Camila Vaal
Lived in Brussels, BelgiumNov 23
Why do you choose to stay in the United States of America?
Let me start by saying that I live in Texas, and it’s not my favorite place. In fact, if I could get out of here while conserving my current standard of living I would. I hate the politics, hot weather in summer, pickup truck culture, religious freaks, and horrible employment practices. In fact, if you diss on Texas I will actually agree with whatever you have to say. I’m jealous of people that get to live in Washington State or New England, even Arizona. You all are lucky. But there’s also some stuff in Texas I really love!

I would also love to live in a big city someplace in the world! Seattle, Vancouver, Rome, Shanghai, etc. but then I would have a weekend life, meaning I would fall into a rat race, work hard just to survive and probably only have enough money to enjoy the weekends in the city. But some people love this and thrive. Y’all are lucky!

I would love to live in Canada. But as a non-professional, I doubt Canada would want me and I will still also have a weekend life taking into consideration house prices, cost of living, salaries, car prices, insurance, etc. Not to say I hate the cold with a passion.

Europe is great too, I was happy there! but in the end, I think life asked me:

“Okay.. do you want to live a nice, comfortable life in Belgium, settle down with a decent job, 4 weeks vacation, have children, go to Spain and France every summer and a Christmas market on December and save up occasionally to take a cool international trip every couple years or buy a car/get driver’s license or down payment for a house?”

“…Or you wanna go to good, old Texas (because that’s the place that opened up to me), where you will be able to save up money like crazy to satisfy your every whim?”

Now, I’m not the “chase-the-dollar” or materialistic kind. I only buy clothes when Ross has the 50% sales. Half my dresses only cost $4–6 usd. I’m probably as stingy as the Dutch, if not worse. If I was like some other Americans, I would have a gun collection, expensive off-road toys, at least two nice cars (we only have one), better phones and more food in our pantry. I always pay my credit card statements, have no debt, and never had a late payment. So no, I’m not money hungry either.

But I do have an expensive hobby though, and that is to take cool trips. And boy, does it feel nice to go home and tell my hubby “K I just made a 3000 principal payment to the house. Btw, can I book for Chiapas and Guatemala for February and then do a roadtrip to Big Bend and on May take an Alaskan cruise and winter go to Lapland?” to which hubby replies “You’re planning another trip again? we just came from one!”

And boy do I feel rich! even though we make only make $60k a year combined, which is even considered below average in many places in Texas not to say the whole USA.

But to me that’s one of stupid Texas’ perks, and it’s very few the places that allow for such opportunities of ridiculously low cost of living combined with high salaries. And even if I moved to a “better” place, let’s say Montreal, I know I would never forgive myself for passing up such a great opportunity to invest in myself by affording the things I love.

Be it Texas, Europe, USA, or whatever…. good things come with a price!