Retiring to Portugal (A Personal Testimony on the SEF & AIMA Transition)

[Music] hello and welcome my emerging expat you're tuned in to let's move to Portugal I'm producer Dan and I have the distinct honor of bringing you YouTube Travelers and our resident Portugal experts expats everywhere's Josh and Kaye each week they'll Inspire they'll educate and they'll accompany you on your journey to Portuguese residency this week on let's move to Portugal Kaylee sits down with Diane who shares her exhilarating Journey from California to the Serene silver Coast navigating the Realms of retirement pet relocation and embracing a new chapter in Portugal hey xats and travs alike welcome back to the xats everywhere presents let's move to Portugal podcast this is season 2 episode 24 Kaylee how you doing I let you do it first this time back to normal I am doing well how are you doing doing well uh time just changed um so it you know I feel pretty good I don't feel sleepy or anything like that no this is the one though and when Josh say time just changed we just had our daylight savings here in Portugal yes uh unlike America who had it a couple weeks ago but um this one's the one though where you're not sleepy right you uh you stay you stay up a little later stay a little later because you spring ahead with the hour so you're not really tired so there is that yeah feel good I'm I'm actually loving how uh the sun is out later in the day yes that is that's so nice and we've had after eight yeah Sun's still out love it it kind of throws you off though first right cuz it's like it's whoo it's that late no you know what I've been anticipating it so I've been like tracking it every couple weeks like all right what's the sunrise sunet times when is when's daylight savings coming when are we going to get rid of daylight savings yeah yeah we let's stay on this like let's stay on this exact time zone that's the one I that was apparently something that was talked about before Co I think the EU was going to do away with it and think they voted on it and said yes and then Co had we can't do it anymore guys that makes that sense right yeah oh no we don't know what to do uh yeah um one thing listener that if you are just listening and not watching uh something I'm giggling at a little bit is Josh and I are both wearing black but I have a black T-shirt and Josh looks like uh his was black 20 years ago this shirt is 20 years ago very faded and so if you see us on YouTube on the podcast Channel there you can take a look at the difference in New Black and old black listen they don't make t-shirts like they used to like this one's held up really well apart from the uh call Fr yeah it's an oldie buddy goodie it's an oldie buddy goodie yeah so there is that when I see our uh our video it kind of makes me giggle well I think the important thing is is our colors are are different so it distinguishes it on inividual you can tell a difference between the two of us so we don't just look like one Big Blob with two heads exactly yeah what if we were one Big Blob with two heads that's okay okay so this week um we were able to go check out the property multiple times and that was that was awesome to be able to go by there see the progress on the work when I say property uh for those of you who are new we have bought a property in Porto Portugal and we are renovating it and uh the date for completion has not moved which is a good thing so it's supposed to be finished by the end of June 2025 but demo is in full swing so that's kind of fun CU obviously you see stuff change quickly with demo right because it's just knocking a bunch of stuff down yes and then in a couple weeks the crane will go up they've got to set the concrete and do all that fun stuff so that should be happening yeah when Kay says set the concrete they have to pour a concrete slab so that they can set the crane but I thought I mean when I say set though I mean like the concrete has to set yeah it has the Cure yeah that's it I can use that terminology make it seem like I know what I'm talking about so if you want to follow that then you can go to let's get building with Josh and Kaye because we actually have a little on there now we haven't done a video video yet but we did get some photos of I got to video's coming though like I'm I'm going to start editing it after I do this coming week's edit that we haven't even shot yet that's fun be a fun one but speaking of the channel we just put out a video about the mortgage rates here in Portugal I mean it's more about uh than just mortgage rates but mortgages are dropping in terms of the rates so uh it's it's a good time to buy houses um yeah we we interview the guy rapael the mortgage broker that we used so he he's very good his team is very good and thank you to all those who have emailed and want to you know want to get put in touch with them I'm happy to introduce you so you can email me at info xpats everywhere.com and I'll introduce you to Raphael and also thanks to those that have used Raphael and have commented on the video that we put out on Saturday saying like hey he's awesome he did a great job he got me the loan yeah Ra's team's great all those things um super helpful great feedback and yeah that's kind of what's been going on in the world of xets everywh YouTube right so a couple things coming out we've got a video about long-term healthc care that we're going to put out and a few other interviews and oh um money moving money transferring money abroad some of the logistical things yeah well you know hand inand with with a mortgage is is transferring money in like the safest most comfortable and maybe even cheapest way depending on on how you look at it um transferring money is a thing it is like you what do you mean of course it is where you doing where you going with that no like it is it is a it's a thing that can feel very yeah it can feel very daunting to when you're when you are purchasing a house in Portugal the closing costs are immense because in general as a foreigner especially your down payment is going to be like 20 25 upwards 30% uh and there are people out there that are in our community that have bought houses with cash so the amount of money that you have to transfer from USD to Euros is just really high if you're American let's say or Canadian as well um with your CAD Canadian dollar whatever it is so yeah so we we touch on that and the best way to do that and how we did it as well so exactly okay but let's talk about the podcast that's on the channel the podcast I sit down and I with Diane it was such an informative chat you know I don't want to call it an interview chat because um she they just went through the process so they've just recently moved to Portugal and she's very organized and so talking about the steps for when they had their Visa appointment in the US it was Seth but by the time they got here the in-person appointment Biometrics was with IMA so it's very very recent she was on the ball has great advice gives good information for what you currently need so that's why it's really important um to listen to what she has to say because it's what's happened recently cuz she does touch on when you research online there's a lot of outdated information because it's moving so fast right it is yeah so so it's really good information not only that they also moved with pets so for those of you who are looking to move with pets they have that information and how that went uh they had a bit of a tough time with one of their cats which is kind of a funny little Side Story in there but um just very informative on the process and then of course we do touch on where they are and how they're liking it and how they're liking their recent move and their home so it was a really informative and good good chat that we had nice and speaking of IMA we are going to update our courses because our courses all talk about seph and although seph and IMA are are practically the same entity I mean they're different entities but they're practically the same function a lot of the workers actually moved from processing visas with Seth to Ima Now talks about that we are updating the the words that are used in the course uh just to let you know that if you do purchase a course or you have in the past uh it's going to be updated you're always getting the most current thing that's happening in Portugal in terms of the uh the immigration we're not going to let that course die no no I I update it all the time as things change because things have been changing but we waited a bit on the videos on actually updating the videos from the Seth to Ima because this is has been something that's talked about for years so we wanted to see how the change over went because yeah it really has been talked about for quite a while and then it's like they said they were going to change and then they didn't and then the changeover was bad and so so we have just been waiting to update those videos all the text is always up to date and I have like little side notes in there like you know when I say seph it's IMA now and then we also have a video that that explains that as well but we are currently in the process of updating the actual videos for the course just for things like that when it says Seth rather than um ussf will change it IMA but the information is the same enough with me and you let's get to you and Diane all right sounds good Diane thanks so much for joining us on the podcast today now I'm really interested to talk to you because you recently moved to Portugal so you've gone through a lot of the different changes with Seth I'm a paperwork so I want to dig into that for sure and then we'll talk about the fun stuff of how you are doing adjusting you brought your cats over so lots of fun stuff to talk about so let's back up initially and explain to our listener what you were doing before and why you chose Portugal um okay so I worked in healthcare it and uh my husband and I prior to covid had been thinking we really wanted an adventure in retirement and so we were thinking we might want to retire early and move overseas and we had a short list of places we wanted to investigate and Portugal was at the top of it uh mostly based on a childhood visit I had um where I absolutely love the food and thought it was beautiful um so we made plans to visit but then Co derailed us and so um once things open back up uh we said well let's start with the top of the list and let's go check it out and we came out for a trip uh saw a lot of different areas and just loved it so we decided why wait um we're not getting any younger and we want to be able to run around and do whatever we want so we decided to go ahead and retire did you check out any of the other places on your list or Portugal was it and you were good with it Portugal was it we did a lot of Investigation of the other um likely candidates and Portugal was like really far above the other ones there was like a a sizable Gap so once we came over and U we were happy with what we found here we we left our our scouting trip actually with four different cities identifi that we thought we would be happy Landing in and we thought that was a really good sign so that was it yeah that is a good sign gives you options at least right right were any of the other countries in Europe or they were in different continents um South America we did have Spain as sort of a distant possibility but um Costa Rico was our number two for example okay okay yeah that's quite common I think especially for Americans we think okay what's south of us right in Central or South America as options but then when you have an idea that maybe I could do a European country that's when it gets a little more interesting like could Portugal work could Spain work are there any other options right right yeah okay great so you decided on Portugal you and your husband both retired at the same time yes okay and I see it's like three weeks before me I guess okay well that's still that in the grand scheme of things that's still about the same time uh okay great and so then you did you retire and then start looking into the paperwork or you were going through the paper work in um preparing for the move before retirement we were preparing before retirement it it was a a a journey for us because we knew that appointments were taking a while with VFS Global to submit your paperwork on the US side of things we went ahead and we booked an appointment um and then our we had like a target of trying to come um 90 to maybe 120 days out somewhere in that range um and that ended that time frame ended up working for us but that meant that I had to be strategic about when I turned in my notice um as did Eric and um we also got a pleasant surprise in that VFS Global had been really lagging in the s San Francisco market and then they just like got instantly better when we applied and we were taken by surprise with how quick it was okay but that was a good a good surprise yes definitely a good surprise okay so what state did you move from and then you went through the San Francisco BFS yes um we had been most recently living in California so that's where we were coming from we lived in the Bay Area which made it really easy for us because we didn't have to fly in and stay overnight we just drove up and did our appointment okay oh perfect so how hard was it to get an appointment when you started looking it wasn't too bad I want to say that it was two months out but early in that second month we happened to just look at the beginning of a month though and that's when they tend to release a batch so and that was I didn't know anything about that timing I just got lucky okay and you created the login checked and and created the uh appointment online and everything right right okay so you go to your appointment and at the time of your VFS appointment was Seth still processing or had the IMA switch happened Seth had was still processing at that point but it was like kind of an imminent at any time it could switch over they I don't think they had quite announced that it was officially going to be October they were still kind of fudging around with dates okay so you were a few months before that like when when was your VFS uh July 10th okay so you go to your VFS appointment uh tell us what that was like what paperwork did you bring how did you feel uh about that process did you make appointments for both you and Eric or you each had your separate logins helped the listener run through that process okay we did make separate appointments and have separate logins but I managed all of it because he doesn't really like to do that um he's more of like a building Furniture uh Logistics guy um so we we were me but double me basically and I did all the paperwork Organization for all of us um and I enjoy that type of thing I mean not maybe not to this level but I like organization so I was kind of in my wheelhouse I guess um would we went we took um the 11 uh required things that they indicate that you need to take um and it's it's been a while but it's just the standard list you know the certified copy of our passport um we took one thing I took that was extra was I took our U marriage license that was certified and app steeled and at that point I didn't have it translated I had it translated when I got over here for the IMA appointment um we had uh the three months of finances both on the Portugal Bank side and the US Bank and had a lot of mutual fund uh backup as well which they didn't seem that interested for us because with Eric's social security um the amount that we made was adequate so they were less concerned about savings for us but I did include the savings and I did include the statement of the estimate of what ultimately my Social Security will be when I'm able to take it so I think that helped us as well um and then the application I'm trying to think what some of the other things were that we took we really didn't take anything usual we just um everything that anybody wrote online at any time that they said oh I took this we took it too so we the in your class I think you said over bring we we we subscribe to that yeah I think it's always better that's what I definitely say and the course you're talking about we have a D7 and a d8 course for for you listener if you want um and I also have a checklist you can email us about this checklist too of what you need but I always say that that like bringing up and over you know proof of everything just in case because they can always take stuff out right but you don't want to get stuck with them saying well where's this cuz sometimes it's just the person you get that day and they're just being a little finicky and you're like oh I didn't think I needed that and they want that right so you might as well just bring it all right we brought everything and we they instantly like threw a bunch of stuff back in our lap and and then they put we had everything in order they needed and and then at the end they were like do you want to add anything and I was like yeah these Financial things please because I was just worried you know I wanted them to make sure they had everything the um the interesting thing was um in that stage even though it was still Seth it um but right before we were imply applying in July in may they introduced some new Visa types and so I had this up until the day of or the day before um feeling of am I a D7 or am I this new thing called uh family member accompanying uh D7 Visa applicant at the same time um and I didn't really know so I prepared my packets both ways and my letter uh both ways my letter of intent and um ultimately decided on the second one since I don't have a a pinion at this point okay so at the VFS office you asked them like what exactly am I applying for did you ask them I did and that was funny too um so I I asked like I prepared it both ways Which Way looking at our stuff do do you think I should do it and they said the person taking it said well you're definitely a D7 because you are on the bank account and you're on the lease and I was like oh okay um well here's that packet and but not really like I still was was um nervous about it because he gave me back the my financial stuff since we were going under Eric's uh money and I was like well that sounds more like I'm accompanying um so just in case he put us strictly in the D7 category I just forced him to take my financial paperwork as a as a precaution and he did that he he agreed to do that but then when we got our Visa back and I looked up the type of Visa I was issued it was issued the other one family member did it did it say it it still said D7 but um the Articles and stuff were different and they were the kind where you accy family member okay yeah so it sounds like what happens is is because financials sufficed for both of you you were just considered a dependent rather than an independent D7 applicant which happens a lot I mean mainly it's looking at finances and can can the first person which would be Eric financially sustain everyone you know because this would go for kids as well uh so can you can can he financially sustain with what he has but it's still good to put your financials in there as well especially for future stuff showing that in the future when you do start drawing off of Social Security and such you're your set right right I wanted us to look like a very good bet a stable bet you know not just at the moment but going forward exactly right that makes sense okay so then after you have your your um your appointment how did you feel did you feel nervous did you feel good about it I always worry about everything I'm an overthinker so I was fairly stressed out and we actually got one bit of information that was supposed to be put on the application the morning of our appointment our appointment was at noon and we got it at 10:00 so that I was pretty stressed out but after the appointment I left feeling great he actually he did Eric's packet first and he gave it back and said what was the word he used beautiful I think so I was like okay I think that sounds pretty good that the person who does a bunch of this likes it you know so I I I love feeling good and I think Eric did as well yeah good um how long did all of it take from like getting there for your appointment waiting to be called in sitting with the person how long was that I believe that we got up to see him to give him our paperwork at about an hour and 15 minutes after our appointment time and um there were a bunch of people that day not everybody for Portugal because s San Francisco does France and a bunch of other countries and France was quite busy um and then it only took us 30 minutes for him to do both of our sets of pap paperwork okay so definitely block out a good chunk of time just in case because you're not sure if you'll be waiting for a while really is the big thing yeah and we came early and scoped it out made sure that we knew where we were going and what we needed to do um just to make ourselves more comfortable right and then did you do money orders or did you pay there we did money orders okay so we part of why we went early was just to double check and because it was the 10th of July and there had been a holiday the announcement of what the fees were going to be was a little bit delayed but we did have it we did have the information so we got money orders but then we went early to check to make sure that it hadn't changed and it had not okay all right good okay so you sent them off you're feeling good about her because he said beautiful uh for your packet and then how long did it take for you to hear back from them unbelievably 30 days 30 days okay and did you leave your passport with them or did you wait for them to contact you we didn't and if you're applying at San Francisco I'll tell you this they are really pushy and they try to get you to leave it um and to the point where they said oh it's taking about two months for approvals and then when we said well we're not going to leave our passport we're just leaving the certified copy they said oh well it'll be four like it goes in a whole different stack or something so and we were we held our ground and we're like no you know uh and and it didn't matter at all apparently for us yeah I always recommend that you keep your passport because you never know yeah what pilot goes into if it falls on the floor somewhere you know and you're it's just your passport you know it's nerve-wracking right so it's a lot harder to have to get your second passport or something like that whereas when they do contact you you can then just send in your passport and it's pretty fast from there right I mean it didn't take that long when they contacted you right not at all we dropped it in the mail I think they had it in two days and then we had it about three days later back so it was two or three it was very quick for us but we're local which helped okay yeah okay so um you get your passport back and then from there how long had you planned on um leaving from getting your visa to actually moving um we wanted to move um let's see in about two months um from from when uh we we had you know an apartment to give notice on work to give notice on and um so it was it was pretty fast furniture to figure out a home for right okay was that stressful or was exciting it was exciting for for Eric I think it was stressful because that's kind of his part of it um especially because he retired a few weeks earlier he really was caught up in all the furniture disposal um uh stuff but that ended up being easier than we thought because our our friends our neighbors and cats sitters U we swap swap cats sitting uh they moved into our apartment and took a bunch of our stuff so it's kind of nice to think about that but I was calm because like the paperwork part was done for the time being so okay good that's good foreshadowing we'll get to that that uh in a minute but I want to talk about the cats because you brought your cats and you had a bit of a wild ride with it right yes yes everything went really smoothly at first for the cats the paperwork was great the vet visit the extra microchipping rabies certificate planning all of that um was great and we decided we we we could have flown on tap from San Francisco straight to Lisbon but it was 11 hours and then with all the the waiting around that we would have to do on either end we just thought that was too long for our cats black Ms so we decided to to give them a break in the middle and do two shorter flights so we flew to Newark and uh planned to stay uh for about um a day and a half there and then fly on from there to Lisbon which sounds great in theory and might might have been great in practice except that our hotel had a fire alarm go off the morning of our Lisbon flight and we had an evacuation an ER visit it and a flood uh between then and our flight to Lisbon so it was my gosh absolutely crazy my my female cat is still not quite over it um and uh we we managed to catch the shuttle um to the airport five minutes before it was due to leave um because that's H how much of an effort it took to get her back into her carrier so I don't know that I would do it again that that way but it was just a fluke a comedy of things coming together do you think it was the fire alarm that ultimately did her in or the yeah the the uh the I think it was a combination the she's very sound sensitive and the fire alarm and us trying to evacuate with both cats um she didn't want to go be shoved in and she was freaking out and but I think if if that had happened in our home not in a hotel it might have been different and she spent a whole day in her carrier and wasn't too thrilled about getting back into it I'm sure so it was sort of a lot of things but mostly the fire alarm okay so do you think that it would have been I mean in your personal case would it have been better to just take that 11h hour flight or what do you think for your cats at least I think with hindsight I would have done it and uh especially if i' if I'd only had female cats which are less at risk for like holding it than boy cats but I had one of each so I just was being cautious but I think I having to do it again I would have um done the direct flight yeah that makes sense because I well I'm not sure with cats but with our dog what we would travel with him in the cabin because he's so small so I would take those little like pee pads and every few hours we'd go into the bathroom put one of those down and let him pee if he had to just you know that was my little thing that I would do to make sure he wasn't holding it too long I I don't know can you do that with cats or you can try we had pee pads for hours but mostly cats tend to just um you know hold it the entire way if possible which is kind of not great um yeah but you can do some adjustment things like not feeding them as much which is recommended anyway and just being careful about the amount of water um so we were prep prepared I think and what some people do is um if they have good Travelers especially with dogs is they just um take a little road trip and they go to one of the more a place like New York or Boston that has a really short direct flight so they have one flight but it's shorter than 11 hours yeah yeah we could have done that but we just opted not to okay so you made it to Lisbon and then when you were in the airport you went and saw the vet uh by the baggage claim right you did all that right right um and that was really smooth I mean getting there was a really long walk carrying car years um but the vet was really chill and and uh he scanned our cats and he gave one of them like more of a physical exam but because of the situation with their female cat he just basically waved the microchip over her carrier and said we're good and looked in went she looks healthy to me and then took our took our money yeah how much did you have to pay do you remember I don't remember um I want I I I I couldn't even Hazard a guess whatever the current thing was it was pretty reasonable yeah because I mean obviously for us it's been several years but I can't remember it was like either 30 or 50 um something like that yeah I I 80 popped in my head and maybe so maybe it was 40 for birth both but I could be completely wrong yeah I can't remember either but okay so you did that and then once you got into Lisbon you found a vet and does do the C have a their EU passports yet they do um our boy cat who's a super traveler and really chill got here his like a week after we landed went to the vet the whole thing with the girl cat she um needed a a little more babying and so we persuaded our wonderful and brave vet to come over and he did her exam at our apartment and um they both have their passports now okay great and so your female cat is still a little in shock or getting better she's better she's a lot better she mostly her personality is back to normal except she is we're not we're able to pick her up now which we couldn't do at first because she was so scared of every little movement you made but she's good now um and we can pick her up for things that we need to but we kind of reserve it for just need to things but she still with an unexpected sound which has been fun with the Workman she still does this like amazing Cricket straight up in the air jump um when she is frightened by an unexpected noise but every every day she gets used to more and more of the noises so she's she's good okay all right well that's good it should get better right as time goes on yeah yeah like At first we were like what are we gonna do with this cat because she she was just so freaked out but her her brother uh was really good at kind of teaching her how to be a cat again and was really patient with her so having to was really helpful in that sense oh that's sweet okay good so you've landed in Lisbon are you staying in Lisbon or greater Lisbon where are you located um we are up uh on the silver Coast but but fairly close we're in the cish terania area okay so you did you take a car from libon there did you have that already booked or how did you get to your apartment that you had we had a transport already booked and because we brought four large of the 50 lb bags with us and two cat carriers we booked a van and um he met us and we had no issue with that helped us get our luggage in and up to the apartment it was a really good experience good and you didn't ship anything you just came over with those bags um we came over just with bags yes yep okay great so after you got there uh and you settled was the apartment furnished like everything set up or did you have to set anything up no it was it was just partially furnished um and so we had a lot of setup to do which was really fun um but it took a really long time you can see behind me like most my walls are mainly still BL blank you know it just takes time to get it all in there how long have you been in there now um we got here on Halloween so okay four months good yep good all right so then when you got approved did they give you your did they assign you your um in-person appointment in Portugal or what was the The Next Step paperwork wise in Visa wise we did get we were very lucky we both had appointments assigned it with a little stamp in the Visa with the URLs um and we were at the same location on the same day and the same time and we were just like oh my gosh things are going so well so we and we were in uh but we were a little nervous because we were in assigned to an appointment in Lisbon at the busiest one so we were a little bit worried that that that could mean that it would take a long time to get our cards but um we figured they did a lot of people so it should be a pretty smooth process because they're going through volume okay so at the time of that appointment was it seph or Ima it had changed to Ima at that point um and we knew that uh beforehand it uh because it happened you know close but not so close we would be completely surprised so we made sure we went online and we got the new application form that's basically the same as the old Seth one but it has an IMA logo on it so we we printed that out we filled everything out on that and um the day of our appointment the lady picked out pulled it out of paperwork pointed to the IMA logo and was like I'm a good and and I I was like Seth and I mind like crumpling up paper and threw it over my shoulder and she thought that was funny although she worked for Seth for 25 years before she worked for IMA so okay so she just got shifted over doing the same thing but for IMA rather than Seth probably right and I think that happens a lot and so um don't worry that they're going to just be completely newbies this because most of them have been doing it a long time as our lady had had been okay and what did you take with you in addition to that application we took um really all the same things except less of it honestly um we we took full printouts of our Portuguese bank accounts and uh statements and we had uh three months of our mutual funds and our US Bank kind of sitting sitting in a separate pile and uh prepared to give it to her and didn't she didn't take it from us she had what she needed but we had the same uh Financial set um and most of the same paperwork that we had before we did include the the oposed marriage license the certified opos um and I had gotten it translated here in Portugal and she did take that um okay I think if they had considered me a true D7 that might not have been necessary but with the accompanying family I think it probably was so a good idea to get it yeah or if you have kids that's another thing that I always tell people um the marriage license and the birth certificates that needs to be in the packet uh if you have kids so that's a big one too yeah yeah so it was I can't think of anything completely unusual that we took but we did print out from the Seth they were still using the Seth website and we had our appointment page and so I went on and I um I printed the page that page that showed my appointment and my time and I printed one for Eric and when we went to Ima that day and we were outside we had those paper with us to show our appointment time which ended up being really a great thing there was huge huge line yeah huge line and we had this uh 8:30 appointments and we stood uh we we had read online don't worry about the huge line stand over if you have an appointment because the big line is for people without appointments and so we stood kind of over to the side and when the guard came out he came out and he said in English um I want to just see the people with 8 and 8:30 appointments and I walked right up to him and showed him the paper and pointed to the 8:30 and he just waved us right in so that was great yeah really good really good then yeah have that printed out and proof of that really important so you don't get stuck in that line or just lost in the shuffle because you don't have the proof right right right yeah okay so you had that appointment how long did that appointment take uh 40 minutes for both of us including Biometrics all right and then you're done with that appointment how long did it take for you to get your residency card um not not bad um 60 days essentially I got mine a few days before Eric um but yeah about 60 days and was Eric sweating it when you got yours and he didn't get his no he he he figured he had heard stories that people were were different he was a little bit nervous but it was cute because the mailman that delivered mine uh Eric signed for mine and he uh Eric said just one and the CTT guy said yours will be here soon soon soon of course you know he could he had nowhere of knowing that but it was cute that he thought we needed reassurance that is cute do you think if Eric's came first would you be freaking out or you'd be okay with oh my personality would be like every day I would be like refreshing on the SE website to see if anything looked different yeah I would have been so it was great that it was the other way around yeah that's the same with me and uh I would be freaking out but yeah um okay good so that's all the paperwork stuff out of the way which I think our listeners going to be super interested in because it's just it's everchanging right so it's nice to hear your perspective because you just went through it recently with VFS with it was SE and it's IMA but now you're here and you're in the C shahana area how are you liking it is it too big too small have you met people tell us about your experience we love the area um it is you know by our standard it's a fairly small town but there are other small towns in the area and so it it's sort of I say we live in the CIA area because it is it's like an area with a nice Community it's got an xat Community but it's not huge um we when we first got here it's beautiful and green and it's a convenient to the ocean and it actually has quite a bit going on for a town of its size and that's what the that was the main appe peal for us and being relatively easy to get into Lisbon was also nice as well but we did choose to have a car and in a smaller area I think it's really helpful to do that if you're not in Lisbon or Porto especially um shortly after we got here Thanksgiving happened and they had an expat event um at the hotel around the corner from us so we attended that and we met some expats early on but even before that in a little restaurant that we just wandered into um we met some expats because the owner knew them and when they came in he said oh you should meet this couple they're they're new and they're from the states too and so we met and now we've become friends and they have a cat as well okay all right good are you noticing um is there a specific age demographic for the expats there or you noticing like families retirees a whole mix or is there a certain type at the thanks giving group that I would say there was a good mix but it skewed a little bit older like us but um that said you know we we at our table had a mix and we had people in their 30s there so I I would say 30 mid-30s and up um was what the group tended to be okay and where were some of the other places that were on your list of possible um cities you could live in before you chose C the Kahan area um we uh nearby we we liked uh Lydia a lot that was number two for us and then the other two that we liked were um closer to where you are uh we we really liked um Villa Villanova filal and gimes okay okay great uh and so are you happy with your choice yes yeah we're very happy here um we it's funny though because one of the things that made us um gravitate toward this area other than just the feel was we were a little worried it might be too cold and wet and rainy for us um even though we'd lived in the Bay Area in California and we were kind of used to that type of weather like the San Francisco weather and so I think that steered us a little further south but um the CIA area it it tracks more with the north as far as being cooler um and it's totally worked for us we love the climate here the little microclimate okay great that sounds good well any uh final advice you would give to our listener on the process of you know retiring moving over here the paperwork um maybe emotions and expectations anything like that yeah um def definitely plan that things are going to take longer than you think because it's really nice to be pleasantly surprised and it's not good to think you're going to be the golden person who has everything perfect and then you don't and you just stress yourself out um paperwork wise I found that joining um Facebook groups with other people that were moving to Portugal and staying in tune with your YouTube videos and other vloggers were were helpful because they really had their hands more on the pulse of what was going on and the changes with the transition and you got to hear about specific experiences of people who went to exactly the same VFS Global office that you did like the month before you went and what they were asked for so I found that very calming because I could see am I really going a RAB like down a rabbit hole here of like overpreparing or other people doing a similar thing to me and it kind of kept me grounded so I would recommend those two things okay great and at expit Everywhere We believe that living abroad transforms lives so has moving to Portugal and living abroad transformed your life well it's early days um but we've both noticed that we sleep a lot better because our stress level is lower because we are retired and it is a smaller Community that's more laidback um but so I think that's been the most transforming thing about it and we also just get up in the morning and we have this sense of we've started started a new chapter and that's very invigorating as well awesome well Diane thank you so much for joining me today oh it's been my pleasure I'm I was really pleased to be invited and hope it will be helpful for someone

Channel: ExpatsEverywhere Podcast

Views: 1,339

Keywords: expats, expatseverywhere, podcast, sef vs aima, move to portugal, live in portugal, moving to portugal, living in portugal, life in portugal, how to move to portugal, portugal experiences as an expat

Id: 0k5EUOyrlTg

Length: 45min 13sec (2713 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 04 2024