Expat Exchange
Free MembershipSign In

Living Overseas Forum

The Earth Awaits: An Expat Budget Generator

New Topic Newest First
iamlindoro
  9/10/2016 00:26 EST

Hi All,

I joined this evening after being a long-time lurker to share a tool I spent the last few months building, which folks here may love.

It's called The Earth Awaits: https://www.theearthawaits.com

Background: I write a small personal finance blog called The Frugal Vagabond, which focuses on early retirement to slow travel the world. One of the post series that has always been really popular is the "Retire Abroad" series, which is about a series of places that one can retire on a limited budget. I used a standard budget to compare a similar lifestyle across many countries.

The problem was that the data was always almost immediately out of date. So, I spent months building this tool that takes your inputs about family size, lifestyle, housing needs, and maximum and minimum budget to custom-build you a budget for almost 600 cities worldwide. The cost of living data is detailed and up-to-date at all times. The site then takes your preferences for things like pollution, crime, and quality of life, and filters the list to just the ones that suit you.

So basically, you end up with a series of cities to explore and consider, with custom budgets built just for you! You can dig in and learn about each city and country, edit the budget line-by-line if you don't agree with how it was generated for you, and download it as a CSV to pull up in Excel later.

The site is free. I'm hoping that the idea is interesting enough to people that the ad income is enough to support it. I'm grateful for any feedback, which you are welcome to post here or reach out to me using the site's contact form.

If you like it, please consider sharing it in the country forums where you participate, which I don't want to spam. Thanks, and enjoy!

OldPro
  9/15/2016 10:02 EST

So I took a look intending to see what your calculator showed for somewhere I am familiar with. First thing I found is that I cannot input a place name. Then I found I can input a text filter and entered the place name as the text filter. Result, 'no results found'. So OK, let's assume the place I chose just isn't on your list. I then tried a major city that has to be on your list of cites. Same results. Conclusion, your text filter won't work that way.

Then I did a search using the initial 7 parameters you provide including 'Europe'. The first places named were in Australia and the USA. Conclusion, the Europe filter did not function.

Overall conclusion, your site provides nothing that many other do not already provide and is not very user friendly at all.

Expatistan or Numbeo already provide(constantly updated data) the wheel you are trying to re-invent. Ignoring the obvious flaws mentioned above, your basic model provides a long (therefore impractical) list of places for someone to then scroll through looking for any that might be of interest. It's like a 'For Dummies' site that assumes the user has no clue as to where they might want to live.

Sorry iamlindoro, but I tell it like I see it.

Allianz CareAllianz Care
Get Quote

Allianz Care's plans ensure that you have access to quality healthcare whenever you need it. Our flexible solutions allow you to tailor your cover to meet your needs and budget. You can submit your claims digitally and our helpline is available 24/7 to help you anytime.

Allianz CareAllianz Care

Allianz Care's plans ensure that you have access to quality healthcare whenever you need it. Our flexible solutions allow you to tailor your cover to meet your needs and budget. You can submit your claims digitally and our helpline is available 24/7 to help you anytime.
Get Quote

iamlindoro
  9/15/2016 12:35 EST

Hi OldPro,

Thanks for taking the time to have a look, and for your feedback. Certainly there are places that the site could improve, and your experience is valuable insight towards making the site more usable and better for everyone.

Your experience is a little uncommon as the feedback has largely been fairly positive. Let me see if I can address a few of your issues, and perhaps in that light, the site will make more sense.

The site is designed to help you explore the cities which would fit your budget and lifestyle rather than being a search engine for specific cities. You're right that the text search option is there, but it's applied in addition to all the other filters and preferences you have applied. This is easiest to explain in an example. Let's say you leave all the search and filter options as default, with a budget of 0-2000. Now, let's say you put "London" in the text search field under advanced options. The site will attempt to find cities and countries containing the string "London" which match a modest lifestyle for two with a budget of $2000 USD or less. Obviously, that's going to return nothing, because London is quite a lot more expensive than that. Now, if you expand your maximum budget to $5,000, leaving all other options the same, you'll get two results: London, UK and London, Canada.

Regarding the continent filter, it appears you unchecked Europe, leaving all other continents checked. Note that all continents are checked by default (see the green state and filled in checkbox for the active state). That's why you got results from everywhere but Europe.

I understand your frustration and as I said, the feedback is valuable in that it helps me to look at the site with a fresh set of eyes, and consider how others might see it on first look. The site is quite different from Numbeo and Expatistan, because the central idea is to build actual monthly budgets for you, something no other site does. If you end up taking a second look, when you get a result, click Details->Budget, where oyu will see line-items budgets for each city, which you can edit and download for later use. The data is actually licensed from Numbeo, and is updated nightly, so it will always be accurate to Numbeo +/- 24 hours.

Regardless of whether you had fun or were impressed, I'm always grateful for feedback, and I'm grateful for yours.

OldPro
  9/16/2016 11:09 EST

OK iamlindoro, your explanations make sense.

I think the continent filter is counter intuitive. When I see a list of what appear to be choices, I 'select' a choice. It would never occur to me that they are all selected by default and that I am supposed to 'unselect' from them. It is clear that they are green and have a 'check' mark under them. But to me it is clear ONCE EXPLAINED and not intuitive.

Re the text filter and budget amount. Your explanation makes sense but was not my issue. I entered a budget of $5k and a place name bu got no result even though I know the budget is more than enough.

So now I had another look (unchecking all but Europe) and with the same budget but leaving out the place name, I got 224 hits in Europe. Scrolling through them all, I did not find the place I was looking for.

The place is Rhodes, Greece. I did find Corfu, Heraklion, Athens and Thessaloniki. All fine but Rhodes is at least as popular as an expat destination. Clearly, your list is derived from somewhere (numbeo includes Rhodes) but doesn't include Rhodes. I consider that a major omission in terms of Greece. It would also indicate to me that if there is one omission I would consider significant, there are probably others.

A filter by country would be very useful to short list from that 224 to a more useable number I would say. Obviously, the higher the budget the bigger the list of place names you will get. That means that only LOWERING the budget will reduce the list UNLESS you provide some addtional filters to reduce the number of hits.

Re the budget calculation when you edit the line items. I did find that first time around and see it as useful. However, it has limited use just as all other cost of living calculator do in the same way.

It ASSUMES we all have the same budget needs to a large degree. It does let me change the number of each item LISTED to get a more customized budget. But like all others, it does NOT let me add items not on your list.

The Earth STILL Awaits an EXpat Budget Calculator that can actually generate a truly individual budget.

I still see your attempt as being no better or worse than those that already exist. Just getting a list of many places may have some appeal to some people I suppose but I don't see how a list of 224 places helps anyone narrow down their choice.

Sorry iamlindoro, but I see no real significant difference in your calculator. You write, "The site is quite different from Numbeo and Expatistan, because the central idea is to build actual monthly budgets for you, something no other site does.", and I accept that to a degree. It does allow you to change the quantity of the LISTED items. But I hardly see that as of any real significance. If I change it to 10 loaves of bread instead of 5, so what. I can't change it to 5 loaves of Italian Artisan bread. What I want to know is what will it cost me to add Skippy peanut butter to my bread and I cannot add that anywhere. That is what a truly individual budget would have to be able to do. How much will it cost me if I want to add a bottle of Mott's Clamato Juice to my budget every week? That is a must if you like drinking Bloody Caesars before dinner. The list of individual items is endless. So like any calculator, yours cannot allow for that. So I cannot accept your statement that it "to build actual monthly budgets for you" It only allows you to build actually monthly budgets for someone who finds all their needs on your list.

I will concede though that by being able to change the quantity of the items on your list, you could claim that your calculator can provide a somewhat more accurate ROUGH budget. But it will still be only a rough budget for anyone, not a truly individual budget specific to a person.

To be fair, I don't think it is possible to build a budget calculator that will allow an individual to come up with a truly accurate budget for any given place. All that ANY budget calculator can do is give you a ROUGH idea of what a place is likely to cost but that already exists making your site just 'yet another'. To truly build an accurate calculator for an individual, it would have to allow the individual to input the line items that matter to that individual and then provide the cost of those items. No Mott's, the calculator is useless to me. LOL
http://www.canadianfavourites.com/Motts_Clamato_945ml_p/mottsclamato006.htm

I suppose being generous I could say that your calculator provides a rough budget for those places that it covers (not Rhodes though), that can be adjusted to be a percentage or two more accurate than other calculators that provide a rough budget. Not bad but not revolutionary.

OldPro
  9/16/2016 11:16 EST

Iamlindoro, interesting that at the same time as you are posting about your calculator, another thread is also posting about yet another calculator that purports to provide a 'personalized' budget for the individual.

http://www.expatexchange.com/expat/index.cfm?frmid=260&tpcid=3414227

Allianz Care
Allianz Care

Flexible solutions allow you to tailor your cover to meet your needs and budget. Use Promocode: LIFE10 and get 10% off your international health insurance for life!
Get Quote

Allianz CareAllianz Care

Flexible solutions allow you to tailor your cover to meet your needs and budget. Use Promocode: LIFE10 and get 10% off your international health insurance for life!
Get Quote

Best-Places-to-Live-OverseasBest Places to Live Overseas: Italy vs. Portugal

If you're deciding between Italy and Portugal, this article covers differences in climate, cost of living, residency and visas and more.

If you're deciding between Italy and Portugal, this article covers differences in climate, cost of living, residency and visas and more....

Best-Places-to-Live-OverseasBest Places to Live Overseas: Spain vs. Portugal

In this article, we'll compare Portugal and Spain across key factors such as climate, cost of living, quality of medical care, access to the public healthcare system, foreign property ownership restrictions, friendliness of locals, and the ease of obtaining a visa and residency.

In this article, we'll compare Portugal and Spain across key factors such as climate, cost of living, quality of medical care, access to the public healthcare system, foreign property ownership restri...

Expat-ResilienceExpat Resilience

Expats and nomads who learn how to actively develop their resilience will find the challenges abroad to be far more manageable. Here's a good, healthy start on how to start that process!

Expats and nomads who learn how to actively develop their resilience will find the challenges abroad to be far more manageable. Here's a good, healthy start on how to start that process!...

Expat-BankingTop 8 Expat Banks in 2023

Explore some of the options for international banking for expats. It can be tricky to find the best option for you and your family, but it's one of the most important services to get right.

Explore some of the options for international banking for expats. It can be tricky to find the best option for you and your family, but it's one of the most important services to get right....

Best-Places-to-Live15 Best Beach Towns in Central America

People are flocking to Central America to enjoy a lower cost of living, the laid-back beach lifestyle and adventure. In this article, we explore 15 of the best places to live on the beach in Central America according to expats.

People are flocking to Central America to enjoy a lower cost of living, the laid-back beach lifestyle and adventure. In this article, we explore 15 of the best places to live on the beach in Central ...

Copyright 1997-2024 Burlingame Interactive, Inc.

Privacy Policy Legal