Transcripts for Episode 164

These transcripts were generated by robots, not writers.

Stacy: I like to create spaces where I can listen and I can bear that burden of sometimes discomfort. I’ve been in a lot of situations where people have said extremely horrible, hateful things to me about me, about other people. And because I, I don’t know, I just, I think with my temperament, it tends to not bother me too much personally. Obviously I, I feel deep distress when it’s about other people. So I do see it as how I show up is taking on some of that space and being the person that somebody is comfortable to have a conversation with that comes to it from a place of we can disagree. And I absolutely do not accept hateful things to be said about people I care about.

Stacy: But what I have found is that differing viewpoints are going to get more polarized than they already are if there is not a common point of connection. I deeply care about many people, including clients who have different political viewpoints as me, and I will continue to deeply care about them because I really, when you have a conversation with somebody who’s on the other side and really listen to them, not from a viewpoint of like, how could you? I don’t understand you. But really from a perspective of let me listen to you, let me hear you, let me have empathy for your perspective. Even though I still, I cannot understand at the core of it’s still, it’s not there for me to be able to fully understand this. But I’m going to under. I’m going to try to understand you.

Stacy: Welcome. Welcome to what is essentially an emergency podcast episode. Not really an emergency, but it’s a response episode to the barrage of questions that I have gotten from every corner. I have gotten messages on Instagram, on LinkedIn, in my email via text, pretty much every angle I could imagine. People are writing me to ask about life in Portugal.

Stacy: These questions range from very specific stuff that I don’t have expertise on, but I’m going to try really hard to point you in the right direction to asking about my experience, what it’s like to live here, how we navigated the moves and things like that. So today I’m going to answer as much as I can. I’m going to get through as many questions as I’m able while still giving very full answers. And I may decide to do another episode next week. Let’s see how far we get today. We had another episode planned to air today. We had a great have had a great guest that we are really excited to share with you. But after my Katie Couric media piece, my second piece with them came out last week. This is what sparked all of the all the feedback, all the questions.

Stacy: To me, that piece was on my reflection on the election and I’ve never really written anything so opinion laden before. I generally shy away from sharing my opinion on politics or things like that. But when the election happened, I didn’t feel that I had space to do that. I needed to, I needed to share, I needed to speak out and share my mind. Now my reflection, which I will share in the show notes of this episode, is very raw. I wrote it pretty fast, actually. I think I wrote that piece in less than 30 minutes, including editing. It was really my feelings as I processed what happened in our country, in my home country, even though I don’t live there.

Stacy: And one thing I do want to say before I get into answering all the thoughtful questions I received or as many as I can, is that I in the past, I guess the reason that I don’t talk a lot about politics or don’t share a lot of my views on politics is that it’s really important to me to create a space where, well, number one, I am around people that are different than me and think differently than me. But two, where people feel safe to interact with me and engage with me. That means that while I was very and still am very upset about the results of the election, I don’t have the same stance as other business owners and creators where they, you know, basically are like, well, if you voted for Trump, I am not going to work with you.

Stacy: Or not that they won’t work with you, but they’re like, bye. I don’t care if you don’t want to work with me while I do. I think My work naturally attracts people with similar values. I do a lot of work in social equity. Equality in publishing is deeply important to me. It’s something I talk about all the time. I really value being around people with different opinions. And the reason for that is one, I do feel that as a white female, it is part of my duty in the world. Me, I’m not saying this about other white females, but as me to carry the mantle of education and to speak into places where it’s easier for me to be heard, unfortunately, than someone else that looks differently than me and has a different background, even a different socioeconomic background than me.

Stacy: And so that’s one piece, I guess, is just. I like to create spaces where I can listen and I can bear that burden of sometimes discomfort. I’ve been in a lot of situations where people have said extremely horrible, hateful things to me about me, about other people. And because I. I don’t know, I just. I think with my temperament, it tends to not bother me too much personally. Obviously, I. I feel deep distress when it’s about other people. So I do see it as how I show up is taking on some of that space and being the person that somebody is comfortable to have a conversation with, that comes to it from a place of we can disagree. And I absolutely do not accept hateful things to be said about people I care about.

Stacy: But what I have found is that differing viewpoints are going to get polar, more polarized than they already are if there is not a common point of connection. I deeply care about many people, including clients who have different political viewpoints as me. And I will continue to deeply care about them because I really. When you have a conversation with somebody who’s on the other side and really listen to them, not from a viewpoint of, like, how could you? I don’t understand you. But really from a perspective of, let me listen to you, let me hear you. Let me have empathy for your perspective. Even though I still. I cannot understand at the core of it’s still. It’s not there for me to be able to fully understand this. But I’m gonna under. I’m gonna try to understand you.

Stacy: I don’t think that everybody has to take that perspective, but for me, that’s what I have chosen. And so let me say this at the top, because I think this is important before I get into all the Portugal questions, when I wrote that piece, it was important for me to share my heart, and it’s remains that way. And I will continue to talk about this. I Do feel that the results of that election were devastating for women, for people of color, for a lot of things. There are a lot of things that I feel really heartbroken about. And I also want you to know, if you were on the other side, that I believe that we can all find a space together to build a better future.

Stacy: The country is more than split right now, and the only way to shift that is through empathy and conversation. And I think that space is also needs to be made for people that look a lot different, sound a lot different, maybe come from a different place, different socioeconomic background, different values, different religion. And my hope is that my content continues to welcome, but continues to be a bright spot and a place where people are able to listen, where they have a different perspective. But maybe you’re still willing to listen and willing to consider what I have to say. And I think about it like this. I listen to a podcast from a friend, colleague of mine, Loose. Loose friend. And she has a very different values, or not values, actually, our values are very similar. Very different political views, ideas about gender roles.

Stacy: A lot of things are very different. And sometimes I listen to her podcast where she shares a lot of opinion, and I really. I. Part of me is like, oh, I so disagree with that. I’m just. I just want to shut this off. The other part of me is like, hold on a second. If I am constantly in an echo chamber and I’m only listening to things that align with my viewpoint, if I’m only absorbing content or having conversations with people that is perfectly aligned with my views, I will never have an opportunity to challenge my views and to polish my views. I would say that my viewpoint around politics is very nuanced. I’m not really straight in, like, this one camp.

Stacy: I have a lot of things that I have different opinions about, and that is because I listen and make a lot of adjustments along the way. My viewpoints have changed drastically throughout my life. So when I said in the piece that the original Trump election influenced our move, it’s true. When 2016 happened, it was. It was devastating. I wasn’t as devastating as this election was, in my opinion. It did influence our move, and I will continue to be influenced by that because I believe that the leader of the country. I don’t know, I mean, and especially in the US it just has such an impact on safety, on quality of life, human rights. There’s so much there. So that’s my piece. I want to say, do read the piece on Katie Couric Media. Share it if it resonates.

Stacy: Hey, if it doesn’t resonate and you totally disagree with me, share it with somebody who’s also going to disagree because I would still appreciate you taking some time to think about it from somebody else’s perspective. So, with all that said, that was a little tangent I did not intend to go on, but here we are. I’m going to dive into a number of questions. I anticipate I’m probably going to get through about half of the ones that I’ve noted now. I have many more that I’ve received. A lot of them are from people that know me. They weren’t, they weren’t necessarily reaching out because they’re podcast listeners or follow me on social media. But I, I’m gonna aim to reply to about half of them and then I will plan likely to. Unless I go really fast, which I don’t think so.

Stacy: I will plan to do another episode answering some additional questions about life in Portugal. Some of those specifics if you have a question and we can make this a series. So feel free to reach out to me hellotasianis.com with your questions about Portugal. Or it can be about something totally different, such as, hey, the thing that I do professionally would just coach authors on their journey to authorhood. And I will get back to that. But today we’re going to talk about Portugal because that’s what you want to know about. So let me dive into the first question. And I didn’t have time because it was so fast to get permission from everybody to use their first name, which I always like to do before I read their name. So I am. Instead of reading their actual names, I’m just using pseudonyms for everyone.

Stacy: But if you shared your question. I did. I think all of them. I picked the same first letter of the name. So you’ll know if that’s potentially you based on, well, you’ll probably recognize your message. So the first question and a lot of these came on the back of my article. So a lot of them are feeling similarly about the election as I do says I have been thinking of life abroad and post election the desire is even stronger. Portugal is one country that I’ve considered but hesitate due to language barriers. I’ve heard that it’s a difficult language to learn. Do you have any blog posts about your life and experiences as an expat? So first things first. Yes, I do. I have tons years of writing not just about our experience in Portugal, but when we lived in Thailand and even before that.

Stacy: I think that I’ve been blogging since 2008, I think so. And I’m pretty sure all of the posts are on my site. If you dig and dig, you’ll find them. So I will link to that in the show notes, but you can go to my website, staceyenas.com and click on blog and click the little search magnifying glass and type in Portugal and you’ll find them that way. Or you can go in the show notes and we will link to it in the show notes. So that’s quick answer to that question. I do have that content on my website. Language. Boy howdy, that is a tricky one here. Portuguese is very hard. I have been studying since I moved here. I haven’t been studying aggressively, but I go through little spurts of taking classes.

Stacy: I was taking classes pretty consistently the first part of the year and then we paused over the summer. Now it’s November and I’m not. I’m not in classes right now, but I’m actually like it literally in the process of re engaging classes. On top of that, we ended up moving our daughter from the private school system here into the public school system. And that’s in Portuguese, which has been quite a challenge for her. She is 11 years old. The thing that you have to understand, I think this is really difficult for a lot of Americans. Not so much for Europeans or people that are experienced navigating other languages. Even Canadians are used to French. So for them, having another language is kind of part of their life function is pretty normal. For us, it’s English, period, end of story.

Stacy: We speak English in America and we don’t even really accommodate other people’s languages. In fact, I don’t even remember now. I come from Whiteaho, as we call it. It’s like 87% white. So, you know, and it’s also a really wealthy state. So it’s a. I don’t think my experience is typical of, you know, if you live in a big city like Chicago or New York, I’m sure it’s very different. Growing up, I do not remember once thinking about what it would be like to navigate life in another language. So we had a lot of, you know, Mexicans coming up bringing also amazing Mexican food. I miss that so much from living in Idaho, but there was Spanish spoken for sure. But in my area that I was in, I do not even remember thinking about that.

Stacy: Certainly in some of the outlying towns, especially more of the farm communities, I think that was more of a consideration. But we also had a Lot of refugees that moved in eventually, especially during the Bosnian war and things like that. But again, I don’t even remember thinking about that. It was just I was in such a little bubble. And I find that a lot of Americans. Well, there’s kind of two categories of Americans that move abroad. Category A is I’m American, therefore everything should work out and everything’s going to go well and I can do and do anything I want, get anything I need, because that’s what we think most of us, until you are like, oh, and I’m not in America, I have to follow the other country’s standards and rules.

Stacy: Those Americans, unless they quickly change their mindset, they do not last long. They run back in the direction of the US with their tails between their legs. I’ve seen it happen over and over and over again. And no, by the way, no shade to them. Although it probably sounded like it when I said tails between their legs. Honestly, sometimes it’s just not for y’all, it’s okay. Not everybody is really made for this life. It’s not easy. It’s very rich, it’s very meaningful, but it’s not easy. Language is a layer of the not easy. The other class of Americans that do make it here, and this is where the language piece comes in.

Stacy: And also bureaucracy is the category of people that come with respect of the place that they’re moving and an expectation that they still bring that American spirit of like, we’ll figure it out. And no, you know, no bureaucracy is going to keep me down because you kind of need that attitude to function. But they don’t expect everybody around them to kind of bend to their needs. And an example of that is English. In the Algarve where I live, you mostly can expect people are going to speak English. But last time I went to my residency appointment, the person didn’t speak English okay. So I had to navigate that in Portuguese.

Stacy: And there are lots of situations, especially if you are using the public health system, though they usually have English speaking people there, but, you know, maybe the reception area or different areas may not speak English. It’s really tough. It’s really tough to not be able to communicate your needs. I remember when I lived in the Dominican Republic, I was on a run one day and Spanish is, by the way easier, like a thousand times easier than Portuguese. But I was on a run one day in Santo Domingo in the city that I lived in, and I, I was running downhill and there was. The sidewalks are a mess there. And I stepped onto a kind of like a hole. It wasn’t like a deep hole, but a crevice. But it was like a broken part of the sidewalk.

Stacy: And I fell downhill and I really hurt my ankle. Like, it was immediately bruising. I thought I broke it. And I. My Spanish, because we hadn’t been there that long, it wasn’t very good. So all I could. I could say is, I think I said. And I just, like, I think I broke it. Like, I kept pointing to my ankle and I like, you know, can I use your phone? Like, that was about all I could. I didn’t have my phone on me. Like, that was silly, by the way. But those kind of things, you know, just not being able to get what you need, especially in emergency situation. If you move to Portugal, please do not expect to be able to speak English your whole life. Can you get around in English and kind of function? Yes.

Stacy: Should you learn the language of the country that you’re moving to? Yes. I know so many people who come and they make zilch, zero, nada effort to learn the language. I. I’m not great at Portuguese. I’m trying, though. I’m trying. I make an effort. I try to speak in Portuguese. I do take lessons. So I’m not saying, by the way, I’ve been here for five years. By all, by all measures, I should be a lot further along in the language than I am. But I’ve known people that have been here for, like I said, 20 plus years and do not speak Portuguese. And I know we all have life situations that maybe prevent. Like, I.

Stacy: I know that if I were not a mom to young children, I would be in a very different place with my language right now if I wasn’t a business owner. There’s a lot of things that. And, you know, if I didn’t want to also do things I want to do, like take piano lessons, for example. But I’m trying. And whether or not you become fluent, I don’t think that you have to set that bar for yourself. Just to make an effort and to try to function and at least get to a point where you can be conversational and communicate your needs. I think it’s super important. And Portuguese is very hard. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. I’m shocked at how difficult this language is. But I will prevail. I’m going to learn Portuguese. I feel it like it’s coming. It’s coming. Great question.

Stacy: Thank you. Oh, your pseudonym, by the way, is Jillian So thank you Jillian. I appreciate it. Okay, here is the next question is from Enid. Enid says as a single mom with an 11 year old girl, same as my daughter is 11 as well, I want to move out of this country and have been considering Portugal. Would you be open to sharing with me the process to move there? Are your kids in an English speaking school? I would be so grateful to hear from you. A mom who was brave and did what I am wanting to do. Thank you. Oh, thank you, Enid. That’s your message uplifted me. I appreciate the kind words. There’s so much about the process.

Stacy: I would definitely encourage you to go back and listen to some of my Portugal updates, especially the earlier ones where I talk about the process more high level. One thing. Well, let me say this. One thing I wish I had known when I moved to Thailand, because we moved to Thailand before this is that you can hire people to help you. Now I had already when we moved to Thailand, I did hire a Thai assistant locally to do some research for me, build me some a spreadsheet of schools, do some advise me on different neighborhoods. So I did that sort of thing which was really helpful. But I didn’t have any attorney like legal support when we moved to Portugal. I had already done most of our initial visa process so I didn’t hire help with that because I didn’t know I could.

Stacy: But once I got through that stage then we hired an attorney to support us in our residency process. And these are relocation experts. So you can hire a relocation company that I’m. I know there are companies out there that will help you get your items over. We didn’t really have much to bring. We had gotten rid of most of our things. I think we had about eight suitcases and two of those were bike related for my husband. So we didn’t have a lot to actually physically move other than our cats and ourselves. So that process itself was not too difficult as far as like the physical piece of it. I mean it was, but it wasn’t comparatively to move there. When we moved five years ago, we had to first apply for a visa at the Portuguese consulate.

Stacy: And so we had to submit our application. We had to fly to San Francisco. We had a visa appointment. You have to show proof of your travel dates and a few other pieces and then you get your visa and that allows you to go over to Portugal. The way that our visa works is we have a family reunification visa. So I’m not so sure because I’m not the expert in this stuff. But imagine yours might look kind of like mine. Where I was the visa holder. I had the residency application and we did reunification, which meant that I was bringing my family with me, essentially. So my kids and my husband came on my visa. Once I got approved first, then they got approved after me. But it took quite a bit of time, actually. I think it took.

Stacy: Well, were also in the middle of COVID so it took about a year, I think, for theirs. The renewal process is very easy. In fact, usually it’s just like you pay a fee and then you get your visa renewed. It’s really not too difficult. Last time I had to go in because there was something funny on. I don’t remember what it was, but I had to go in and just submit a couple papers. It wasn’t a big deal. So on that process, I’m going to talk later on about a little bit about the kind of business side of things and how we function from a tax perspective. The visa that we use. I’m going to talk about that with the next question. But just functionally, the biggest thing that I can recommend is to hire somebody to help you.

Stacy: I remember when went into our residency appointment, I think it was when Doug, my husband and the kids were rejoining me. So I think my visa had been approved. We’re in Lisbon and our attorney goes, if you hear me start yelling, don’t worry. Sometimes I just need to do that. I was like, okay, she did get a little spicy, but I didn’t hear any yelling. But just knowing that I had somebody going to bat for me that was an attorney that can navigate that legal process, that was huge. It really made me feel like we would be able to get everything taken care of. So that was really great. To answer your next question, you asked, are our kids in an English speaking school? So this has been an interesting journey for us. My son went to a Portuguese Waldorf preschool.

Stacy: Then we homeschooled for them, and then he moved to an English International School. My daughter was at a. It’s a British, by the way, British International School. My daughter was at a British International School. That was not a great experience, and that’s putting it very mildly. So we moved to a really lovely British. Another British International School. I have loved the elementary school experience here. It’s been truly beautiful. I feel so grateful every single day when I drop my son off at school. It’s just a great place. It really is really great balance of holistic education and academics. They have gardening and mindfulness and chickens. And you Know, it’s just. It’s beautiful. It really is a beautiful place. Then when you get a two, well, so with the British system, they’re a year ahead with how they number things.

Stacy: So kindergarten in America is year one in the British system. So by sixth grade here, Portuguese system is the same as American. So sixth grade and sixth grade, it’s the same Portugal. In Portugal and in the us, the British system would call that year seven. So by sixth grade, slash year seven, it gets a little dicier here. They’re really in the western Algarve where we live are not a lot of great options. It’s very difficult. There are a lot more on the eastern side of the Algarve, but personally, I don’t think it’s as nice over there. It’s just like. Well, I’m sure quality of life is fine. I can’t really speak to that too much, but the beaches are way better on our side. It’s just. It’s just nicer on our side. I prefer to live over here.

Stacy: But we are looking ahead at what we would consider high school in the US and really wondering what in the world we’re going to do. Because my daughter has three more years of middle school and my son has three more years at his school that he’s, well, tech. Well, I guess four years of the school that he’s in, and then we really don’t know what we’re going to do after that because right now we don’t have a good option in our area. We did end up moving our daughter, as I mentioned earlier, to a Portuguese public school. I don’t really want to get into detail about that at the moment, and probably I never will, because there’s some private aspects to that I won’t share.

Stacy: But a big component of it for anybody who’s ever put their kids in private school, especially small private schools, is that there just are not a lot of resources, there aren’t a lot of sports opportunities. And a big challenge were facing is our daughter was not learning the language. She’s taken Portuguese for five years and she still doesn’t speak. And as a child, it’s something she really should be able to do. And she’s very capable. She’s super bright, really gifted kid. And we really feel that if we’re going to be here, she should be fluent in Portuguese, because she can. So at least for this year, and then we’re going to reevaluate. She is in the Portuguese public system. If we’re still happy, we’ll stay there. If we’re not, we’ll reevaluate. But it was not an easy decision to make.

Stacy: The nice thing is it’s very close to our home and so there are a lot of really good things about that setup. But schooling has been pretty tricky. If you have very young children, it’s easier. There’s a lot more options. But do get on the waiting list as soon as you can because you can be on the waiting list forever. And you also have to be quite aggressive in following up with the schools. Not like in a nice way, like aggressive nice. So you’re at the top of their radar. Okay, thank you for that question, Enid. There’s so much I could dig into. Like I could do a whole episode just on schools. So much to say. Let me get to the last one.

Stacy: This question comes from Chris and then I will have to record another episode because I have still quite a lot to answer. Chris says, hi Stacy, I’m a regular listener to your podcast and enjoy hearing your insights on writing and living in Portugal. Well, thanks Chris. I appreciate you listening and hopefully you are listening to this now. My wife and I are planning on moving to Portugal next year and I currently have a sole proprietorship. My income fluctuates and I’m curious if it might be a good idea to change it to an LLC and apply through the D7 visa instead of the D8 if that would qualify as passive income and be a lower threshold for qualifying than the D8 and better for tax purposes as well. I know you’re not in the business offering this type of advice.

Stacy: If not, do you have any recommendations? Okay, I when I first read this I was like, oh no, I don’t know how I’m going to help you. But then I realized like, oh, I actually have the D7 visa so I can absolutely help you. I’m going to tell you about my experience. Number one, I again, I’m not an attorney, I cannot give legal advice, but I personally would never operate a business without an llc. I think it’s super dangerous. And so no judgment by the way, Chris, because I did not know this when I started my business and absolutely operated for a while without an llc.

Stacy: But eventually I did file my LLC and it’s just, I think again told an attorney I’m not an attorney but a no brainer if you’re operating a business because it protects you and your personal assets from like the business is, it’s a limited liability, right? So it’s limiting your liability as an Individual. So I would do that personally. Again, not as an attorney. I don’t have an. I do have an llc, but I have an LLC that’s taxed as an S corp. So I am a, an employee of my business. I receive a salary and I also receive dividends from my business. So I am treated as an employee from a tax perspective, but also as an owner from a dividend dispersion perspective. I’m on the D7 visa.

Stacy: It’s known as the own income visa, which means I’m bringing in my own income from outside of the country on this visa. It does not have to be defined. My understanding is it’s not passive, quote, unquote. What I had to show is I actually had to submit signed contracts showing the work that I had lined up. And I had to submit my profit and loss statements from, I think, the previous two years. I had to submit, I think a year, maybe 2 of bank statements. Maybe it was 2. And my retirement accounts and my savings statements. Like, I basically had to give them my financial world. And that was fine. It worked fine. So I don’t know, because some things have changed. I don’t know how that would shift your situation, but for me, we have a 10 year visa tax.

Stacy: I don’t know the language for it, but essentially we’re taxed in a certain way for 10 years. So we’re five years into it now because it took a little time to process the original visa. So it goes from the date of your application being approved. I’m also eligible for citizenship, which is something that’s asked in a later question I’ll have to get to in a future episode. The way that this works is that this also applies to working in Portugal. So my understanding, I haven’t used this because I don’t earn money in Portugal, quote, unquote, is that we would be at a 20% tax rate for income earned in Portugal. But there’s also reciprocity between the United States and Portugal, meaning that the taxes that I apply to, that I pay to the United States do not also get double taxed in Portugal.

Stacy: And for that reason, it’s been an amazing tech situation for us. I don’t feel comfortable giving accounting advice, so I highly recommend reaching out to an expat accountant. That’s really important, that they deal specifically with expats and also a Portuguese accountant. Now, Chris, as you know, I actually already sent you a couple of links to this personally, privately, so I would follow up with those. Those two. But I hope that this additional layer to answering your question is helpful. I also really encourage you to go back and listen to all of my Portugal Update episodes, which you’ll find in the Portugal link that I put in the show notes and I also sent to you on email that will I. There’s a bunch of episodes where I talk in a lot more detail about that process and share about my experience with it.

Stacy: So I hope that is really helpful. Okay, I scratched the surface. At least I got a good bit of questions answered and I know there’s more that I could dig into. There’s always more that I could dig into. Again, please feel free to reach out to me hellotasiannis.com to ask your questions. Follow me on Instagram. I’m Stacy Ennis. I love posting on there and I love bringing you along in my life here in Portugal. And I really hope if you’re considering a move to Portugal that this is helpful. I’m going to share a little bit more next time about my considerations around citizenship. A few other things that about our decision to move here, how we picked this location. So I’ll share a little bit more about that in the next episode.

Stacy: And with that, I just want to thank you for being with me today. If this was helpful, I would be so grateful if you would take a moment to rate and review this podcast. Really, I. I don’t even know how to fully express what a difference it makes for me. So if you have just a minute, 30 seconds right now to leave a five star review and you can just write, love this podcast. I mean, simple. It would truly help me reach more people with the message of living a life that is beyond better. I want to thank, as always, Rita Domingues for her production of this fine podcast. I truly could not do it without her and I am so grateful. And I will be back with you before you know it. Tchau.