RE: The dreaded day has come: Social Services are after my kids - I'm making an exit plan
Living in Portugal comes with its own challenges and battles to face. You will still be tied to your country, no matter what, because you have to have proof of everything here, birth, marriage, divorce, death, custody, that you exist, papers for everything under the sun for the stupidest things. Everything. And then you have to pay to have it all translated into Portuguese and that person you are forced to employee has to be certified, you can't just use Google translate. There are community forums online for English-speaking ex-pats of all nationalities. Portugal is beautiful, wonderful, and paradise on the surface. After two years I know where the cracks in that beautiful picture are. Would I come here to live again knowing what I know now? Maybe, but then I think about how a simple procedure has turned into a two year ordeal that has yet to be resolved and think maybe not. Would I come here to live if I had children? No. Not at all. Others might disagree, but I would not bring my children here to live longer than a year or so. That's the truth of it. It is gorgeous, beautiful, and charming, so charming, but it is not an easy place to live for two adults on a budget with no children at home. Just look at the national minimum wage to see how that works, for example. I'd lose my mind if I had young children at home with me.
Thank you for the input and valuable information. I will keep this in mind. I've been playing with the thought of becoming worldschoolers for some time now. So Portugal would be on the books, but probably just temporary. I am working on making a life for us so we're not bound to stay in one spot but can travel. There are definitely places where we wouldn't need all the money we need here for instance. My friend just recently moved to Peru with her husband and three kids and places like that are just a lot cheaper to live in plus the weather permits growing more of our own food instead of buying it in shops. I recently bought a caravan and plan to fix this up and go from there.
We'd planned to bring our caravan from England to Portugal but housing is just as cheap, if you can find it, as renting a spot for a caravan in a park. If you can make money outside of needing a job here, then you're golden. I know people that make 15 euros a day, for 12 hours of work here. The headaches and "tomorrow" attitude will drive you up the wall. I'm used to supreme failures at efficiency but this just takes the cake. There's also a rise in xenophobia here that few are talking about, especially towards anyone that speaks English. I catch it, even though I'm American. My partner is English so it's assumed I am too. It's a good place to start, definitely, but we're still looking at Belize or even going back to England as options. Especially now that the pound and dollar are tanking. We're looking for another caravan too, just in case we decide to just start traveling and see where we end up. I wish you luck! *I'm editing this to clarify...there is a rise in xenophobia to BRITISH English speakers.
That is so funny you mention Belize. I was in Belize when I was pregnant with my second child. We were looking to take over an existing shop there but couldn't agree to some of the details.
After we got back to Holland (where I'm from), we asked ourselves if we wanted to give up on Belize or find another way to get there. We decided to try other ways. Not long after that my ex partner did everything in his power to set us back further in our plans. Turned out he didn't want to go and just went along with it...We split up and about 6 months later I moved to Ireland with the kids what was meant to be a stopover before Belize. We've been here 6 years now, and maybe this is the sign we needed. At the moment, lots of countries are considered, but Belize is still hanging in the background. Luckily I don't have a British English accent. My accent is always described as American English with a little Irish and Dutch on the edges lol.
Thank you for the well wishes. I wish you all the luck to full fill your dreams. I'm sure you'll get there.