Well, our story is a long and twisted one, but I spent 10 years in Cambodia, but I am originally from the USA. I went to Cambodia to escape poverty in the USA, and it worked, I became a professional teacher within a few months and was a middle class citizen within half a year.
Because it's illegal for us to marry in Cambodia, my visa extension and work permit were denied after 10 years of no problems, and there was no hope of any friends or family visiting, we decided to get married in the western hemisphere in one of the few countries which gives visas on arrival to Cambodians.
We ended up in Ecuador, but my family kept producing excuses for why they couldn't make it to Ecuador to meet us, then after 90 nearly 90 days there, we faced overstaying our visas and becoming illegal aliens, so we attempted immigration and our lawyer stole our money and we were intimidated by the expensive immigration bureaucracy there.
We escaped to Suriname a few days before overstaying, arriving on a new E-Visa system available to Cambodians. We overstayed and were granted asylum here at a special office, then the economy crashed, inflation went through the roof, corona came and destroyed everything even further, now borders are closed, and we are broke and stranded.
We are currently 1+ week from getting married here in Suriname and obtaining criminal background checks so that we can go immigrate to a new place, and and we've given up on American friends or family every getting to know my Cambodian daughters and wife, but we unfortunately can't return to Cambodia as borders are now closed.
So, that leaves us looking for a super poor and similar to Cambodia country where our Cambodian savings actually represents something of value. Here in Suriname we are humiliated and feel very uncomfortably poor, and there are extreme cultural differences. I think we are going to end up in Ethiopia, Nepal, or Mauritius.
If we can get to one of these countries, we could find a similar cost of living and way of life that we are used to, and I think we could thrive. If this is the case, we only need $300 a month to pay rent, buy groceries and cover transport costs for a family of 4.
The plane tickets are the killer though, because we can't transit certain countries, so we generally have to purchase one-way tickets, meaning that we have to exit the international zones to claim baggage each time, which Cambodians need a visa for, so we basically that means only I can carry luggage when travel, so we have reduce our family possessions to 2-3 suitcases every time we want to attempt a new life somewhere.
So far it looks like $4,000 to $6,000 will get us 4 tickets to somewhere that we can thrive and afford to live. Thanks for the positive vibes @metzli. I can only imagine how you feel in the USA. I've told my family someone will cuss us out at Wal-Mart if we speak Cambodian to each other while shopping, but she doesn't believe me. !ENGAGE 25
$300 dollars a month doesn't even buy groceries for my family of 5 (sometimes 6) here in California. I can see the appeal of living elsewhere.
I wrote this article:
https://leofinance.io/hive-167922/@spinvest-leo/let-us-play-how-much-does-it-cost
For through the Spinvest community. It is the first of a mini series so we can see via the leofinance community where our $$$$$ peers stand.
So far Nigeria has the smallest minimum wage which is $25 per hour.