1968
Everything is so expensive
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2024
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"Sure, leaving your abuser is the obvious answer. But the ability to leave your abuser is much more complex."
I didn't say it was the obvious answer, you did.
I said it was the savvy alternative.
I also didn't say it was easy.
but I understand why you got confused, lots of people make the same assumptions you have.
as for your travel questions:
"What about those of us who have to take medication daily?"
you go to a hospital or pharmacy and get the medication.
If you are lucky enough to speak English, you'll have no trouble with this.
"How am I supposed to get that medication across the border and find a doctor to prescribe it?"
I would get the medication locally, but if you want or need to take it with you:
to get the medication across a border, fill out a small index card stating the medication and its purpose.
If you want the doctor to prescribe it, if that is necessary, you go to a hospital or a pharmacy.
"how do I even know if the medicine I take is available in that country?"
If it is available in your country, it is available in other countries.
"Don't have the time."
then you don't have this non-problem you are hoping is an issue.
people who need medication have the time to get the proper medication, which is usually much cheaper and easier to do in other countries because most countries have working health care systems.
"Critical thinking requires you to test aspects supporting and dissenting from your original understanding."
your misunderstanding of alternative = risk is a very common fear-based symptom of hermetic monocultures.
mint ice cream is an alternative to strawberry ice cream.
that does not make mint ice cream significantly more risky or dangerous than strawberry ice cream, it is simply an alternative that functions the same way.
So now we're starting down the road of throwing out logical fallacies to support your argument? Why don't you just go do something else. Arguing with people here with long winded responses isn't going to sway anybody anyway.
"So now we're starting down the road of throwing out logical fallacies"
I don't mind If you're going to try fallacies next, but they probably aren't going to fare much better than your previous illogical reasoning, which didn't exactly pan out for you.
"Why don't you just go do something else."
I'm washing clothes right now.
you're my down time.
"Arguing with people here with long winded responses isn't going to sway anybody anyway."
I've had the opposite experience.
although it is funny that you ostensibly think that while simultaneously keeping the conversation going.
You can just walk into any hospital and a doctor will have time to see you and prescribe a medication for you? Or you can just walk into any pharmacy and get a medication without a prescription? Forgive me if I'm skeptical. What country are you describing?
While this is generally true, it is not universally true for all medications. Where a specific medication is not available there generally will be similar/suitable alternatives (at least, in a country with a developed healthcare system), but a lay person won't know what those are and will require professional guidance, meaning finding a doctor and waiting for an appointment. During which time you may well run out of your medication.
This take suggests a lack of perspective on chronic/debilitating illnesses as well as poverty. I hope you never have to experience either. I don't know about wherever you're from, but in the US it is not uncommon for people to have to work 2-3 jobs just to survive and taking time off for going to a doctor and pharmacy could mean the difference on making enough to pay rent this month. Even if taking time off is a real option, for people struggling to secure basic survival needs (i.e. food/shelter), it leaves little cognitive space for more abstract/complex concerns. It may be conceptually simple to obtain healthcare, but in practice it can be anything but simple even if the healthcare system itself isn't broken. I am fortunate enough to make a living with only one job but I work the same hours that most doctors' offices are open, which means taking time off work every time I or my offspring require care, which can quickly eat through paid leave time and isn't exactly conducive to success in America's abusive work culture.
Healthcare in whereever you are from may well be more functional than in the US, but I really can't fathom that it's as trivial as you imply for someone who requires medications or other ongoing treatment to simply arrive and get the care they need without potentially problematic delay.
"You can just walk into any hospital and a doctor will have time to see you and prescribe a medication for you?"
yes.
"you can just walk into any pharmacy and get a medication without a prescription?"
depends on the medication.
but mostly, yes.
I can't think of a legitimate health scenario where the answer is no.
"Forgive me if I'm skeptical."
forgiven.
I've heard these questions a hundred times.
If you're haven't traveled, you equate everything to the US, although things like the healthcare system abroad are meant to serve people rather than corporations so they function a lot differently than you're used to.
"What country are you describing?"
most of Western Europe and most of Asia (I can only speak to the countries I've been to), and I know someone who lives exclusively in the Balkans who says all the countries there are the same as well.
"While this is generally true, it is not universally true for all medications."
it's universally true as far as I'm aware and have experienced.
you might not have the same brand, but it'll be the same medication except readily available and cheaper.
"a lay person won't know what those are and will require professional guidance"
yea, I assume it's the same in your country? where some medications should be prescribed or recommended by a doctor?
"finding a doctor and waiting for an appointment."
Google and maybe sitting down and playing on your phone for a half hour is a lot easier than you're making it out to be.
"During which time you may well run out of your medication."
how?
I can't imagine this scenario happening.
Unless you're talking about something you have to take hourly and you brought one pill with you so you'll be without medication for 30 minutes?
these are such unlikely possibilities.
I've known known an uncountable number of travelers for the past decade, many of whom take medication, zero of which have ever complained of not being able to find their particular medication.
not once.
I hear "geez did you know X is only like three bucks here? It's like $80 a bottle in the states!"
"This take suggests a lack of perspective on chronic/debilitating illnesses as well as poverty."
couldn't be less correct.
your doubt on what I'm saying simply demonstrates your ignorance.
I'm not using "ignorance" as a pejorative term, I mean that you literally don't know what you are talking about.
chronic debilitating illnesses and poverty are characterized by financial trouble.
traveling takes away financial stressors.
I have known many retirees and chronically ill people who have regaled me with tales of how easy it is to retire in Vietnam/Germany/Portugal/Laos and so on because they don't have to worry about the cost of medication.
financial anxiety isn't completely determining their life.
"it leaves little cognitive space for more abstract/complex concerns."
Yes, this was my original point.
If you don't have any savings, if you're a month away from living on the street, if you have healthcare needs, and these financial stressors are determining your life, traveling can fix that almost instantly.
then you can save up money, make a plan and go back to whatever you want to do.
but at the very least you'll have breathing room, and what's most likely is you'll discover that traveling is way better than struggling in the US and you'll keep traveling.
"....isn't exactly conducive to success in America's abusive work culture."
yep, America's work culture sucks.
most other countries have siestas and employee rights.
and are focused on draining you financially. every second you're awake
Plus, if you're outside of the US for more than 330 days out of the year, you fill out the FEIE, an IRS tax form, and you don't pay income tax up to $120,000 per year.
"I really can't fathom that it's as trivial as you imply for someone who requires medications or other ongoing treatment to simply arrive and get the care they need without potentially problematic delay."
That's because you haven't done it yet(and I never said it was trivial).
It's difficult to fathom something you've never experienced.
especially when you're living in the worst existing iteration of functional health care infrastructure.
you've grown up with excruciating waits and debilitating, financially disastrous healthcare your whole life, and you are surrounded by people who think the same thing and think it's normal, so thinking about health care at all puts you in the mindset of excruciating waits, debilitating, financially disastrous, healthcare.
That's mostly a US specialty.
ask anyone who has traveled for any length of time and they will tell you exactly what I'm telling you.
I'm very happy to answer these questions and will answer any other questions you have.
How would someone with zero savings move to another country? Most have every barriers of highly skilled, unfilled professions. Like who move from extremely underprivileged nations to extremely wealthy nations often end up surrendering passport and other critical documents to their employers and end up severely mentally and physically abused, sexually abused, trafficked. How would an older person even pay for required documents, let alone a living space, food, utilities, especially being monolingual?
"How would someone with zero savings move to another country?"
there are many, many ways, I suggest teaching English because it's the easiest thing.
If you have a phone, you can start teaching English online.
you need $100 to leave the country, about $250 to $300 to make it to Asia, where most of the highest paying English teaching jobs are.
so let's say you only have 30 minutes free time a night and you're making the lowest amount of money teaching on an app, about $12 an hour, and you want to go teach in korea.
you'll need to work about 25 hours to get $300, so 50 days of 30 minutes per day,
or a little over 2 weeks of 90 minutes a day teaching.
you will then have the savings to get to korea and start teaching, or you'll be making over 2,000 USD with zero experience starting and your costs will plummet to less than $1000 USD a month.
so within 2 months envisioning the bare minimum of free time in the US, you can be in Asia saving $1,000 per month.
so within a couple of months, you have $1,000 more savings than you have, and every month you have $1,000 or more savings.
you can obviously tweak this, but those numbers are accurate.
"Most have every barriers of highly skilled, unfilled professions."
this is inorrect.
most countries have barriers of unskilled in persons.
The more skilled you are, the easier it is to get a work permit in most countries.
are you into material sciences? are you a power plant engineer?
then you can get a work visa everywhere if you want to.
countries specifically have high-skill visas for high skilled people because every country wants high skilled people to move to their country.
you don't need any skills, to move, but if you are one of the rare high skilled people and want to move permanently and work locally, professional skills help.
"How would an older person even pay for required documents, let alone a living space, food, utilities, especially being monolingual?"
can you clarify this question?
are you asking about specifically old people traveling?
there are no age restrictions on travel, so they would travel the same as I've recommended for any other English speaker.
All of those have been answered in detail in previous comments, food and documents and all that.
Of course! My apologies, I just meant with the physical challenges, bursitis, arthritis, failing eyesight, etc.
Thanks so much for your answers. I appreciate them.
i see. All the old people traveling, or ill people for that matter, get their medications at pharmacies or hospitals.
a living space is usually found online through any one of dozens of apps, you can rent a house or an apartment or a condo or even a hostel, whatever you like, for $100(hostel)to $400(personal house), utilities included, per month.
a lot of the personal houses or monthly hotels have maid service.
there are so many ways to get housing through your phone or laptop, that housing is a non-issue these days.
The longer you stay in one place, the cheaper the housing is too.
I hung out with this cool group of old expats who have been living abroad in Cambodia for 15 to 40 years, and they were living on social security like kings renting houses in the neighborhood for less than a hundred bucks, eating sushi and drinking beer at their local hangout and swapping stories every night about the good old days.
especially after you're living somewhere, it's super easy to find local unlisted cheaper housing.
Just because I love sharing the story, there was a beach house community built in China, and since it's 1 hour drive out of the city and they hate not living in cities, that beach house was leasing for $200 a year.
there was a condo in a mountain community I visited outside of chongqing that was $120 a year.
That's all utilities and water included.
housing is absurdly cheap in a lot of places, especially if you're not in the middle of the city, and still reasonably cheap if you are nearer to or within the city.
I was in Thailand earlier this year and there were 30 different private houses within a 10-minute walk to the beach for less than $300 a month, private rooms for half that.
monolingual is a problem if you speak hindi or Mandarin, or something that isn't English.
a billion and a half people speak Hindi or Mandarin each, but within one country and very sparingly in the rest of the world.
If you're monolingual and you speak English?
you're lucky and you'll be able to communicate wherever you go.
there are great apps for learning languages, Duolingo has gone down the shitter but drops is a really interesting new app with a simple fun language teaching style.
and after you go to a restaurant in a new country, you pick up a few words if you are trying at all.
I like studying languages, especially food, so I usually start there, but I also know people that have lived in the same country for 10 years who don't learn any other language but get along fine because 1. most people can speak some level of English, 2. most places have English or romanized translations of their product 3. they can go to a supermarket or point at food and 4. they ask other expats for help with whatever they want that their language skills don't allow them. there's always a local expat community willing to help, because everyone has free time.
fundamentals are fundamental everywhere.
any of those basic necessities are accessible through an English language app, or like the medicine, available in any pharmacy or local shop, and most frivolous luxuries are also accessible through an English language app or international supermarket, so getting any fundamentals while traveling abroad is a non-issue as far as I've ever encountered or heard about, regardless of age.
Thanks. I'm not partial or full retirement age yet and I don't take any medications beyond aspirin or paracetamol. I'm supposed to, but I don't have funds for that or insurance either, right now. A lot of the meds I'm okay without anyway, afaict. But this is information I'll definitely look into. I'm okay being outside the city as long as I can get there or get what I need. I assume public transportation might be available, outside city or suburbs?
Have you ever been to Laos, Cuba or Vietnam? Can you please tell me a bit about any of those you've visited? Thanks.
yeah, public transportation is available everywhere, but most people have a electric scooter or motor scooter to get around everywhere anyway.
I've been around most of Southeast Asia. and whatever medication you can't afford in the states, you can afford the generic brand with identical active ingredients in Southeast Asia (and Europe).
Laos, I lived in for 3 months, and absolutely loved it. i lived in Luang Prabang, field capital that a lot of people moved out of so it's a little bit slower but still has a night market and tons of great restaurants and shops and everyone is super laid back.
really great food, which all costs $2 or less, The Mekong river ensconces the entire city, you can take riverboats if you want to just for fun or if you want to visit other towns.
there are like a bunch of different waterfalls all around the city that you can take a bike to or hike to or whatever.
that city is actually so small. I think they only have a couple buses, but with a bicycle you can drive across the city in 20 minutes anyway.
love laos, was considering settling down there, which happens with most countries i visit, hahaha.
nothing is more expensive than the US, and food is great. everywhere, and people are almost always great, Plus you have all the better social infrastructure and healthcare and everything so every time I'm in a new place, I'm like, yeah, this is a life!
cambodia is even smaller, they have cool dragon boat races, there's this town I love called kampot where this Japanese guy moved and he just has a large porch that he puts a couple tables and chairs on and he makes sushi and homebrews beer, so that's the cool spot to hang out at.
Vietnam! The food in Vietnam didn't wow. me as much as the others, but pho is pho, and I basically just ate pho for 3 months, and never got sick of it cuz it's the best.
when I went to Vietnam I bought a bicycle in the town. I landed in and then just rode out of the city, and I just chose North on a whim, and then discovered a week into my trip and 50 Mi North that the entire North part of Vietnam is all mountains and the entire South part is all flat, so I didn't see a single other foreigner for the 3 months that I was there. but those might be the most friendly and gracious people I have ever met.
like one guy ran out of his house to flag me down just to convince me to have breakfast with him, and we walked through his personal grove of dragon fruit, banana and mango trees that he just picked fruit from and we ate and then he cooked for me and played music and I was like. thank you so much but I have to go catch this train and he was like "go. thank you so much for spending the morning with me and visiting Vietnam"
this other guy sitting on his porch sipping tea waved me down, and then we communicated through Google translate, and then I ate dinner with him and his parents and they made the best amazing food I had the whole time I was in Vietnam.
it just kept happening over and over again, that's some random Vietnamese person would flag me down and do something incredibly kind and gracious.
and it's beautiful! like so much of all of Southeast Asia, so much of those countries are completely undeveloped, so you just have wild jungles all around you and it's stunning. and waterfalls everywhere.
I lived in a small town in Thailand and I just spent 2 weeks learning all of the constellations because the sky was like crystal clear and there was no light pollution where I was, a private house for I think $7 a day? with the best Thai restaurant I found in the whole country right next to my cabin.
yeah, it's difficult to go wrong with any place Southeast Asia, especially if finances are a concern.
sorry I speech to texted all of this, so there might be some bullshit mistakes all over the place.
you do not have to be retirement age to retire, btw, I started traveling in my 20s and I was like why would I stop doing this?
"do you want to come back, make car payments and have a mortgage? We shoot children a couple times a day! Don't get caught in the crossfire, you can't afford it! make sure to pay taxes, but you can't tell us what we're going to do with them!"
sorry for the run on,, I really do love talking about it hahah, and since I'm basically retired(work on what I want when I want) I have plenty of time to do it.
You make it sound so amazing! I could read your stories all day due days if I had no other obligations! If you ever visit southeastern US, and I'm not out of it yet, give me a shout - we'll do food and beer.
I didn't notice mistakes, and I agree with your USA assessment. May all your travels continue to bring you joy. Cheers!
thanks, it has been amazing so far.
and without financial stressors or many societal stressors really, I'm able to be in the moment a lot more and enjoy what's around me, do what I like to do(what a coincidence, food and beer are kind of high on my list).
that sounds fun; if I get back to area of the States, I will let you know.
have a good one, and if you have questions about any of this stuff on any level, hit me up.
I obviously have a lot of free time to respond, hahaha.
Very welcome! If I travel, I've bookmarked this thread so maybe we'll cross paths in more pleasant places.