Welcome back to the Snail Travelers YouTube channel.
As you can see I'm here in Washington D.C,
and in this video we're going to share with you how much money we have saved
by choosing to live overseas instead of living here in the United States.
Let's get started!
So to explain to you just how much money we've saved by living overseas,
I'm going to go through how much money we spent per month in our previous two countries,
which happened to be Malaysia and Mexico,
and I'm going to compare that with how much money we spent living in Washington DC for one month.
In 2020 we arrived in Malaysia for what was supposed to be a short trip,
but when flights were unexpectedly cancelled due to covid we ended up staying for a year.
We lived in some great places that year.
Penang and Ipoh known for their great food,
and Cameron Highlands up in the mountains known for its fantastic mild weather.
Then in 2021 we spent six months traveling around several parts of Mexico.
And then in the beginning of 2022 we spent a month in Washington DC.
Let's compare the cost of housing in each of these three locations first.
Between Malaysia, Mexico and Washington DC our nicest apartments were in Malaysia.
Many of our apartments there were more like staying in a resort.
They had a nice swimming pool and a fitness center
and one of them was only a few minutes walk to the beach,
In Malaysia we mostly rented three bedroom apartments.
We didn't need three bedrooms because it's just the two of us right?
But the three bedroom units seemed to be the most available
and the one bedroom units were harder to find.
So compared to Mexico and Washington DC our apartments in Malaysia were generally the largest.
In Mexico we had a mix of two bedroom apartments, one bedroom apartments, and a studio apartment.
Overall I would say they were more medium sized,
and about half our time in Mexico we spent in San Miguel de Allende and Ajijic,
which happened to be more expensive cities for housing.
Now let's move on to Washington DC. Let me show you our apartment there. Take a look.
Alright here's our tiny little apartment in Washington DC.
As you can see it's a nice cozy little place.
Great kitchen, small fridge, even a dishwasher, oven, microwave, toaster, and a bedroom.
So for housing costs Malaysia was the cheapest at an average of $586 dollars per month.
Mexico was $806,
and yep as you would expect the US was the most expensive at $2068 for one month
in that apartment I just showed you.
Now keep in mind that all of these include Airbnb fees which are quite high.
If you were renting from the owner long term in these places
you would avoid the Airbnb fees and probably pay much less.
Let's move on to spending on food.
In Malaysia, well first of all
the food is delicious and there is so much variety in the food there
with different types of dishes from many different cultures.
The price of food in Malaysia is definitely the cheapest of the three countries.
We went out to eat a lot there because when it's that inexpensive I mean why not?
Oh I miss Malaysian food.
There's roti canai a delicious flatbread and nasi kandar a delicious curry rice and chicken dish.
Food was a little more expensive in Mexico than it was in Malaysia,
but we did go out to eat a few times per week.
Of course we ate a lot of tacos as you would expect,
but Mexican food is more than just tacos.
We got mole which are sauces that come in many different flavors.
We also enjoyed huraches which are thicker tortilla type patties with different toppings.
Now in Washington DC the food is more expensive so we mostly went to the grocery store.
We didn't eat out too much during our time there.
Our apartment was within walking distance of our favorite supermarket called Aldi,
which has relatively inexpensive food that we would take to our apartment and cook ourselves.
So our spending on food groceries and restaurants in Malaysia averaged $351 per month.
In Mexico it was $472 per month,
and in Washington DC it was actually only $493 for the month.
But our eating habits were very different in DC.
If we went out to eat in DC as much as we did in Malaysia and Mexico,
then our spending on food in DC would have been quite a bit more for sure.
There's actually a Malaysian restaurant in DC but we didn't go
because the char kuey teow for example was around $20
while in Malaysia it was like one or two dollars.
Let's talk about transportation next.
All three places, Malaysia, Mexico and DC have very sufficient public transportation systems,
but priced very differently.
In Malaysia a ride on the metro in Kuala Lumpur
would range between $0.25 and $3 depending on the distance.
In Mexico City it was a flat $0.25.
And in DC well the minimum price is $2 and prices can go up to $6 during peak hours.
And in DC our neighborhood had a free street car that saved us a lot of money.
So let's take a look at the numbers here.
In Malaysia we averaged $39 on transportation, $123 per month in Mexico, and $84 in DC,
but these numbers are deceiving because in Mexico for example
we went to 14 different cities and that $123 you saw there includes the buses between these cities.
In DC that $84 was just for the few metro rides we took within the city.
And if we were living in the US we would probably need a car
because public transportation in most US cities is not nearly as good as it is in DC.
Next is activities. Now in Malaysia we didn't do a whole lot of activities
because that's where we were when covid first started
and the country went into periods of lockdown off and on.
We did get to do some activities in Malaysia when things were more open
as you can see in the clips here.
In Mexico most of our spending on activities
was for visiting archaeological sites all around the country.
I think we went to six different sites,
and we took some cooking classes there and had a couple of day tours.
Now in Washington DC our activities concentrated on visiting the museums and the monuments
and almost all of those are free.
So our overall spending on activities in Malaysia came to $59 per month,
$115 in Mexico and $75 in Washington DC.
Next is the miscellaneous category for things like clothes, supplies, toothpaste, laundry, phone, etc
and that came to $101 per month in Malaysia, $77 in Mexico and $127 for our time in DC.
Next is health. In Malaysia the healthcare is fabulous.
The best things about healthcare in Malaysia are the low prices,
the high quality, the availability,
and we appreciated being able to communicate in English.
We made sure we had all of our routine checkups done while we were in Malaysia
because the healthcare is some of the best in the world.
In Mexico we had a few routine appointments and one trip to the emergency room.
We were impressed with the healthcare in Mexico too,
not to Malaysian standards but perfectly adequate.
In the US healthcare is so expensive so we didn't make any medical appointments there,
and fortunately we did stay healthy there.
So here are the numbers for health: $76 per month in Malaysia $119 in Mexico,
and nothing in DC but if we were living in the US we'd be spending a lot more on health care.
Next is insurance. We get asked about this a lot.
We have an international health insurance policy through IMGlobal
that covers us everywhere in the world.
In 2020 when we were in Malaysia we paid $198 per month.
In the US it was $222 per month,
a little higher than Malaysia because of the annual rate increases,
and also due to us getting older.
But in Mexico we paid $365 dollars per month, quite a bit higher,
and that's because we chose to buy additional coverage for Covid.
The policies rules for covid coverage, and the deductibles, and benefits are all very confusing,
so instead of going into all the details on the video
I'll put an explanation in the description section below.
Okay let's total it all up. Put all those categories together
and our average spending in Malaysia came out to be $1410 per month.
In Mexico it was $2076 per month, and then in DC it totals up $3069 for our month there.
Now I know this is not a perfect comparison between these three places.
To work within our budget we adjusted our lifestyle in DC
to match its higher cost of living.
We lived in a smaller apartment, didn't eat out as much, and mostly chose activities that were free.
We balance out our budget by living in less expensive places
so that we can occasionally afford a more expensive place.
So back to the question: How much have we saved
by slow traveling overseas compared to living an everyday normal life in the US?
Well we've always tracked every penny since we lived in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Since we began traveling the world in 2018 we've spent an average of $2107 per month
for our life outside of the US.
That's about half of what we were spending living in the US.
That's it for this video. We have an exciting new destination coming soon
so subscribe to our channel so that you can be notified when our next video is ready.