From Business Insider · Martina Nacach Cowan Ros · · 3m
From LA to Bali on $1,300 a month
An interior designer sold everything and retired to Bali with her mother, cutting her living costs from unaffordable to thriving.
In brief
An interior designer sold everything and retired to Bali with her mother, cutting her living costs from unaffordable to thriving. Debbie Welsch, fifty-seven, retired to Bali seven years ago with her eighty-two-year-old mother after her Los Angeles lifestyle became unaffordable, now living on one thousand three hundred…
Interior designer leaves LA behind
Debbie Welsch, fifty-seven, worked as an interior designer in Los Angeles earning one hundred twenty thousand dollars a year. Her mortgage and property taxes made her house unaffordable, so she decided to change her lifestyle completely.
A financial plan to live on two thousand
A financial consultant told Welsch that based on what she could cash out from her house and grow through investments, she could live on a budget of two thousand dollars a month.
Welsch moves to Bali with her mother
Welsch moved to Bali over seven years ago with her eighty-two-year-old mother. She sold everything she owned, including her house and car. After moving, she felt like a big weight had been released.
“After moving here, I felt like a big weight had been released.”
Housing costs just three hundred seventy-five monthly
Welsch's ten-year lease for her one thousand one hundred square foot house costs four thousand five hundred dollars a year, or three hundred seventy-five dollars monthly. She paid forty-five thousand dollars upfront and budgets three thousand five hundred yearly for renovations.
Living on one thousand three hundred monthly
Welsch now lives on one thousand three hundred dollars a month from her five hundred fifty thousand dollars in retirement savings, which are invested. She also earns around four thousand dollars yearly from writing and her YouTube channel.
Her mother's rent was unsustainable in LA
Before moving to Bali, Welsch's mother's rent in Los Angeles was going to be raised to one thousand five hundred dollars a month. With her two thousand dollar monthly income, that wasn't sustainable. Her Bali house lease averages three hundred fifty dollars monthly.
Healthcare and daily life in Bali
Welsch's international health insurance costs one hundred twenty-four dollars monthly and covers Southeast Asia with a ten thousand dollar deductible. A local clinic visit costs about fifteen dollars. Her mother has Medicare at two hundred dollars monthly but only works in the US.
Abundance of life, not just money
Welsch says she feels extremely financially secure for the first time in her life. She would not recommend others sell everything and move to Bali without first diving into the culture and connecting with local people. She feels she has abundance now.
“I feel extremely financially secure for the first time in my life.”
A life she wouldn't trade
Welsch says there is no way she could afford this lifestyle in the US. She feels safe as a single woman in Bali and would not want to live anywhere else. Her abundance is not of money or food, but of life itself.
“I have abundance now, and it's not abundance of money, and it's not abundance of food. It's abundance of life.”
The key point
Debbie Welsch, fifty-seven, retired to Bali seven years ago with her eighty-two-year-old mother after her Los Angeles lifestyle became unaffordable, now living on one thousand three hundred dollars monthly from five hundred fifty thousand dollars in savings.
