest, according to the latest information we have been able to receive, he has yet to be arraigned.”

Like Leif, I don’t know whether Mr. Rusch is guilty of any crimes.

I find it very disturbing, however, that a few days ago a US Presidential candidate was in the news for paying very low taxes and hiding money in his Cayman Islands and Swiss bank accounts, while a hard-working attorney — who advises people like you and me how to survive an economic disaster that we didn’t create — is arrested and held.

I don’t have a lot of money to worry about, but what little I do have I plan to move out of the US while I still legally can. Because there are just too many indications that window may be closing.

photo by DonkeyHotey on flickr

Following in a more experienced person’s footsteps is a great way to learn something new, or to take the fear factor away from a scary new undertaking.

Sharing an expat’s experience with the process of relocating, or their life overseas, can teach some very useful lessons.

Here’s a list of expat and travel blogs and websites that are worth a look. To my surprise, I discovered it’s been about three months since the last one, so here’s a new list for 2012.

1. My Life In Canada Under the Snow
2. Gringos in Paradise (Mexico), for American expats in Mexico
3. Anywhere in the World, expat entrepreneur from France
4. The Road Less Traveled, American couple spend part of every year in Mexico in an RV or boat.
5. Overseas Exile, American currently in Amsterdam.
6. Far Away Hammer
7. The Venice Experiment, American expats in Venice, Italy.
8. Without Any Walls, expats in Germany.
9. Gringos Abroad, a family of Canadians in Ecuador.
10. Piglet in Portugal, writes a lot about food as well as other aspects of everyday expat life in Portugal.
11. Nicaragua Dispatch. This is actually an online newspaper, but I found it well worth spending some time with.
12. Expats in Italy
13. The Zieglers Blog, expats in Canada

Travel

These are not your typical travel sites, but sites of people who spent most of their lives traveling.

14. A Little Adrift
15. Travels of Adam
16. Magic Travel Blog
17. The Adventures of D
18. How to Travel with Pets
19. Fox Nomad
20. Tech Guide for Travel
21. Ramble Crunch, an American/Canadian family traveling through Europe and Turkey.

Do you have a favorite expat or perpetual-travel blog you’d like to recommend? Leave a link in the Comments section!

Still pondering what to get for that expat or future expat on your Christmas list? I thought I’d have some fun with the run-up to Christmas and one of my favorite Christmas ditties. Between now and December 25, I’ll bring you the 12 days of Christmas, shopping-for-expats style.

Each day we’ll focus on one aspect of expat or plan-to-be-expat life.

So, get your carol book out, brace yourself for bad puns, and here we go.

On the first day of Christmas, my expat gave to me. . .
A website for to earn some money.

Site Build It!

Got some extra Holiday cash you’d like to spend? Why not give yourself a new life next year?

Huh?

Well how about creating that portable career you’ve been dreaming about?

Site Build It! (SBI for short) provides a unique approach to creating a profitable website. Whether you’re selling a service or a product of your own, or creating an income stream based on affiliate links and advertising, SBI! provides some serious guidance, hand-holding and an excellent arsenal of tools.

Simply put, SBI! helps you build a successful online business. It’s more than hosting or site-building. It’s really a complete, step-by-step process that provides all the tools you need for getting traffic, sending out e-mails, adding a blog, and monetizing your site. And you don’t have to be a techie to use it. It’s as simple as sending e-mails and word processing. Take a look…

Here’s a Video Tour

Buy One, Get One Free

And if you hurry, you can take advantage of their Buy-One Get-One-Free Holiday Special that will give you their best price of the year. And they offer a No-Risk Money-Back Success Guarantee that means you have nothing to lose.

Don’t think you want or need two SBI! sites? Buy one for yourself and give one to another portable careerist!

More Information

Unless you don’t move in time to take advantage of their Special that is. Then you’ll miss out on a great deal. That offer ends at midnight on January 4, 2012.

Stay tuned for Day Two. . .

What’s the best expat gift someone could give you this Christmas? Mine’s an intangible — some understanding from my mother-in-law. Care to share yours? Use the comments below.

Remember, remember, the 5th of November
The Gunpowder Treason and plot;
I know of no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

Bonfires. . . fireworks. . . November the Fifth, in Great Britain, commemorates the failure of the Gunpowder Plot, an attempt in 1605 to blow up Parliament (and the king). Guy Fawkes was the plotter who was caught guarding the explosives under the Parliament building.

About five years ago, the day and what it commemorates were thrust into the consciousness of Americans with the movie V for Vendetta.

And I can’t help but think of the parallels between the original Gundpowder Plot, the movie, and events that are driving increasing numbers of Americans to expatriate today.

I try not to get political here — that’s not my purpose. But whether you lean left, right or center, it’s obvious there are big problems in the US and in much of Europe right now.

And with the Occupy Wall Street group and all its offshoot “Occupy” organizations blanketing US and European cities like a carpet of seasonal dead leaves, it seems appropriate to talk about it for a few minutes.

A Brief History of Guy Fawkes Day

The Gunpowder Plot was the embodiment of the religious rancor and division of the day, which pitted Catholics against Protestants in England.

Begining with King Henry VIII, who separated the English, or Anglican, church from Mother Rome in 1534, the Catholic and Protestant factions within the Church of England battled it out. The consequences of disagreement were often fatal and bloody.

By 1605, when Guy Fawkes and his friends set their plot in motion, the fight between Catholics and Protestants was bitter and well entrenched.

Through the years, November 5th celebrations, known as “Gunpowder Treason Day,” “Bonfire Night” and “Guy Fawkes Day” were often violent as the less privileged begged (or sometimes extorted) funds from the upper ranks for their shenanigans.

Following World War II, the celebrations became quieter. Children started creating their “Guys” and displaying them to their neighbors in exchange for donations (similar to our trick or treat), then throwing the Guys onto the bonfire at the end of the night. Villages competed to see which could build the biggest bonfire for the occasion.

The historical significance of Guy Fawkes day, and the religious disagreements it represents, have largely disappeared from today’s celebrations.

More and more, American-style Halloween has replaced Guy Fawkes day in British public life.

Guy Fawkes Day in V for Vendetta

If you haven’t seen the movie, I highly recommend it.

It takes place in a future England which is ruled by the dictator Chancellor Suttler. The public is under surveillance all the time, the TV news is dictated by the government, and the secret police drag people off in the middle of the night, never to be seen again.

Into this fear-filled situation steps V, a man wearing a Guy Fawkes mask. In a 24-hour period he blows up one of London’s iconic landmarks and takes over the airwaves to blast his message onto every TV screen in the country.

“People should not be afraid of their governments,” he announces. “Governments should be afraid of their people.”

He promises that one year from that day, he will blow up Parliament, something the original Guy Fawkes failed to do.

His actions give the people hope, and a year later there is massive change.

(I won’t tell you any more than that — in case you haven’t seen the movie, I don’t want to spoil it for you.)

Relevance to Current Events

The United States is a mess. Corporate interests are running the government, and there’s never been a bigger disparity between rich and poor, not even during the Gilded Age.

Here are a few points:

• Three years ago, an unregulated Wall St. (thanks, Congress!) brought this country to its financial knees with their machinations and manipulations. As a result, millions are out of work, millions have lost their homes, those who still own homes have seen their values plummet, and the middle class is rapidly disappearing.
• The Occupy Wall Street movement is a response to that debacle. Because since then, banks have accepted huge taxpayer bailouts, then turned right around and continued doing what created the problem in the first place.
• Billionaires pay taxes at lower rates than average, hard-working Americans. Surprisingly, many of them, including Warren Buffett, think that’s wrong and want it to change!
• Corporations — profitable corporations that are earning more than ever before — are not only paying no taxes, but we are paying them, in the form of rebates!

Various pundits have accused the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations of class warfare. Matt Taibi has a different take on it, one that I tend to agree with. Wall Street Isn’t Winning — It’s Cheating is the title of the article (worth a read). “These people aren’t protesting money. They’re not protesting banking. They’re protesting corruption on Wall Street,” is Matt’s opinion.

Sadly, the corruption isn’t limited to the Street. It’s rife in our government.

Our Founding Fathers never anticipated a government that would be managed by professional, career politians. Politics was something a man did, for a space of time, as his public service to his country. Then he went back to his “real” life.

But now that we have a class of career politicians, they’re less concerned with government than with preserving their place in it and milking their cash cow for all it’s worth. And that means going to bed with the corporate interests whose aims and goals are not to improve the lives of US citizens, but to bilk them of every penny they can.

If you’re not angry, you haven’t been paying attention.

In the US, we don’t have a V character to lead the charge against abusive government, but we do have Occupy Wall Street. And, frankly, I hope our government is afraid, because it’s time for American people — not pretend “people” that are really corporations — to be back in charge.

What Does This Have to Do with Expats?

A lot of the people who have been paying attention have decided to vote with their feet, and they’re leaving the US in record numbers.

While nobody knows the number of US expats abroad — that’s one number the government doesn’t track — experts agree it’s growing exponentially. It’s at least six million now, and I’ve seen predictions that the number will rise to 25 million by 2020.

In my own small universe, I look at the number of expat conferences every year (organizations like Live and Invest Overseas and International Living have added more conferences to their schedules, and attendance is higher). The number of overseas developers actively marketing their projects to US buyers is growing rapidly. Mainstream media coverage of this “phenomenon” is steadily increasing.

Not everyone who leaves their home country does so for political reasons, but more and more I’m hearing from US expats and future expats that their decision to move was motivated, at least in part, by political, governmental problems.

I’ve talked to expats on both sides of the political spectrum, and while they might disagree on the solutions to specific issues, they all agree our government is out of control.

Blowing up government buildings is not the solution, any more than it was for the original Guy Fawkes and his friends. But making our government accountable to “we the people” instead of “we the corporations” — that’s a movement I can get behind.

Next week, we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming. . .

photo by MattPandor4 on flickr

Guest Post by Lee Harrison, International Living

“How Can You Be So Unpatriotic?”

By most accounts, the time I chose to retire abroad was actually the perfect time to remain in the U.S.

The country had just enjoyed eight years of unprecedented prosperity…unemployment was near record peacetime lows, and the markets had recently enjoyed run-ups to all-time highs.

I was living on the 30th floor of a Midtown Manhattan highrise, rent free. I had a good job and walked just five blocks to the office on Madison Avenue from which we ran our international electric power plants.

The attacks of September 11—and all the dramatic changes they brought to American life—were still three days in the future when our plane took off for our overseas retirement haven.

Times were good, to be sure. But as many expats will tell you, what awaited us was even better…an extraordinary, grand adventure in an exotic land.

Yet those of us who live overseas frequently hear this: “How can you be so unpatriotic by moving abroad…especially in times like these? You expats are just running away…”

I wasn’t surprised to see it among my emails again yesterday, since I’ve been seeing a variation on this theme as regular as clockwork for years. And it makes no more sense today than it ever did. In fact, today’s expats are really continuing a pioneering tradition that was started hundreds of years ago.

As we head into the long July 4 weekend, it’s a good time to consider the patriotism of moving overseas.

The vast majority of the expats I meet are either adventurers or entrepreneurs…often both. They move overseas to take advantage of the excitement and the opportunity of living in a new country.

I see expats who enjoy a better quality of life…one that wouldn’t be possible back home with their available funds. And often, they reinvent themselves and break into a brand new livelihood.

Still others come to mine the wealth of financial and business opportunities abroad, in a less-regulated environment. I see people making property investments, starting up new businesses, or taking advantage of offshore accounts.

Of course a few move abroad in desperation…people who can’t afford their property tax burden, medical care, or other life necessities.

In no case though, can I recall meeting anyone I’d call “unpatriotic.”

I think that label gets tossed around willy-nilly when, in fact, it’s a small (though admittedly, sometimes vocal) segment of expats that is driven to leave home primarily by dissatisfaction. Made up of both conservatives and liberals, this group is unhappy with the state of affairs in the U.S.. and they like to talk about intrusive government, oppressive taxes, and the degradation of their freedom.

But I don’t think that makes them unpatriotic. In my experience, these folks are simply trying to re-capture a version of the U.S. that existed at an earlier time in their lives, or in another era altogether.

In many ways, we expats today are not so different from our founding fathers, who explored and settled in North America originally. They too arrived as the adventurers, the entrepreneurs, the desperate, and the freedom-seekers…just like expats today.

They too, preferred to look ahead with anticipation… rather than look back with resentment.

Of course, our ancestors who came from Europe, Asia and Africa had it rough compared to today’s expats. Our forefathers faced disease, hostility, violent weather, slavery, and often death. They were tough and life was often hard.

Today, the main hardships I hear about have to do with the availability of American cable TV or the locals’ ability to speak English. The gravest personal danger is usually encountering a pickpocket in the market.

But today’s expats share something even more important with our ancestors; their spirit of freedom, adventure and opportunity. We find it on the cobblestoned streets of Ecuador, the mountains of Colombia, or the sandy shores of Uruguay and Brazil. We stroll beaches, start businesses, learn languages, and settle into new surroundings.

So is moving abroad unpatriotic? Not at all.

Throughout our history, expats—both those arriving in North America and those moving on—have always represented the next cultural wave…the next big adventure.

And today’s expats are no different. They’re simply continuing the adventure that started hundreds of years ago…in the same spirit that brought our ancestors here in the first place.

Do you agree with Lee? I sure do — and I’m forwarding this to my mother-in-law. Share your thoughts in the Comments below.

Photo by Ken_Mayer on flickr

Life can turn upside down in a heartbeat — or in a lack of a heartbeat.

Last year I told you about my father’s passing after a long, difficult illness. At the time I wrote, “My father’s death has reminded me — viciously and viscerally — just how short life is. If you delay your plans, hopes and dreams too long, you may never experience their reality.”

Today I am trying to cope with the loss of my mother, who went suddenly. One day she seemed healthy, the next she was on medication for heart irregularities, and then she was gone. I’m glad she didn’t have the long, drawn-out suffering that my father did, but the family is in shock.

I’ll remember her for a lot of things — after all, we did have a 50-plus year history together.

Most recently, though, I appreciate her encouragement about our plans to move overseas. Just after my husband and I returned from our Panama scouting trip, she told me she was proud of us and thought we were very forward thinking.

I hope we can continue to make her proud by fulfilling the hopes, plans and dreams we have for our lives.

Early in my blogging career, I joined ProBlogger Darren Rowse and thousands of other bloggers and wannabes.

“Give me 31 Days and I’ll Give You a Better Blog,” Darren promised. Actually, he didn’t just promise a better blog, but a dramatically better one!

For 31 days I read his information and instructions, did the assigned tasks, and lo and behold my blog improved.

I started coming up with interesting topics to write about, and more of them.

My headlines got more interesting.

I learned how to engage you, the reader, a little better.

I got some help on leveraging social media to enhance my blogging efforts.

This program, which began originally as an ongoing challenge on Darren’s website, quickly turned into an e-book.

Now he’s just let me know that the price is going up.

Get It Before May 10th

Right now, you can immediately access 31 Days to Build a Better Blog for $19.95. But if you wait until May 10th, you’ll spend $10 more.

By all means wait if you want — it’s well worth the price even at $29.95.

But why spend more than you need to?

Darren will teach you:

• How to convert a trip to the mall into blog improvement
• get more readers by doing something unexpected with a competitor
• conduct an audit of this critical page on your site
• and lots, lots more

If blogging is part of your plan for your untethered expat life, you owe it to yourself to make this tiny investment into improving your blog.

(Or wait until after May 10 and make it a larger investment.)

Click here to view more details.

Ready to buy?

From time to time, some aspect of life seems overwhelming. Most recently, I’ve gotten that feeling of overwhelm from trying to simultaneously plan our trip to Panama while putting the finishing touches on the house in order to list it for sale.

Add a few go-rounds with well meaning relatives who don’t have a clue about what I’m doing — but offer all sorts of unsolicited advice about it — and I’ve been in a downright funk.

How do you break out of a funk once its well and truly established?

Here are a few things that help me:

• Exercise. It’s amazing how much better I feel after a few laps in the pool or other activity. Getting outdoors helps, too, if the sun is shining.
• Hang out with pets or kids. It helps to spend time with affectionate creatures who aren’t judging me.
• Tackle some routine task I’ve been putting off — cleaning out a drawer or a cupboard, organizing something, washing curtains. . . When I’m done I feel like I’ve accomplished something.
• Make a list.
• Go out to lunch with a friend.
• Since I’m glued to the computer most of the day, walking away from it often helps. Sitting somewhere pleasant with a cup of coffee and a book that I’m reviewing makes a nice break but still allows me to be productive.
• Take a look at what I’ve been eating or drinking for the past few days. Sometimes a funk is the result of poor food choices!
• Listen to some good music.
• Take some time off.
• Get some sleep.

If you’re still in a funk after a few days, you may need to indulge in a little self-analysis.

If you write down your goals, hopes or dreams, review them. Figure out what is the very next thing to do that will move you closer to them, and do it.

If you’re upset about a personal interaction, expat coach Anne Egros recommends writing down your feelings, then forgetting about them for a day or so.

When you’re not emotionally upset any more, go back and look at what you’ve written. For each sentence where you felt hurt or under attack, decide whether it’s true or just your emotional interpretation. For example, did they really say your plan to move overseas was stupid, or did they say something you interpreted that way?

Publishing consultant Susan Daffron suggests bouncing ideas off someone else if you feel as if you’re wasting your time and can’t decide what to do next.

So, what do you do to break out of a funk?

Photo by pennajoe123 on flickr

Recently some readers had questions about how to connect with Future Expat. In a recent video I mentioned the various ways to interact, but I’ll run through them again quickly.

1. Visit the website. Generally I post new articles twice each week, on Tuesday and Friday. Sometimes (like this week) I’ll throw in an extra. In those weeks you’ll find new material on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
2. Get updates in your email. If you want new articles to land in your email box, just click this link. Or, look to your right for the set of icons that looks like this
   
   and choose the first icon. You’ll go to a page that looks like this:
   

   Click the link that says “Get Future Expats Forum Delivered by Email” and fill in the requested information.
   

3. Get articles delivered to an RSS reader. (If you don’t know what an RSS reader is, you can find out all about them here.) Click the link as above, but instead of choosing the email option, select your reader of choice.
4. Follow on Twitter. You can get a Twitter account by signing up here. Then come back here and click the Twitter link to your right under the heading “Connect with Future Expat.”
5. Like on Facebook. Click the Facebook link to the right and follow the online instructions to get access to the Future Expats Facebook page.
6. Connect on LinkedIn. If you have a LinkedIn profile, you can connect with me there as well. Click the appropriate link to the right and follow the prompts.
7. Follow on YouTube. Yes, Future Expat has a YouTube channel. Click the appropriate icon to the right to add the channel to your favorites. You’ll see all the videos from the website in one place, and you’ll also have access to the expat video channels I follow.
8. Get occasional thoughtful emails — not the posted articles — from me. Download my free e-book, Untether Yourself: 5 Portable Careers to Support You Overseas by signing up to the right under the Free E-Book heading. You’ll then receive a few emails from me each month. (Please note, this is completely separate from the emailed article updates!)

So there you have it — eight separate ways to connect with Future Expat.

Bonus — Ninth way to connect: leave a comment.

If you’re reading this on the website, click the comment link (above) or scroll down to the speak your mind area (below). If you’re reading this in an email or feed reader, you’ll have to click the appropriate link to come to the website first.

Recently I purchased a publication that promised to be roadmap for expats, something that would quickly take us, step by step, through our journey from our native homes to our lives abroad.

Instead of the AAA Triptik I was expecting, however, I got an envelope full of “How I Spent My Summer Vacation” from Mrs. Murphy’s fourth grade.

At least, that’s what it felt like.

“We’ve compiled a blueprint you can follow. The map you need to get from where you are now straight to the perfect place you have in your mind’s eye.

“Here’s the easy, no-hassle way to get from where you are to living better overseas. . . fast.

“Sidestep all the roadblocks with straightforward. . . guidance.”

That’s what they promised, for a whopping $199.

Unfortunately, it’s not what they delivered.

I had high hopes for this product. I thought it could help me personally and that I could offer to you through an affiliate link as a helpful tool.

Sadly, I just can’t recommend it.

I’ll summarize what they did well, outline some of my reasons why it’s not worth your hard-earned dollars, then give you some alternatives.

They Did a Few Things Right

The largest document, weighing in at 168 pages, is titled, “Choosing Your Perfect Paradise.” It’s divided into 10 countries in the Americas and Europe. (There was no mention — anywhere — of Asia, Africa or Australia/New Zealand.)

Each country’s section includes information about:

• cost of living (some include sample budgets as well, but not all the budgets included the same items)
• health care
• real estate
• information about several specific cities or towns
• special retiree benefits where appropriate
• language
• taxes
• infrastructure
• climate
• safety and stability
• accessibility to North America
• culture and recreation
• list of that country’s top benefits for the expat
• list of legal, health, real estate and embassy contacts in the country
• country map

Each chapter also includes stories from happy expats in that country. They were interesting, but I’d read many of them before in the monthly magazine or daily emails. And, while it’s reassuring to know there are contented expats in the country, the anecdotes didn’t help me at all in my quest for actionable information.

And isn’t that what a map or a blueprint is all about — hard, factual information that you can act on to get you to your destination?

(According to Dictionary.com, a blueprint is “a detailed outline or plan of action.”)

It Was Disorganized and the Format Was Inappropriate

I knew there would be videos. It was clearly stated in the sales letter. I expected a well organized PDF documented with video links.

What I got was a series of web pages with links to videos and a whole bunch of PDF documents — ten, in fact.

It was hard to know if I had missed something or really gotten it all, because it was not well organized.

Online video is great for telling stories, demonstrating and presenting. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work very well for conveying specific, wide-ranging information.

They should have stuck to video for the stories, and written down the information.

Unfortunately, if they’d done that, it would probably have been a lot more obvious that the information was mostly fluff, as in Sta-Puff Marshmallow guy fluff.

For example, in the section about visas the video speakers told us that “at a minimum” we would need a valid passport and, if married, a notarized copy of the marriage certificate for most visas.

Not very informative.

How hard would it have been to detail visa requirements for each country in the “Choosing Your Perfect Paradise” document, and to refer to those in the video discussion? How much more valuable would the information have been had they taken that extra step?

Dated and Sketchy Information

Most of the written information was recycled from previous issues of their monthly magazine, and some of it was dated. If I’m going to spend 200 bucks for information, it should be up-to-the-minute relevant.

Superficial Information

One of the “bonus” documents is called “5 Ways to Fund Your New Lifestyle Overseas.” Aha! I thought, I’ll bet I can learn something here to add to my own e-book, 5 Portable Careers to Support You Overseas.

The five careers they discuss are:
1. Travel Writing
2. Copywriting
3. Photography
4. Import/Export
5. Creating your own niche tours

All good choices.

At 28 pages in length, this document could include a reasonable amount of valuable information about what sorts of qualifications, background or interests you need and where and how to start or get training. Instead, it’s (again) mostly stories about people who’ve done it along with links to other paid products that will teach you how.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with saying, “here’s an idea and here’s where you can get the information to implement it.” Just don’t pretend it’s a “blueprint” or a “roadmap” and charge a large chunk of cash for it.

What They Should Have Done

One document included some steps — 12 in fact — for preparing to move. “Easy Shortcuts to the Good Life” makes some specific and helpful recommendations.

Honestly, if they had:

• started with this list
• included information, helpful checklists and things to consider for each step
• provided more detailed, in-depth country-by-country information

I’d have been much happier with this product.

I might even have been able to recommend Your Blueprint for a New Life Overseas.

My Recommendation

Save the $200.

If you’re looking for a tool to help you analyze what’s important to you and help you make some of the important preliminary decisions, you’ll do better spending about $15 on Paul Allen’s book The Truth About Moving Abroad and Whether it’s Right for You: Should I Stay or Should I Go? (reviewed here).

If you’ve already done the preliminary thinking and narrowed your country search, spend a few more dollars to buy one or two of the well researched and organized country reports featured here.

photo by Will Scullin on flickr

Do you have a tool you like for planning big, life-changing moves? Leave a comment.

Note:Since this post was originally published, I have found an excellent planning guide which I can recommend wholeheartedly. You can read about it here.

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