What happens when your best-laid plans for life abroad suddenly go awry?

Some reflections on a fellow-Substack author's post about the unexpected and the need for backup plans

This is a short commentary, relatively speaking, reacting to a recent post by Kimberly Anne (@expatonabudget).

Photo credit: Bobby Hidy (Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic <https://www.flickr.com/photos/mpd01605/6755068753>)

Kimberly Anne has an active and very popular newsletter describing her life as an American living in Portugal, where she supplements her foreign earned income by (among other things) offering support to others who wish to follow in her footsteps. In her post, “My Portuguese Visa Expired 6 Months Ago—Here's My Escape Plan,” she speaks of her anxiety given delays in the processing of her visa renewal application, which has left her in a kind of immigration limbo. She transforms the situation into a teaching moment for her followers, emphasising the importance of planning when making an international move, and of having one or more “plan Bs” to cope with unanticipated issues—such as bureaucratic delays and snafus.

I applaud Kimberly for her forthrightness. Potential emigrés from America to Europe need to hear stories like this. The imagination can soar with fantasies of a rich and carefree life abroad that are, well, just imaginary, and stories such as Kimberly’s should help bring overly lofty dreams back to earth.

It’s easy, I think, to forget that it was not that long ago when Europe was struck by the “great recession” of late 2007-2009, bringing economic collapse to the European landscape and devastating the economies of four countries in particular—Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain (a group referred to at the time by the unfortunate acronym “PIGS”). I moved with family to take employment in Ireland in late 2009, and witnessed the demise of the economy first hand—massive business failure, including a controversial government bailout of a major bank; the collapse of the housing sector; and much more. In December 2010 Ireland was forced to accept a financial bailout from a trio of European institutions, referred to with resentment as “the troika,” and the country was essentially governed by those external forces through December 2013. Following the boom years of the “Celtic Tiger,” roughly 1995-2007, when talk of the Irish economic miracle was ubiquitous, these circumstances represented a national humiliation. From 2009 to 2014, more people left Ireland than immigrated to it.

When I think of things going awry, I think back on this time. I was fortunate to be employed with a contract of indefinite duration in the Irish public sector, which provided significant protections against unemployment (though not against pay cuts). Times were very difficult for at least five full years. In the aftermath, Ireland has recovered and continued to welcome immigrants—fully 20 percent of the country’s present population was born in some other country (8 percent of these immigrants came from the U.S.). However since 2015 the focus has been on refugee populations.

Now, for affluent non-E.U. citizens who come to reside and not to work, the visa requirements are among the most demanding in the E.U. In addition, such visa holders may not register for public services, including the national public health care system.

Ireland also requires current holders of long-stay visas to maintain a “lump sum” of cash equivalent to the average cost of a house in Ireland, which is 2025 is €360,000 (with the exchange rate at the time of this writing, that is US $410,400). In effect, the country requires foreign residents to maintain cash on hand to support a “plan B” in case of an emergency. Ireland learned some hard lessons from past experience.

It is those difficult first years I spent in Europe that I think about when I read the “you can do it too” texts or watch the videos of American expatriates who describe their experiences of recent moves to Europe on retirement or “digital nomad” visas. Much worse things than bureaucratic delays or tightening of visa requirements can happen, but risk assessment is rarely mentioned. If one considers potential economic recession, collapse or depression, what does plan B look like? As the value of the dollar continues to plummet against European currencies¹ and living on income from the U.S. becomes less tenable, what then? How would another economic crash change things if, for example, US-based retirement investment accounts lost half or more of their value? And if policies in the U.S. change to inhibit the flow of cash from the U.S. to other countries and one is ineligible for European social welfare programmes, what would happen then?

The simple fact that the “great recession” took place not so long ago should make it clear that this is not alarmist doomsday screed. It happened at a time when the U.S. appeared to be, politically, more stable than today, and when the dollar nevertheless retained strength internationally. The value of the dollar is declining steadily today, as is confidence in it as an international reserve currency. The world was also a more peaceful place then, relatively speaking. Today Europe is threatened not just by American indifference but by American hostility. At the same time, military hostility rages ceaselessly at Europe’s eastern border. Consider, too, that immigration is perhaps the most emotionally charged issue in Europe today, just as it is in the U.S.

Things happen “gradually and then suddenly,” as Hemingway wrote. I tend to see France’s recent announcements of more demanding language requirements for both residency visas and naturalisation as part of what happens gradually, for example. I speculate that the current five-year backlog in processing applications for naturalisation in my part of France is strategic rather than a sign of administrative incompetence—part of what happens gradually as entry paths start to shrink.

Emigrés living on visas are privileged by the issuing country’s good will, not just whatever affluence they have obtained hitherto abroad, or that they earn as “digital nomads.” That good will is dependent on many economic, social and political variables, all of which are, right now, quite volatile. It makes risk assessment complex, but all the more necessary.

Kimberly is right: plan carefully, and plan realistically.

1. The New York Times reports on projections of the dollar’s decline in value of up to nine percent from June 2025. One June 3 the UCD/Euro exchange rate is USD 1.0 == €0.8781. Another nine percent decline would set the exchange rate at ca. USD 1.0 = 0.79 or 0.80. See: Andrew Ross Sorkin, Bernhard Warner, Sarah Kessler, Michael J. de la Merced, and Danielle Kaye, “How Low Will the Dollar Go? Trade-war angst has put pressure on the greenback this year. Wall Street thinks it’s about to get worse,” New York Times (3 June 2025) https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/03/business/dealbook/dollar-trump-deficit-tariffs.html?smid=url-share