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If you don't need to support a family and are unhappy otherwise, why not?

Sure it's not 'the smart thing to do' but if it makes you happy and you're still not far worse of than most people...

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Because if you are unhappy now, just wait until you are homeless
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there are in fact plenty of ways to earn enough money to get by on a simple lifestyle
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People in tech, especially from US, are so accustomed to spending $5,000/mo just to survive, that they cannot fathom one is able to live without having a tech job in San Francisco. It's a pretty sad state of affairs.

I live in a first-world European country where the average salary is about €25,000 per year. My mortgage estimate is less than €300/mo. I'm not that afraid of having to supplement my income if I need to. The world will still need cheap and experienced software engineers for a while.

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Yeah, I was just living off $1k/month in Brazil just to see if it was possible. It definitely is. And was in a beautiful, safe area.
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Of course you felt amazing living off US$1k/mo in Brazil - the average per capita household income in Brazil is less than US$450/mo [0].

This is what I hate about digital nomads - y'all don't realize that you end up perpetuating the same inequality you try to run away from.

[0] - https://g1.globo.com/economia/noticia/2026/05/08/veja-quanto...

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Definitely not my first rodeo, but feel free to gloat.
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I'm probably being overly charitable, but I would have said the same thing except in a positive context, because I've wanted to do the same thing at times.
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Feels like an unfair judgment of someone else's values, which have no obligation to match yours.
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I think it's not a moral, but financial judgement. Unless an alternate income is achieved before that deadline, becoming destitute except for a small cottage is not a great prospect.
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They didn't say that they are retiring, just that they are ending their career as a software engineer.
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