Future Expats Forum» poll

What Do Future Expats Want?

FutureExpat — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 12:30:31 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, I asked you to give me some input about topics you’d like to see more discussion of here.

As promised, I let the poll run for a couple of weeks and now it’s time for the results.

The choices were:

Health Care
Language Learning
Personal Stories
Portable Careers
Reviews of Books, Videos or Other Publications
Specific Countries
Other

Here’s how the results broke down, in order from most to least votes.

Portable Careers — 30%
Specific Countries — 30%
Personal Stories — 25%
Health Care — 10%
Reviews — 5%
Language Learning — 0%
Other — 0%

The only surprise for me was thaat Health Care was so low on everyone’s list. The last time I asked similar questions, Health Care tied for second place. . . perhaps that means Americans (who comprise most of this site’s readers) are less frantic about it, or maybe it means we’ve all learned how much less expensive it is overseas.

Portable Careers

I definitely plan on writing more about portable careers — in fact, we had an excellent guest post on the subject a few days ago.

Specific Countries

This is a bit more problematic — I’m not one of those big publishing companies, I’m just one person. There’s no way I can give you the kind of information about specific places that you can get from organizations like Live and Invest Overseas, International Living, Escape from America and some of the other biggies in the biz.

With that said, I’ll continue to do my best to bring you relevant links, as well as first-person accounts from various overseas locations.

And if any of you lovely readers live outside the US and would like to write about it, please consider submitting a guest post. You don’t have to be the best writer in the world, but you should have something interesting to share.

If could be a description of a place, a travel tale, or a nuts and bolts, “just the facts” type of article about what a future expat can expect to find when they visit your city or country of residence.

Resources

I always try to gather helpful resources for you. If you haven’t explored it yet, take a look at the Resources tab above. It’s divided into four sections:

Portable Careers
Prepping the Move (which includes country information)
Books and DVDs
Book and Movie Reviews

Additionally, when I come across articles of interest, I link to them from my Twitter and Facebook page. So if you’re not following those, you’re missing a lot of useful (and sometimes just plain fun) information. (Not to mention that it’s much easier to have an actual conversation in both those places. . .)

Expats: Ready, Set, Go!

FutureExpat — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 14:00:02 +0000

Last week I asked you to help me out. I’ve been wanting to narrow the focus here at Future Expats Forum, but before I make any big changes I wanted your input.

A bunch of you have responded, and here’s how the categories are breaking down to this point:

Preparing to Expatriate: 27%
Earning an Income Overseas: 19%
Health Care: 15%
Culture Shock: 15%
Country Information: 4%
Real Estate: 4%
Overseas Retirement: 4%
Other: 4%

The clear leaders at this point are preparing to expatriate and earning an income overseas. I’ll keep the poll open for another week or so. If you haven’t taken a minute to respond, please do so here.

And here’s a little news item for you: coming soon, a free e-book to help you with a top-polling issue. I’ll let you know more details in another week or so, once final poll results are in.

Did you know you could join our growing Facebook page? Just click here.

What’s Important to You?

FutureExpat — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 14:00:41 +0000

Since starting Future Expats Forum in March of last year, I’ve written on a pretty wide variety of topics. Health care, earning a living, garage sales, expat-themed books and movies. . . and the list goes on.

I’d really like to narrow my focus a bit, and I have some ideas about what I’d like to concentrate on. But before I make any major changes, I’d really love to hear from you.

Is there something you’d like to see more of? Less of? Here’s you chance to speak up and let me know.

Please take a minute to fill out the poll below — just choose your top three subjects, or, if there’s something missing from the list, feel free to add it. I’ll be reporting the results shortly.

You can also “like” the Future Expats page on Facebook, where it’s much easier to carry on a discussion.

Take Our Poll

Results of Health Care Coverage Poll

FutureExpat — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:00:34 +0000

Recently I asked the question:

Health Care Abroad: are we writing

Just the right amount
Too much
Not enough

The results are in — and I wish more of you had responded.

A whopping eighty-three percent of respondents clicked “just the right amount.” Thanks, guys!

Seventeen percent said there’s not enough health care coverage.

And nobody indicated there was too much.

So I guess we’re doing okay on this topic! Thanks so much for your feedback.

Watch for more posts about health care, coming soon.

What Would You Like to Read About?

FutureExpat — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 21:26:03 +0000

Periodically, I’m going to insert a brief poll to get some feedback from you, readers, about whether you’re finding what you want and need here.

Today, since we’ve just been discussing health care, I’m asking for some input on how well we’re doing in that department. I’d really appreciate it if you’d take a quick minute to click off the answer below that seems most appropriate to you.

Thanks.

Take Our Poll

We’ll let this run for a couple of weeks and then share the results.

Post-It When?

FutureExpat — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:00:09 +0000

Generally I post new material here three times each week. Since January, I’ve uploaded the new posts on Monday, Wednesday and Friday in the evening (Eastern Standard Time for me).

I thought I’d ask all of you if that posting schedule is convenient for you, or if something else would make it easier for you to read the new Future Expats material as it comes out. Please make your selection in the poll below, and I’ll report the results in a couple of weeks after you’ve had a chance to weigh in.

Thanks in advance for your participation. Keep in mind that times are all Eastern Standard!

Which Future Expats Posting Schedule Works Best for Youopinion

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Finance Your Life Overseas

The Travel Writer's Life
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Where’s Your Fave Social Media Hangout?

FutureExpat — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:38:40 +0000

I’m trying to find out more about you, Future Expat readers. What social media are you most active with? Where do you like to hang out? We’ll let this run for a couple of weeks, then publish the results.

You can find me mostly on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Americans Totally Want a Public Health Care Option

FutureExpat — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:00:02 +0000

According to information released today by Sen. Dick Durbin, Americans overwhelmingly want a strong public option to be part of health care reform here in the US. Eighty percent of poll respondents fully support a 50-state public option, and 65% of respondents were completely opposed to the so-called “trigger” option.

In the meantime, until the US finally comes to its senses, we will have better choices as expats in many countries.

An update on our own Future Expats poll shows a slight difference from previously posted results: 21% of respondents now state health care is the most important consideration, while 64% rank health care as very important in their decision to move abroad.

Health Care Poll Results

FutureExpat — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:36:09 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a poll asking the question “how important is health care in your decision to move abroad?”

Fully 75% of all respondents indicated health care was very important in their decision.

Nobody selected not a consideration as a response. The other choices were evenly split, with 8% going to health care as the most important consideration, 8% saying it was in the middle somewhere, and 8% responding that health care is not very important. I’m going to leave the poll up for a while longer, and will report back if those proportions change.

The takeaway for now is that health care is definitely a very important consideration for those planning to move overseas. I can’t say I’m surprised. . .

Our First Poll Results

FutureExpat — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 08:00:50 +0000

We recently ran a four-part poll to find out a little about readers’ plans for moving overseas. We asked four simple questions:

Where do you currently live?
If you still live in your home country, how soon do you plan to move overseas?
After you move overseas, will you need to generate income?
How will you earn money overseas?

We learned that the vast majority of respondents – 80% – currently live in their home country.

40% plan to move overseas in less than one year, and 60% plan to move overseas in 1-3 years.

Most are not planning to retire, however. 80% will need to generate income after their international move, and 20% are not sure.

When asked how they plan to generate income overseas, half indicated they will engage in self employment, another 25% will telecommute to a job, and 25% will live on investments. None of the poll respondents plan to take an overseas assignment for their current employer.

In summary, most of you, Dear Readers, are planning to move within three years, and you’ll have to generate some income in your new home. To help you with that, we will begin discussing some self employment possibilities and sharing some first-hand experiences from folks have already established some self-employment income in their new home countries.

If you currently live outside your native country and are self employed and willing to tell us about it, please click the Comments link below, or contact me.

Click here if you would like to receive Future Expats Forum updates by email.