What has happened to those who have self deported?

I’ve seen a few users post that they were self deporting themselves. Some seemed to find more freedom, but haven’t posted in a long time. I’m curious what has happened to those who have self deported? Have they been able to find jobs and settle down?

They may have migrated to Canada or a country where they found opportunity.

Last I heard one did settle in nicely into Australia. Never heard from again though.

Who knows maybe they got stuck in Mexico, and their little slice of Mexico hasn't been so bad.

I am one of the ones that “self deported” or a I like to call it “gracefully exited” the USA a year and a half ago. Currently residing in Puerto Vallarta Mexico.

A little background
http://dreamact.info/forum/showthread.php?t=82071
http://dreamact.info/forum/showthread.php?t=83713

I must confess that I have ZERO regrets from leaving. I’ve never felt more liberated. It’s crazy but I don’t even remember the feeling of constantly watching my back or making sure I don’t do “anything” that could jeopardize my situation. Not that I’d do anything stupid but just the realization that I am a citizen, with rights, in my own country, and the ability to stay or go anywhere I’d like... I FINALLY understand what freedom feels like. Let’s see, in a year and a half I’ve been to..

1. Mexico (All over beautiful Jaliscos magical towns, Guadalajara, Nayarit) Mexico City for #thegreatesmatch got seat 3 rows up at Plaza de Toros for the Roger Federer vs Zverev tennis match(wife is a big fan), also did Teotihuacán and climbed the pyramids! Plus got to explore so many “Pueblo’s mágicos”
2. Slovakia 3 times! (Košice, Bratislava, the peak of the high tatras, got married to my amazing wife this year at the St. Elisabeth's Cathedral)
3. Hungary 2 times! (all over including Budapest)
4. Italy 2 times! (Venice, Rome Twice! Once in 2018 and then took my parents, who left the USA in 2019)
5. France Paris!
6. Czech Prague!
7. Austria Vienna!
8. Netherlands (mainly Amsterdam!)

Plan is to head back to Europe in May and stay for a month while traveling to a few other countries. I’d like to do Barcelona and Germany among others! Too many choices but we’d like to travel as much as possible before we start having kids. Also planning on hitting South America, thinking Peru in late February and hit up Machu Picchu.

As far as living in Mexico, still love it! Half a block from the beach, soothing wave sounds while falling as sleep, tropical bird sounds in the cool breezy mornings, the smell of the ocean and the warm sun during the “winter months”. Tourist call this paradise and when we go out to eat at nice restaurant they are always reminding me of how lucky we must be to live in a place that they can only vacation at. Not going to lie, I can truly see why. Wife and I can go into town and pick from hundreds of restaurants, with just about any type of delicious foods, we can spoil ourselves and go to fancy white cloth candle dinner locations have drinks or wine and steak, seafood, pasta, etc.. at the cost of a simple chili’s or Applebee’s..

I must confess, both my wife and I work for US companies and make US (midwest area manager) level salary. At this point in our careers we could probably be making slightly more in the USA (both of us have MBAs and significant industry experience) but our cost of living is significantly lower, it could even be much lower but we live in a beach condo, have personal trainers and nutritionist at a more expensive gym, tennis club membership at a country club, like newer (midrange) cars, and love all our extra amenities... overall, we are loving our prospects in Mexico, in fact two months ago I became an investor/part owner in a restaurant that my parents (who left the US after 19 years) opened! So far doing great!

Awesome! Happy for you

Wow. I am truly happy for you. Unfortunately, the path that I am on (career-wise) is incompatible with leaving the US but Im glad that you are out there living your best life! Reading this gave me chills!

That sounds great. How much in US dollars do you need to maintain that lifestyle in Mexico? Just weighting my options

This dude flipped the script on Trump and all the republicans.

Thank you!

Yes, I completely understand that my path is not viable among many career options. Yet, I see more and more opportunities of remote offices across many fields.. I’d encourage fellow DREAMERs focus of fields that have such flexibility, it could be your safety net in the future.

Travel is by far the highest expense (I don’t count investments such as properties or businesses) really depends how much travel you want to do and where. Inside of Mexico is pretty cheap 100-200 flights super cheap Airb&b’s and delicious cheap food everywhere! Across the Atlantic is another story... Mexico to Europe is around $800 -$1200 depending on the time of year, destination, and how far along you plan. A lot of EU cities are expensive but I’ve found Easter Europe not only architecturally and socially beautiful, but a lot much more affordable for long time travel. Wife and I decide to budget about $12-15K a year for travel and we do 2-3 overseas trips and as many Mexico trips as we want. This is not a fixed budget but we don’t really got over that.

Housing - ($350 - as much as you want) given that our location (Bahia de Banderas) is significantly more expensive than most of Mexico. You can still find relatively cheap housing (when compared to US housing) if you opt to not live on the beach or right in the heart of town. A nice condo (not beach front but close enough to smell it) fully furnished can run $900-1,000 a month, beach front in Nuevo Vallarta or Punta de Mita? $3.5K-$5K/month - but you can also go 5 minutes inland and rent a house in nice gated community with a pool, palapas and 24/hr security for $400-$600/month - its easy to find cheaper housing than this. I am just pointing to options that most of us would be comfortable with.

Groceries - ($400 month couple) tons of big supermarkets to choose from, we have Wal-Mart, Sams, Cosco, Mega Soriana, Chedraui, La Comer, all within the same area and they are each as big as those crazy super Walmart’s you find in the midwest. Of course you also have your farmers markets, fish markets, fruit markets, etc.. overall the food cost is cheaper other than the imported products which the are relatively close to US pricing. Pro-tip, super stores have a deal with car washers, basically they keep the parking lot clean and in exchange they are allows to offer their services to customers. Nothing better than getting groceries and your car is sparkling clean hand washed and polished by the time you get out, all of 50 pesos $2-$3 (I always give them double, 100 pesos because it’s so cheap!) I’d say we spend less than $100 a week in groceries.

Utilities - ($40-90 month) most places you rent at include trash, water, and even gas within your monthly rent. Some even come with WiFi included. Electricity is your main cost. We run about $80-95/month during summer and $40-60 during winter. Keep in mind that we work from home and thus we have multiple computers, monitors, phones plugged in at all times. We also run the A/C almost all day during summer so that we can comfortably work.

Phone/internet- $70 a month for 2 phone lines, Apple watches data, and home internet.

Gym - ($155 month) You can get regular memberships to a local gym for like $6-$20 dollars a month depending wether you want A/C or not.. Ours is significantly higher as it is not just a gym but also a “personalized training center” you can get a semi personalized membership for about $50/month or a private 1-1 certified trainer for 5 1hr sessions a week plus diet plan from a certified nutritionist and monthly measurements for only $155 a month per person. You’d never get this value in the USA so it’s well worth it for my wife a I. Country club memberships are hard to value as the ones we have are only available to property owners of the complex. Not sure if others offer them and at what cost for non property owners.

Entertaining and Dinning - if you like cinema then you are in luck, Spanish or English movies at about $2.5 a ticket at cinemas that are in my opinion better than any I’ve been to in the USA. Also don’t skip the popcorn, they have like 5, yes 5 flavors and only about $2.5 for the BIG box! You can also go to super fancy VIP cinemas for about $6 a ticket and it’s huge button controlled reclining leader seats with waiters, USB ports, and a full menu including alcoholic drinks. As far as restaurants, hard to pin down a price range. Wife and I can go to our favorite taco restaurant and have a full meal with fresh fruit water for about $10 and that’s when a $2.5 tip! Or we can go to a nicer Italian restaurant for pasta and wine for about $25-30 or go get sea food for about the same price range with drinks and their more expensive items. We can also go ultra fancy and spend $100 on a 4 course meal with a bottle of wine at a very fancy French restaurant. Point is you can find delicious food for just about any price range, it’s just up to you to decide how much you want to spend.

I’d certainly like to think so!

Do you get paid in US $? And if so, how is that possible if you left the US....Wouldn’t that mean your EAD isn’t valid anymore?