Self-Made Expats

Hello Amelie,

very interesting topic that deserves a long response ... I'll think about it this afternoon and I'll try to post something this evening

Hey, me too. 

I've been self-employed for most of my life.  I've never made at lot of money at it, but I love being able to be self-sufficient at all times, even tho not rich.

My current project is setting up an online company that will help people easily set up businesses that are portable enough that they can run them from wherever they want to live.  I'm hoping to take it with me when I move to Europe sometime this year, depending upon the laws of wherever I end up.  In this way, I'm hoping to not have to worry too much about work upon lighting in a spot for however long.

How do other people cope with the working issue?

Cat

This is a great idea, it seems, from my short expat experience and from reading these posts that a 'self-made expat' might have different issues, problems, ideas and attitudes than someone who has been sent. 

Before my husband and I married, I had travelled pretty extensively , my husband less so.  Once our kids were 4 and 7, we got on a boat that we had bought and went sailing for three years...is that an expat experience?  Probably not in the strict sense..it was very very different in many ways.   Then an opportunity to come to Spain appeared, and we leapt...it was too fantastic a chance to not leap, my husband was born here, but moved to Canada when he was a child...he speaks one of the two languages, and it is half of my kids culture and background....it has been a wrench to leave our boat and our lives there for all of us, but it has been, so far, a fantastic experience...

I agree, we definately don't make as much as my friends who are expat because their company sent them over...then again, we didn't make as much in Canada either because of the life choices we made...my husband went back to school....we were both self-employed....so in ways that hasn't been as big a difference, but here

well, my husband arrived with a job.  We weren't sent here, so there was no sweet package, but it is enough for us to live on...I now have a job teaching English in a local language school.  I was trained as a teacher which helps, and that income is giving us a little to play with as well.

Is the biggest difference attitude or personality?  Probably self-made expats have more of a tendency to be keen to settle in initially, but once it is underway, and the honeymoon ends, is there any difference?  Even if your company sends you, most of the people I know had worked themselves into positions where this might happen in the hopes that they would be sent off.  What do you think?

good topic, I have done it several times .First by going to the Us in order to learn english, then to Italy with an erasmus scolarship and after to morocco following my bf.
Now I am thinking about moving to Dubai.