The income question is the one that keeps families stuck longest. Everyone has the destination fantasy sorted — the warm country, the slower pace, the kids running barefoot. The part that keeps it a fantasy is "but how would we actually make money?"
I've had this conversation with enough families now that I can tell you: the answer is almost always one of five things. And the barriers are usually more psychological than logistical.
The five ways families fund a life abroad
Remote employment is the cleanest option for most people. If you currently work in an office job that could theoretically be done from a laptop, you may already be most of the way there. The shift from in-office to fully remote has happened at scale. Many employers now have staff in multiple countries. If you haven't asked your employer about remote working before you've assumed the answer is no, you should ask.
The complication: employment taxes and legal status. Working remotely for a UK employer while living in Spain creates questions about where you pay taxes and whether your employer is legally required to set up a Spanish entity. Most families in this situation operate in a grey zone that works in practice, especially in the early years. An accountant can help you structure it properly.
Freelancing or consultancy gives you more flexibility but requires you to generate your own pipeline. If you have a marketable skill — writing, design, engineering, marketing, finance, law, coaching, anything — freelancing is often more achievable than people think, particularly if you've spent years building expertise and relationships in a field. The clients are international, the work is remote, and your lower cost of living means you need less of it.
Running an online business — e-commerce, content, courses, software, anything digital — is the option with the highest ceiling and the most uncertainty. Some families build sustainable income this way. Many try and earn very little for a long time. This is not the answer if you need income stability in year one.
Passive income: rental income from property you've kept at home, dividends from investments, pension income for older families. For some people this is sufficient on its own. For many it's a meaningful supplement to other income rather than the whole picture. If you own property in a high-cost city and rent it out, the gap between that rental income and your cost of living in a lower-cost country can be significant.
Local employment — working for an employer in the destination country — is possible but usually means lower salaries than you're used to and requires the right visa. Most families don't rely on this as their primary income, but some do, particularly if they have local-language skills or specialist expertise that's in demand locally.
The number you actually need
This is where most families start: how much do we need to earn?
The answer depends on where you're going and how you want to live. But the framework is the same: cost of accommodation + groceries and household + healthcare + kids' activities and school + travel and leisure + a buffer. Build it from the bottom up for the specific place you're moving to, not from a generic "cost of living is lower" assumption.
The number is usually lower than people expect. Most families we work with are aiming to replicate a similar quality of life to what they have at home — not to downgrade. That usually translates to somewhere between $2,500 and $5,000/month for a family of four in southern Europe or Latin America, depending on location and lifestyle. Against what they were spending in London or Sydney or New York, that's often a significant reduction.
The threshold question
The related question is: how much savings do you need before you go?
The honest answer is enough to cover six to twelve months of living expenses without income, assuming things go worse than planned. Not because it will go that badly — it probably won't — but because having that buffer means you make decisions from stability rather than panic.
Families who leave with a three-month buffer and it turns out they need four months to get their income going are forced into desperate decisions. Families who leave with twelve months of runway can be thoughtful. The bigger the buffer, the more options you have.
The thing that keeps people stuck
It's rarely that the income problem is actually unsolvable. Most families who've been stuck on the income question for a long time are stuck on a much more specific thing that they haven't properly named: they don't know how to ask their employer. They've been freelancing but haven't raised their rates or expanded their client base. They have an idea but haven't validated whether anyone would pay for it.
These are fixable things. They don't fix themselves while you're still waiting for the perfect moment.
If you want to work through what your income picture could look like and what the actual barriers are, book a session. The financial planning conversation is one of the most useful things we do.
