Josh, Kaylee, hello! Hey, what's up Dan? Hi Dan! So good to see you guys this week. It's great to see you. It feels like it's been a while since we've seen you because we've been on the ship and not been able to do video. So it's nice to see you. Well, thank you. The feeling is mutual. What have you guys been doing other than sailing the seas? Well, I think now that we're back in Porto, we're trying to just get back into a routine. You know, a month off from being in the U.S. and then on the ship, which was great. It was a lot of fun, but now it's like, okay, we're back home and we have to organize. Well, at least I have to organize the house. I have to do laundry, unpacking, all of that fun stuff, and then getting Sia back into school. So just a normal routine. But then also, it's like we want to see all of our friends that we haven't seen in a while. So just communicating with them and trying to coordinate something that works out to see people either individually or in groups or just kind of getting back in the real life of things. Yeah, definitely. I mean, speaking about routines, that's 100% what I'm trying to get back into both with the way we eat and also the way we work out because there is so much good food on a cruise ship, and it absolutely wrecked me. I mean, in a bad, good way. In a bad way. But it was awesome. I took full advantage of all the amazing food, but it struck me on the waistline. But I had the job of getting our stuff back up to the apartment and then promptly turning around, going to the train station, going to Aveda to basically hand off some documents for us to continue the process to try to close on the property that we're going to buy and then catch the train, the return train, eight minutes later to come back. So I got home to sit on a train for about three hours. But it must have been nice and quiet and relaxing because I was cleaning. See, I had a good time playing with all the toys that she had been missing for a month. So she was occupied, which was good, so I could clean. But no, you were working where you are on the train, right? I didn't work on the way back for sure because I didn't have a seat, so I was in the standing room only on a busy regional train. So that wasn't particularly fun. The good thing about when going from Porto to Aveda is that the train is empty, especially if you catch it when it's starting its journey at Salbento Station. So it goes from Salbento Station to Campanha, and then from Campanha it slowly makes its way to Aveda. The problem coming back is in Aveda there's already a ton of people on. From Lisbon, right? Yeah. It comes all the way from Lisbon. Exactly, from towns further south. So yeah, it was packed. Yeah, but it was a good one because we need to get a POA to our lawyer to move forward on things for the mortgage, for the purchase of the property that we're doing right now. Yeah. I am super excited to hear about the property and how that's going. I have one more question. It's a parenting question. Now, your kid's what, four? Three? Three. Three. What's it like to have her for a month out of the normal routine and then come back and try to get everything back to normal? I've got a six-year-old. I can't imagine that's going to be an easy transition if we did that for a month. Okay. So I think our answer would be different if you asked us this back in January, whenever we took a trip to the south of France, and it was a different trip, right, because we weren't on a ship. We didn't have grandparents. We didn't have really any kids for her to interact with. However, on this cruise, there was a camp at sea. It was like a kids' club, and there were three kids in there, a four-year-old and a five-year-old. The counselors were used to working with kids her age. The grandparents were with us. So all of that to say we weren't the only influences on Valencia over the past three, four weeks. So it made it much easier for us to not have tension with each other because we noticed at the end of our trip in January, Valencia was not really that happy to be around us all day. It was just always us, yeah, adults, and I think she wanted to be around kids and she wanted to play on playgrounds. So this was totally out of routine and not the best for her after like three weeks of that. But this one, she had a little more of like the social interaction with kids. So getting her back into school was fairly easy. Past two days have been good. Yeah, she was really excited to go back to school, which was good. And we talked a lot about that because the time in January, she had a hard time going back to school, still trying to adjust, I think, being away for a little bit. And this time we would talk about school while we were gone and her friends and everything. So she was really excited to see them. And we brought little like USA stickers for her to hand out to show that she had been gone in the USA where she's from. So that transition, her back into the routine has been really good. The other good thing too is with the time change, since we were on the ship, we slowly would change time zones. So it would be like one hour at a time rather than a bit of like a blitz of five hours. So getting her clock set for sleeping at the right time, having her nap the same as it would be at school has been really easy because it's been a slow progression rather than just all at once because that would be a little more difficult. Because when we first arrived in the U.S., she woke up at 4.45 a.m. So I was like, oh, no. Thankfully, she adjusted fairly quickly. But the first day was like, ah, that's tough. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, good. I think my kid would respond similarly. She's six. And we have talked about spending long periods of time in Europe together. And her only question, she's like, yeah, that sounds good. But are there going to be other kids? Yeah. That's all we needed to know. And as long as we made sure that there were other kids around, she'd be happy with the transition. Yeah. Do a transatlantic cruise. And hope there are kids her age because there were only three on that one. And they were thankfully close to all the same age and girls. But a three, four, five, and six, that would work? Yeah. Oh, definitely. Totally. Well, we actually are going to be on a cruise in a week. I think it starts a week from today. Nice. Just a short one for four days. It's a repositioning of a ship on the west coast. So we had some flight credits that we hadn't used from a pandemic trip that was canceled. Okay. And then the ship is being repositioned from San Diego to Vancouver. Oh, sweet. Yeah. It'll be a fun trip. And we've never cruised before. So I have really enjoyed all your information from the last couple weeks. We love them. Enjoy the sea days. Yeah. We're going to. All right. The building, the house, the vertical community. Any update there other than it's still happening? Yeah. Yeah, it's still happening. I'm going to go ahead and start. About two, maybe three weeks ago, we really hit the panic button. Found it. Yeah. Because we got to a point where we were told that in our application packet for the bank, for the bank mortgage, that we would need our most recent tax return. Well, our most recent tax return to that point was 2021. Being foreigners living abroad, we're able to have an extension and we were just going to go with our 2021 tax return and let that be that and finish our taxes after the mortgage closed. Well, then the broker comes back and he's like, look, the bank has to have the 2022. Like they're not going to move forward. We're on the ship, you know? So like we are, and we're in a time crunch because we've signed, we signed the initial contract saying that we would close on the property regardless of the mortgage process. We were closing the property at a given date. And I think that's the beginning of June. But we also know how long the banks take to do all this stuff. So it's like, well, we can't wait until we get off the ship and start this process. We've got to start it now. Fortunately, like everybody in kind of our team, you know, that's the mortgage broker, the lawyers, the accountant, everybody was like, let's go, let's do this. So Kaylee and I hustled. We got everything in much faster than I thought you could actually do tax preparation. It blew my mind. With not great internet either. What awful internet. I know. I don't want to, you know, step all over Elon's Starlink, but it wasn't great. I would say though, it happened to land on the days that we were literally right in the middle of the Atlantic in between Bermuda and Medina. So it was like we were in the middle of nowhere and nothing around. And those were of course the days that we needed to do this. And so that was fun. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, all that to say the whole process really looked bleak for a few days because we didn't know how long it would take to get the tax returns done. But our guy, Steven, he turned them around really fast and did us a massive favor. And we are in the really in the kind of final stretch. We were actually offered last night more money than we had asked for. So it's been this yo-yo, you know, mortgages, banks. Yeah. But we feel very confident that the mortgage will close because if they're going to offer us more money, then, you know, they wouldn't turn around and pull a plug on us. At least they shouldn't in theory. So, yeah, we're kind of rounding third, if you will, on closing on the property. And I'm starting to reach out to contractors and interview people to do that. We did realize on the trip that we need better renderings, like- Artist renderings. Artist renderings of the different units because we were talking to a prospective buyer and who we know well, and they didn't get it. They were having a hard time seeing it. And it's like, well, if they're having a hard time seeing it and they're standing right in front of me as I explain things, then we've got to have better artwork. Because right now it's just the floor plans and what it could be and what rooms are. So we think, yeah, we need to have someone put something together to get more of a visual for other potential buyers. Well, I love construction. I love the building process. I have worked in it in the past and, you know, do quite a bit around our house. And my wife and I have the same problem. I have to do a full 3D rendering so that she can understand how I think this remodel will happen. And if I don't have that, she doesn't get it. And now that I can do a 3D rendering, that makes a big difference in our marriage and I could understand how that could work for prospective buyers. Yeah. Nice. Well, I hope there's tons of video content on what happens with the vertical community because I'm very excited to see more. Yeah, we're putting it together now. We're going to talk about kind of the financial side of it, I think, in our next video. And the following one will be a walkthrough of the property. I mean, this is going to be a bit of a spoiler alert for those that listen to the podcast and then also watch on the YouTube channel. But we will do a walkthrough and then at the end of it, reveal like, hey, this is the property that we bought. Or could this be the property? Well, but it's going to be the property that we bought. To the podcast listener, this is the one. We're not going to walk through and sell any more properties just for the heck of it. And a perk, listening to the podcast? That's it. You get breaking, breaking exclusive news. That's right. That's right. All right. Well, this is our questions episode, and they're not all just my questions. So we've had lots of people listening to the show, writing in, asking questions. Shall we jump right into it? Let's do it. Let's go. All right. Hi, Josh and Kaylee. We just watched your YouTube on being back in the States. Interesting observations. Thanks for the plug about your podcast. I hadn't heard about that and look forward to listening. As for questions, you, Kaylee, mentioned an issue receiving your residency card. Is there any tip you can share to help others avoid the same? Or was it just an idiosyncratic thing? I have my CEPH appointment in a couple of weeks. I'd love to meet up with you guys sometime and buy you a beer or coffee. Loving life and Matt to Zinosh so far. Big win for Porto against Benefica, only seven points behind. Huge game for Arsenal today, fingers and toes crossed. Be safe, Steve. Thanks, Steve. We appreciate the message. We definitely appreciate the fact that you support both of the teams that we support. The table has changed a bit for both teams, but it's all good. But on to your question. So my situation I think was probably a little unique. It's one of those that could happen. Definitely. So be aware of that, but it's not the norm, I guess. So just to explain what happened is we were able to renew our residency online. So with the D7 visa that we're on, after two years you renew and then you have three more years. Now while normally this is a renewal that you do in person, with how things have been with the pandemic and coming back and being backed up and seeing how it could work online, they have been kind of unlocking different sections, allowing people to renew online depending on their situation. And we happened to fall into that situation. And it was the easiest renewal ever. So of course it was one of those like what's going to happen because this is way too easy. And that's kind of what did happen. So we renewed online, Josh, me, and Valencia, we all renewed. Everything was good. At the same time. At the same time. And about a week and a half later I opened the mailbox and Josh's card is in there and Valencia's card is in there. Mine is not. So I'm like, okay, this is not a good sign. I know this is not a good sign, but I'm not going to hit the panic button yet because it's possible that it got mailed the next day or whatever. So I wait a few days, wait, wait, wait a week, still nothing. And after about a week and a half I reach out to a company that we work with that, you know, has involvement with SEF and I'm like, do you think I should like start looking for it now, like what's happening? And they're like, give it a little longer because sometimes it could be processed separately from someone else and so it takes longer, whatever that might be. Either way, I knew there was something that was up. So after several weeks, probably four to five weeks, nothing had happened. I was like, we need to figure this out. So thankfully they contacted SEF and SEF was like, oh, it was mailed. Here is a tracking number for it, which they never gave, SEF never gave us a tracking number, but all of them had tracking numbers. So we look and the tracking number says that it is delivered the same day that Josh's and Valencia's were delivered, but it was not in our mailbox. So thankfully our landlord is really helpful and he's like, let me help you try to figure out where this is because according to CTT it has been delivered and it said it had been delivered to our house, which was obviously incorrect because we didn't have it. CTT is like USPS. Yes, the local postage. So not like FedEx or UPS, but the Portuguese post service. And in Portuguese it is CTT. I learned that in a very awkward way. Someone looking for it. But yes, so thankfully my landlord helped because depending on who you get at the office, it will depend on their level of English. So it's like, okay, he's going to go and he's going to help. So we see that it's been delivered, but I don't have it in hand. So we go there and he explains it's not delivered and the guy is taking a look at things and sees, and he's like, I think something that he's not supposed to tell us, but he's like, do you have a doorman? And our building kind of has a doorman. There's a guy who walks a few of the buildings that are connected and he's supposedly a doorman. But anyway, he was like, check with him. So we're like, okay, so he's seeing something. So we go and we try to find this guy and he's nowhere to be seen. So we go to the administration building that oversees our buildings and they're like, he should be there. They give no information as to any of it because you would think that they would, but they did not. Anyway, finally we find out through a roundabout way that he's on vacation. So we have to wait a few more days until he gets back. He gets back. We talk to him and he just is like, whatever mail I get, I put in the mailboxes. So supposedly our mail person – He basically blames Kaylee. Blames me, yeah, for not having it. Our mail person on certified mail that should be signed for, instead of getting us to sign for it, which is the legal way of doing things, this mail person was having the doorman sign for things and then the doorman was putting it in different mailboxes, putting it there, which is not supposed to be the thing. So I had to go back to CET and explain that. I had to open up a dispute, a claim on this, the fact that I didn't sign for it. The mail person didn't do their job. The doorman didn't give it to me. So it was this whole runaround, and it was pretty much like I'm going to have to deal with Seth, which is awful because trying to get an appointment and do all that was going to be a pain. Well, but you were also on the brink of having to go file a police report. Yes, so that was the next step. Well, okay, yeah, so we reach out to Seth, and Seth says that they will not give me a new card until I have a police report. So then I'm like, okay, I have to go get a police report for this. It's a whole thing, and this is literally a week leading up to us leaving for the month, and our cards are expired technically, right? I mean, although we're in the system that we've renewed. Yeah, right. Josh and Thea are good. But the issue that we had is we came back into Europe through Barcelona, and so while Portugal can see in their system that I've been renewed, Barcelona, Spain, they're just going to take a look at my actual card and see that it's expired. So I could have an issue with this. I'm stressing out about it. So my landlord's like, okay, I'll meet you in the morning, we'll go do a police report. Well, that evening we get a knock on the door. Josh answers it, and some lady, well, I guess you can tell this part because I was in the shower, so some lady. It was some lady asking if there was a Kaylee in the residence, and I said yes, and she said I have a piece of mail for her, it seems important. And I knew exactly what it was. I actually asked the lady where she lived, like what her building was, and she told me the unit. So essentially the doorman, the portero, messed up, and he put the mail in the mailbox of someone at another building. So it was the right unit but the wrong building. And this lady travels a lot. So I think she actually lives in France, so she travels a lot. I had just come back and happened to see the mail, saw that it looked like something important, not junk mail, because I think most Portuguese people would just throw out the random publications and all that, they get shoved in their mailbox. But she saw the name on it was a foreign name, and it looked important, so she brought it over, and voila. Six weeks later, though. Like the day before I was going to go to the police, and I had a week to go before we left, and it was six weeks because she had been out of the country. And so, yeah, the doorman put it in the wrong box. And I was so mad. I asked my Lailor, should we go tell them, like, look, here it is. It was in the wrong box. And the Lailor was like, she's not going to listen because he was already blaming me for this being the problem. So even pointing it out to him wasn't going to be a thing. But this is something that could happen, and actually CTT is known to not be very good at delivering mail, so that's something that people should be aware of. But with a company or, you know, organization like Seth, they choose how they send it, and they're going to do it CTT. It should be certified because of the type of document it is, but even if it's certified, look what happened to me. I still got the runaround. So there's always possible issues with CTT, unfortunately. Expert advice, if this happens to you while you're renewing, wait six weeks, hop in the shower, and somebody that you don't know is just going to bring it over. Yeah. Yeah, it's like that. There's a Latin term for that, right, where, like, at the end of the story, the hero is saved by something random. I don't know that term. Anyways, listener, if you know it, shout it out. But I think the advice is identify who your portero is, who your doorman is, if you have one. I think that's critical because some buildings will have a doorman that is not really a doorman, like not officially. So you just have to know. I guess the advice would be to give it a couple days because it could be that it's processed differently, like if you're with a family. Because we do know of friends who have a group of, like, five or six, and theirs came in at different times. So I would say don't press the panic button at first. Give it maybe a week, five or so business days, and then at that point, you need to reach out to Seth or whoever you're trying to get something from to get a tracking number, and you can go to CTT for that. But be prepared that you might file a police report. So if you have someone who speaks Portuguese, that is helpful as well because obviously it's a tricky situation with probably terminology that you don't know how to say. So if you come across not being able to use Portuguese, but give it a few days, but just know that it is a possibility that this could happen. Nice. That was a roller coaster of emotion for me as you told the story. I can't imagine what it was like for you all. Well, Josh was fine. I was sweating a situation that I got myself into where we had expired residency cards at the same time that I sent away my U.S. passport to be renewed at the same time I needed to take flight internally within the country. And I'm like, well, what identifying document do I show them? So that was a little – that was nerve-wracking. Yeah, and he was wanting to get his passport back, obviously, before we left. But that one was easier to track, I think, and a lot more time. Well, yeah, so he got his passport. He was like, it's fine. I'm like, I don't have my residency card, and that's more of a pain. I think it's more of a pain to have to deal with Seth than it would be to have to deal with the U.S. embassy for sure because the U.S. embassy actually in Lisbon is quite responsive. There's the email. Seth, as I'm sure a lot of our listeners know, is not responsive at all. So I was like this is a whole thing that is just going to take forever. Yeah. Well, still there, not kicked out of the country yet. Yeah. Not yet. We're good. We've got three more years. All right. Hi, Josh and Kaylee. We are not social media folks, so we both hope this gets to you. We both listen now on Spotify for your podcasts. Awesome content. Lynette and I are going to move to Portugal next year. She retires in May, so we are prepping for the move. Our biggest question is about retaining a United States address for investments. No one seems to talk about this. We had a meeting with Schwab and Vanguard, and they both stated we needed a physical address in the U.S. Second question, we are trying to rent our home in Colorado, but we're confused if we need to keep residency here. No one seems to talk about residency in the U.S., so we're trying to figure this out. Thanks, Mike and Lynette. Smiley face emoji. Mike and Lynette, thank you all so much for the question. We're not social media folks either. I don't either. So we get you, and we appreciate you listening to us on Spotify. Okay. So this is actually, I think, a little bit of a complicated question to answer, and I would say we have kind of walked the line in terms of what we've done with our residents, because we have, for different things, had to use family members to kind of help us out. There is also the possibility to go down the virtual mailbox route, where, I mean, it's virtual for you, but it will be like a physical address, or could be a physical address, depending on who you want to use for this type of thing. It really is at the discretion of the financial institutions if you need an address, and I think a lot of them ask for it, and it's a regulatory issue that they run into on their side, and I think the easiest thing for them is to make a blanket statement and say that we need everybody to have a physical address in the U.S. Again, there are plenty of expats who have worked around this using virtual mailboxes and using family members as a way to work around it. Right. We have a link with Anytime Mailbox that we can put in the show notes, an affiliation with them, and that's something that they give you a physical address. It's not a PO box, because some places will say it's a PO box, which doesn't work for a lot of these institutions. So you get an actual physical address, and it's a mail forwarding system. So it depends on if you want them to open and scan your mail, if you can send actual mail to you. They have different packages that you can do. So we know a lot of people who do that. And then the other thing, though, is if you do plan on renting out your home in Colorado, so that would then be rental property, and you can keep that as your physical address. You just want to make sure that you have a property manager or someone who's going to be collecting your mail. That's right. Because you'll have renters in there. So someone that has a good relationship with the renters that can be like, I need to come pick up the mail, so if there's any sensitive information. But just the fact, even though that you're renting that out and you're using that as rental property, you can still have that as your home for some of these mailing things. The other thing I would say is if you do change it to that where people are renting, go paperless. So that not many things then are actually mailed to you. You have a few things throughout the year that have to be mailed to you by paper. But if you go paperless, then you get everything electronically for the most part, so you don't have to worry about mail going to where you're renting your place. Yep. And the last thing I'll say on this is we interviewed a guy named John in Episode 13. And John would be someone awesome to contact to bounce some of these ideas off of because he really works with clients on stuff like this. So he would be someone that you could reach out to, and we'll put that in the show notes as well, Episode 13. I was just looking that up myself. Yeah, a lot of this was briefly discussed on that episode, and yeah, John sees clients, so his contact info is in the show notes of Episode 13. And when you say go paperless, Kaylee, you mean with like everybody that you have an account with, change your billing statements to paperless, is that correct? Yes, exactly. A lot of them are doing that anyway just because it's better for the environment, and people don't open up mail or people are worried that stuff is going to get lost in the mail. So if you can just go paperless, you change everything electronically, and then they'll email you things or you can check through your website, your portal. Go that way so that you have as little mail being sent to wherever as possible. Hey, Dan, great job on the other podcast productions. I've been listening to the rest of them after the one you did with me, and you do such an amazing job with them. This is from Revy. She's so smart. This is a really good way to start an email. Anyway, I have a question that Josh and Kaylee may be able to expand on a bit. It's about working in the U.S. for a company abroad. It seems that not all companies are actually set up to have remote workers living abroad. Just because it's remote doesn't mean out of the country. It seems that there are tax nuances and other regulatory things that the company has to do or take care of if they have workers living in Portugal. It would be nice to know more about what this looks like for the company so we're in a better position to provide information to companies if asked what they need to do to keep someone who is moving, but also how one goes about finding out if a company is set up already to have remote workers living abroad. It's frustrating to get through an interview only to find out working from Portugal isn't an option. Let me know if this makes sense. Have a fantastic day. Revy. Revy, thank you so much for the question. It's a really good one, and it's one that comes up quite a bit, actually. It's a scenario that comes up quite a bit. We don't have a lot of the legal information on it. We probably should scrape the internet and ask around at different HRs that we know. But one thing that we do hear is that there are different tax implications that are involved in having a worker that's foreign-based. So the taxes aren't just U.S.-based, but they also have to communicate with the country of residence that the person is in. So that can get complicated. And for some of the HR people that we do know that we've talked to about this, they said that it's just more of a headache than it's worth, that they'll be able to find somebody to fill the position that will stay U.S.-based. The other thing is a lot of people work around this topic by asking to go 1099. Yeah, yeah, to be a contract worker. So we've had a few friends, actually, that have done this, and they've had their companies allow them to go 1099. Obviously, you don't get the benefits, but you don't need things like health care. You don't need to be paying into that stuff because you're not living in the U.S. Yeah, yeah. So you're an independent contractor instead. The best thing that you could do is if you are looking for a job or you're interviewing, when you speak with HR or whoever you're talking to, initially you can ask about this. I mean, I would say just be upfront about it because it is a waste of time for you and them if they're not going to allow it. And like Josh was saying, there is some extra paperwork they have to do. And from what we've heard from HR departments, it's not that much, but it is something else they have to do. That's one other reason for them to say no. Right. But if you're upfront from the beginning, then you don't waste any time. But you could also present the idea of being a 1099, which it looks good for them as well because then they're paying less because they're not having to pay those benefits. You just have to see if that's something that they can do for you. Now, I will say this, and this probably is not your situation, Reby, but it is the situation that some people have gotten into. So I want to throw this out there for the listener. And that is when a U.S.-based company finds out that you want to work remotely, work abroad in Portugal, they will try to peg your wage to the local salary. So a lot of people have been asked to take a drastic pay cut and be more in line with what people here in Portugal are making, which seems crazy because it's like you're doing the same job. But I guess it is what it is. Yeah, I would say don't accept that. Fight for that. Fight for your normal salary that you would get as opposed to what's pegged to Portugal, for sure. Another industry that people would find difficult to work abroad in would be anything that has to do with data security. So if it is in the securities, if it is in, let's say, healthcare, for example, and you're having to comply with HIPAA, it's really, really difficult to work abroad. Because American-based companies are not going to trust servers that are not in the States. And clients of those companies won't like it either. So it's really difficult to work in those types of job industries and do it remotely. A suggestion is a VPN, but that doesn't always work for companies. It doesn't always work for companies. For companies, yeah. For companies, they still say, they're still kind of squeamish about it. So even though VPNs are a lot more secure than just being in a country, they still – yeah, it still might not be an option. Another thing that we have come across as well is people who have had their jobs for a long time and now they're wanting to move to Portugal. And obviously it's easier with the remote worker visa and such. So how do you approach that with your company without throwing up a red flag, I guess? So what I've heard, I think, to be the best is whoever – if you're a boss or some sort of trusted person within your network who maybe is higher up than you, that maybe would either green light this or not, kind of just getting a feel for – a lot of people are moving abroad and working remotely. And I mean remotely, maybe not in the U.S., but somewhere else. Is that something that the company allows? Because the company might already allow it and you don't even know. So just kind of getting some feelers with some trusted people if it's something the company already does and if they're already set up to, then that's great. If not, maybe you could ask why. Why do they not? Is that something that they know could be easy? And then that's where you get HR involved. But you've got to tread lightly a little bit. But we do know people who have had to do that. And the last bit of advice or recommendation might be to – if you're working remotely already, is to take a trip to Europe, spend two to four weeks here, see if you can adapt to the schedule because the time zones are going to be different. But yeah, work from here. See if you can adapt to the schedule. Don't treat it as a holiday per se. But just see if you can kind of get into the rhythm of work-life balance being on those different time zones because your days are going to start much later. Your days are probably going to start around at least noon here but probably more like 1 o'clock and then go much later into the evening. Good thing about Portuguese dinner is that dinners start pretty late here. So you'll be kind of joining the crowd and get to pick up that buzz of people and activity whenever you do get off of work. Yeah, and the other thing that's good with that is if you do that and your productivity is good, then you can present that as I was in Europe for two to four weeks. You know that on vacation and look how I was able to work and it was secure. Internet was good because people were – you know how the internet is. So you can present that as I was able to do my job just as effectively over there as I am here. Is this a possibility? Yeah, and if I could add two more things. One, we do talk a little bit about the challenges or the differences between employment types in episode three when we were talking with lawyer Matthew. He had some advice about being a 1099 employee, so that's worth taking a listen to. And I've had a similar conversation with my employer. One of the things that worked really well for them was that they already had people working in Europe. And they're a US-based company, but they have some offices all over the world, and they were very comfortable with me going to Europe because they're already set up to have employees in Europe. So it wasn't extra work for them to make that happen. And did you know that going into the conversation that you had with them that they had workers already living in Europe? Or was that new information to you and a pleasant surprise? It was new when I was – when I took the job. Okay. I had known that by the time I approached the conversation because we had acquired a company based out of Cork. And they had a few companies around – or a few employees around Europe. Nice. Cork's an awesome city. It's actually a great city for – I think it's an upcoming city for digital millinets. Yeah. It seems awesome. I keep trying to talk them into sending me to the Cork office for, I don't know, some training or something, but they haven't done it yet. Well, if you do make Cork, let us know. We'll meet you there. Deal. Dan, we actually have a video about Cork on Expats Everywhere Explores. So that's our second channel that we're trying to upload more to. But we have a city guide about Cork, Ireland. Check it out. Awesome. Well, yeah, that will be in the show notes too. Hi, Josh and Kaylee. My husband and I are looking at doing remote work abroad and wondering if you guys could do a podcast to provide me with resources on moving to Portugal with children. We have two kids, both under four. They're not in school yet. What does life look like bringing the kids along, such as school, activities, social life, friendly restaurants, friendly apartments, anything else, pros and cons of having children along with you? Thanks. Morgan. Thanks, Morgan. This is a really good question, and we get asked this ever so often, but it's hard to do like an actual video about this and talk too much about it. So this is great for the podcast. So with children, so the great thing is Portugal is a very family-friendly place. People are used to seeing kids late at night. When you go, well, you know, they eat late anyway, so it's normal to have them in a restaurant late at night. It's not odd. People like to talk to children, and people of all ages. Older people will talk to your kids. Younger people will talk to your kids. So it's normal to see them integrated in society, which is really nice. Obviously, if you're going to get them into school, you've got to think about the language barrier that could happen. Do you want to put them in a public school? They need to know Portuguese for that. Do you want to do a private school that's maybe bilingual or an international school that is American or British or, you know, French? There's different international schools around, depending on the language. Costs for those are pretty affordable, I would say, but obviously a higher cost than if you did a free public school, like their public school system. So as far as that goes, activity-wise, obviously we live in Porto, and I do feel like the city is lacking in playgrounds. When we go around Portugal, there are a lot of other cities that have amazing little spots for playgrounds. It's not even that big, but it just has a little fenced-in area that gives kids a little spot to play. And I think that Portugal, unfortunately – I mean, I think that Porto, unfortunately, doesn't have enough of those. They're more like bigger places that are situated in different parts of the city rather than just kind of like thrown into little spots that you'd be walking around in the downtown area, but the rest of Portugal, I think, does a pretty good job of that. So there's little playgrounds and areas to play in for the kiddos, depending on what neighborhood you're in. Activities – again, in Porto, sometimes it's a little hard in the winter to find indoor activities. They do have different types of places that you can do that have, you know, like ball pits or trampoline parks or those types of things, but obviously when the weather is bad, those get really busy because there's not as many of them. But those are available, so I think more are up and coming as well. It's becoming more of a need, not just in Porto but elsewhere. So you can find the different areas that have the indoor play activities for kids and maybe some indoor playgrounds and stuff like that. Some of the malls have indoor playgrounds, which is really nice. When you go shopping, you can hang out there for a little bit or if it's rainy or something like that. So the good thing is is Portugal is just so family-friendly and lends it, you know, to having kids around. It's safe. It's common to see people perching strollers or walking with their kids who are a little older or holding hands. You just have to teach them, you know, that this is city life, so there's cars around, there's bikes, there's all sorts of e-scooters, those things to look out for. But other than that, I find that it's really easy to live in this city and the country in general with a 3-year-old. What do you think, Josh? Well, I mean, I could echo everything that you said there. I think, you know, one idea that popped to mind was if you're a remote worker and you do have kids, try your best to get them in school as quickly as possible so that you could have your home workspace be the place that you work. Because we found it quite challenging before getting Valencia into school, kind of being able to have our workspace and kind of have our minds free from having to take care of her at the same time as also trying to get our work done and keep productivity where it needs to be. So if you can get your kid in the school early on and remember as well that apartments in Europe are much smaller than homes that we're used to in the States. You could find a place here that has a dedicated office, but likely you're going to have to use a room that is double as something else, multifunctional, if you will. So, yeah, getting your kiddo in school and in a routine will allow you to get into your work routine, which will help your productivity with your remote job. And honestly, it's quite common here to get kids into some sort of social thing, like called a crush or school pretty early on. So it's not round upon or anything. It's common to have different ones that have actual instructional periods. So although they're young, they're still taking music class and PE and those different things rather than it just being like a daycare type feel. The public ones are a little more like daycare. The public crush is what they're called. But you can find private ones, again, that are affordable that do a lot more than just like hear kids run around and play. It's a lot more like school that's setting them up for when they do have to go to school because once they hit the age of 6, then they have to be in formal school here. Yes. So two things with that. One is great reason to get them into a school is language acquisition. The young age. Yeah, getting kids in at a younger age for language acquisition is painless. The second thing is when Kaylee keeps saying the word affordable, we're talking about a couple hundred euros a month. So, I mean, we consider that affordable. I don't know what you consider affordable. I think comparing it to just friends that I know that go to crush in the U.K. and have daycare or private school in the U.S., they're paying that closer to what we pay a month is what they're paying a week, for example. And this is including lunch. What's common here is that they make the lunches there. You don't have to pack a lunch or anything. So you have nice home cooks type meals for lunches. So it's really good for them socially as well, and it's common to have that and have them meet kids, and that's how you meet people as well. You meet friends that are in the same age and lifestyle as you, which is helpful for play dates and weekend things. And, of course, there's a lot of groups as well for that stuff, too. And international school fees range from a couple thousand to maybe the highest would be like, not highest, but one of the highest would be like $10,000. Yeah, a year. A year. And it depends on the older your child is, the more expensive it is. Which, you know, we used to be international school teachers, and to hear an international school cost $10,000 to us is not that much, considering we came from Singapore where those schools were – the lowest school was probably $25,000, and it went up from there. It was like $50,000 for some of them, $60,000. So $10,000 doesn't seem that bad. No, no. And then, of course, there are the different activities. You can sign up for different classes, swim lessons, dance, you know, soccer. They have all those activities. Soccer. Yep. You just have to get involved and figure out where they are and when they meet. Again, very affordable to feature kids in those types of activities as well. Yep. Hope we answered that question. And if you have any more, let us know. I have a couple quick follow-ups. So, Valencia, does she go to an all-Portuguese-speaking school, or does her school speak English and do language teaching? It's all Portuguese, but they do have an English class, and she is smoking it at that English class. A-plus. Once a week they have English class, but it is all Portuguese. It is a private Portuguese school. And how tough is it for you guys to make friends with the other parents at the all-Portuguese-speaking school so you can have play dates? That is a brilliant question. So, we've not actually thrown ourselves into the deep end yet with, like, kind of making friends with the parents. However, a lot of them speak English. A lot of them speak English. They've had jobs abroad. They maybe have a spouse that's foreign. And then there are a couple of kids that are from, like, where both parents are foreigners that are there, and their language is English, I guess. Yeah, common language. Yeah, that's the word. Common language would be English. So, yeah, I mean, the answer to that is I think because it's private as well. I mean, this has to be said. If it was public, we would probably have a different experience. But I think because it's a private creche and their programming is, I think, more sophisticated than a public creche, you do get parents who want that kind of international flair. They're willing to pay for that type of structure as opposed to being a bit more like a daycare. The thing that is a little difficult is, you know, obviously these parents, the Portuguese, they have their normal working hours. So, in the morning it's a little rush for drop-off and then for pick-up in the afternoon. So, the time to speak with them the most is when there are school activities. And our school does a lot of these different activities where they bring the parents in just for a half hour here during the day or they do this activity. So, that's when I found that I speak most with them. And, yeah, like Josh said, a lot of them speak English. But then outside of school and doing play dates, you kind of find one or two and it works, and you're fine with that. The kids get along, so you do that, you get along with them, and you don't necessarily need to be hanging out with all of them. But then also, too, what I have found is if I pick Valencia up from school and we go to a nearby playground, well, a couple of the kids are going to be there. So, then you talk to the parents, and it just kind of naturally happens. And they're like, oh, you know, we were in school together just five minutes ago, and now we're playing on the playground. So, some of that stuff is natural as well. But you kind of find who the kids enjoy hanging out with, who you want to hang out with, and you just go from there. Here in the States, that's the baseline for my, like, who I get to spend time with now or who I want to spend time with is, well, my kid get along with your kid. Yeah. We're friends. That's all I need. Yeah, I feel like it's like Bluey in real life. I love that joke. I've learned so much about parenting from Bluey. It's like we don't have our own adult friends. We just have friends that are kids. Yeah, Bluey and Bingo. Yes.