At first I found it incredibly freeing - and I still do, mostly - but over time I’ve developed this almost nostalgic feeling for a home. Some place that’s filled with my own stuff where I can at least mentally ground myself. The idea of actually having one still seems almost overwhelming, but the concept sounds nice.

Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, or because my family is, or maybe an unsettled life just gets to you after a while.

I like to be able to buy items for projects that enrich me mentally or physically. E.g. I recently bought a 3D printer, I buy kitchen tools to cook more interesting recipes. If I moved abroad now, I'd likely do a big clear out but also ship a lot with me.

> every time you buy something you have to consider what happens when you move

I actually enjoy this part of it. It forces me to be a more thoughtful consumer.

There's a distinction to be made for tools vs consumerist items.

Do you have any recommendations for resources that might get me into it more? I'm not aware of too much outside of just searching for things on Thingiverse.

I have an RSS feed on the most popular Thingiverse models.

https://www.thingiverse.com/rss/featured

It looks like I've changed the default update interval on the second link to 12 hours; perhaps it was producing too much stuff otherwise.

Printing out random doodads from Thingiverse is not only wasteful but unfulfilling. You might as well go raid the dollar store toy aisle.

I would recommend spending some time and learning how to use a CAD software. Fusion360 is a popular choice, although with a bit of a learning curve. TinkerCAD is a good browser based option as well, excellent starting point for beginners.

I live out of a single backpack and carry-on. Nothing I carry with me is precious. It could all be replaced in an afternoon with Amazon. I rely on furnished rentals and a couple of "stuff caches" in family closets and garages here and there, mostly with things that make life in that specific place a bit nicer. I've also "bought" family things that we get to enjoy while we are there. I own and also don't own a kayak that I use a few weeks a year and a surfboard I use for a few months.

I've never had a mortgage; I generally have zero debt (not even car payments); no dependents; usually no pets (I miss having pets, though). I don't own much of anything that I'm not willing to get rid of. I like the idea of having a home base and some permanent material items, but so far I don't like it as much as I like being flexible.

Working in tech offers the option of remotely working from anywhere. I've worked from home (or wherever) at a number of places, going back to the early 90s. I've still spent more time in normal office jobs than remote. Now that covid has permanently altered the landscape, I expect to do it a lot more.

There are unhealthy psychological aspects to all this. I avoid commitment, I feel trapped by obligations and responsibilities, I'm always thinking about what's next instead of being content with what I have. It's not for everyone.

I always thought it was an exaggerated portrayal, but it seems your ways are even more extreme than in the movie.

Such lifestyle is so completely foreign to me, that I'm fascinated. If an alien landed on my lawn tomorrow and said "I fart gold coins", I would have an easier time believing such a thing exists than your lifestyle.

How do you make friends? Can't employers sense that you're going to leave soon? Or is that specifically what they're looking for?

I job-hop more than most people, but it's not completely out of the ordinary in tech work. Many people stay in one area but still change jobs every few years. People used to occasionally question some shorter (1-2 year) job stints on my resume, but I haven't been asked about it in over a decade. I don't think that particular aspect raises eyebrows anymore. There are more tech jobs than people to fill them; it's a job-searcher's market and has been for a long time.

You don't have to be a youtuber to have that lifestyle.

If you're not filing expense reports, will a company "know"? Possibly not. But it seems pretty precarious to expose yourself and the company at risk this way.

What I'm more familiar with is overseas residency and federal taxes. There are benefits to establishing legal residency outside the US, if you really do live and work outside the US. But then you have to be able to prove it to the IRS. If you can establish a bona fide overseas residency, you get substantial federal tax discounts (like ~$100k tax-free income), and don't have to pay state tax anywhere. But if you spend more than 33 days per year in the US, the burden of proof for establishing a bona fide foreign residency are higher[1].

Edit: update since I can't nest any more replies (to @dragonwriter) below: I sorta changed topics; my paragraph above about foreign residency is only relevant if you're earning foreign income. If you're a US citizen working for a US company, you're not getting away from taxes that way. But you can still save yourself from some personal obligation by setting up a company.

[1]: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/fore...

ADDED: It appears that the threshold is essentially non-existent in many states. https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-are-state-tax-i... (I think this is the solution my friend's company is actually using.)

That’s...not true. State income tax is usually due on dollars earned in the state — it used to be usually the union of (dollars earned by residents) and (dollars earned by work in the state) but a 2015 federal court decision required it to be one or the other, and AFAIK every state with an income tax has chosen the latter over the former because, basically, resident citizens vote in the state while citizens resident in other states, the most common nonresident citizen workers, don’t. So, a bona fide overseas residence doesn't have any effect on state income tax liability.

It also puts your manager at risk to do it - if you tell them, then they know it’s happening and have to do something about it.

The second point is more significant. Even with almost 100% remote work it's hard to systematically hide where you are from everyone--especially if you do any business travel or expense reimbursement or are in a materially different timezone or climate.

Also, the market of people specifically trying to rent furnished long term rentals is very small and they tend to aim to “executives” that are in town for a period of time before buying their own place. They charge accordingly. It is a big red flag for me to see someone or a company marketing their furnished rental as “executive suites” or similar

For example in France students need lodging during their studies. So France cities with universities have a strong unfurnished rental market. Of course that's mostly small surfaces.

Note also that in France taxes are different for owners when renting unfurnished.

It's also a thing to negotiate furnishing with the landlord, e.g. I'll pay an extra $100/mo in rent if you agree to do an Ikea run and you can keep it at the end of the lease.

If I need to be somewhere for <1y but >1m, I'll try to deal directly with AirBnB hosts but sometimes you just have to eat the borderline usurious serviced apartment fees.

Last time I rented furniture, it cost around $250/month to furnish a one bedroom apartment. They supplied all of the furniture, we supplied dishes and cookware.

For a longer term lease, it may be cheaper to buy cheap furniture from Ikea, but it's a lot more hassle, it's so much easier to let the rental company come in and set up, then take it all away when you leave.

Eventually, we bought a house. It felt like a huge shift from the vagabond lifestyle, but I don't regret it. We still travel a lot, and rent our house out on AirBnb while we are gone.

I think in the end, traveling full time was too much for me. Having a home to go back to and recharge before planning the next trip seems more balanced.

Taxes are another matter entirely since we do this internationally, but there’s a pretty well-developed network of expat accountants that make it as painless as it can be.

https://youtu.be/3jus-OaJV8E?t=400

Having my own mattress is a must though.

I had an incredibly damaged couch that I was ready to throw in the dumpster, and a young dude happily gave me $100 and picked it up with his truck, with no effort from my part.

I got rid of hundreds of items over the years on CL, and I don’t think I ever failed to sell any!

Emigrating is one of those adulting on steroids things. For those who’ve never done it, there no way to describe how intense it is: the highs, the lows, etc. Doesn’t matter if you are fluent in the destination language; it just is.

For a long time I’ve wondered if something inside me is wired incorrectly, because I always hear this sentiment among my friends but I have never felt it.

Not on the first move from the US to China a decade ago, not on the last one from Hong Kong to Singapore a couple of years ago, and not right now as I think about going to Europe. It just has never struck me as a particularly big thing to move somewhere else.

I'm contemplating moving the family to another country and the biggest emotions I feel are connected to the financial freedom necessary to move.

I grew up in a low-income household, my grades weren't amazing, never got a stipend to study anywhere or go abroad, so being able to make this jump as a result of my own personal development is huge.

Luggage or not is beside the point for me though.

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean here - I got the same "I made this happen" feeling when I boarded that first plane.

The part that I can't easily empathize with is the idea that leaving home and going somewhere else represents some kind of cosmic upheaval of your life. I get it, academically, but I just can't put myself in that headspace.

To give an example, one of my friends back home is going through a quarter-life career crisis. For a variety of reasons I suggested that he take a couple of months off and spend it in Amsterdam - this wouldn't be any problem for him financially or harm his career progression, but it's just a bridge too far for him personally.

When I brought it up, he said "I wouldn't even know where to start."

What seems natural to me - grab your passport, book an AirBnB and a plane ticket - is for many people an emotionally overwhelming roadblock.

I've managed to emigrate due to my own personal development as well, my family didn't have the means for that and my home country's society is very geared to rich folks getting opportunities: in school, universities, time enough to go through a good higher education, etc. I had to fight against all that and other odds stacked against me and finally "made it" out.

At the same time I felt like you sometimes, people would be fretting a lot about how I'm going to move, all by myself, to a new country, continent, hemisphere, culture and language. And it never phased me, I knew I wanted to do it and the thought that someone would be even a little reluctant on doing it was a bit alien.

Nowadays I can empathise with both mindsets, I'm a bit stuck in the middle: moving out was definitely an amazing and enlightening experience over time but I didn't have that awe about it until hindsight kicked in. Most of the feelings I had when moving were all about excitement and getting to experience new things, people, places.

I share the feeling when boarding the plane for moving and thinking "I made this happen" but I feel it much more intensely and beautifully during moments in my new city (that I've been for about 6 years now) where I look around and realise "I'm here and it's surreal I've made it here". This is the feeling I love the most, and it's constant, since I moved I never stopped catching these moments.

I too find those 3 steps are pretty easy. The problem is that what comes next - "step out of AirBnB and go to a local restaurant" - is total mindkiller for me.

I used to be pretty awkward about this too until I really got it through my head that we’re all just characters in someone else’s play.

So in that sense, it can be a "permanent" change.

I've also found those numbers roughly accurate, even for sub-year extended travel. I spent 6 months teaching in Berlin, and it definitely took a couple of weeks after returning to feel normal again.

Ten years ago I did a 3 months backpack trip in South America with my girlfriend. We left almost everything at home, and during that trip all that mattered to us for the 3 months was in our backpack. Weight and volume was an issue. No room to bring objects unless they has a functional value too. We also experienced stuff being stolen (one camera with the digital pictures, one small bag) and this helps to think about your relationship to objects. That's the kind of life lessons that I did not expect from the trip.

I'm beginning to understand this more and more lately. The problem is with owning things you can't just replace. This could be either because you can't afford to replace it, like many people's cars, or that it holds sentimental value. Those things end up owning you. If your car breaks down you have to fix it. If you break a cherished plate, you cry.

I'm 35 and I still use plates and cutlery that I took from my last student house I moved from when I was 25. The house had accumulated a ton of this stuff over the years and we'd put most of it away in a cupboard. I took some of the better looking stuff. I fully expect all of this stuff to last the rest of my life. If some disaster happens and they all break, I'll replace them with more generic plates and cutlery I don't care about.

I think if you can resist accumulating stuff you care about, you will be far happier. Don't attach sentimental value to things. They are just things. Don't buy things you can't afford to replace outright if you need to, like cars. They quickly become liabilities. A big loss of stuff can be very rewarding as it reminds you of what really matters in life. But you should resist getting into the same situation again.

It’s better if they start doing it now, and clarify what is essential and “the important stuff they’d grab in a house fire” in step one.

I did less of this moving from the US to Austria and when it came time to move this time I realised that I had a significant pile of boxes which, while opened, went unused in the twenty years I've lived here. I also have an extensive library which, while I read the books when I bought them, I have not returned to the vast majority of them.

I'm still sort of conflicted about this because it's provoking a lot of complex emotions that I was not particularly prepared for.

The trick that worked for me was to just keep books that I had a strong emotional attachment to. Some books that I want to refer to I simply re-purchase as eBooks from Google or Kindle. Now half my physical books non-technical (Joseph Campbell, spiritual stuff, favorite literature).

We sold almost everything we owned prior to the move. The things that were carried were things like personal possessions with significant history or memories. Sounds like we approached it in a very similar way to you.

There are definitely moments where I think "I need to repair this pipe, I have a pipe-cutter in my toolbox", then I recall that the toolbox didn't get moved with us. But there aren't many things that I miss.

You've got to be absolutely ruthless about what you sell or dispose of but seriously consider getting a pallet. It took me a long time to replace the stuff I sold for pennies on the dollar.

In the end I didn't find it particularly liberating. Though I think part of that is I went from living independently to relying on furnished apartments for a couple years. Living in a place that's not your own can eventually become grating.

Over time I started to get annoyed that because we'd bought things used with no real planning we had different colours/styles/designs all mishmashed together.

There was nothing wrong with any of the things we bought, but over time it did become annoying to live in such a state. I can imagine that if we'd moved into a furnished house we'd have had similar views and even less control about replacing things to match. Feeling more like a caretaker than living in "our home".

You need stuff. Screwdrivers, cloth hangers, spoons ...

I feel like just ditching it all and thinking of your self as unbound to earthly possesions is self-deception, since you just buy it again. It is acctually consumerism and spree shooping.

But I wish there were certain things and spaces that were able to be rented. I don’t need a drill all the time. Sometimes I need a workbench and more clamps.

There’s a lot of community level optimisation we could do.

And many towns and cities have tool lending libraries.

When moving, I sell leftover things to people who need them. And then when I arrive, I buy things second hand from people who no longer have a need for them.

For me personally, one good example of that would be my table saw. I don't use it often (and I certainly did not need it while travelling). But owning a table saw is a part of what makes me feel like me (not to mention it's history in removing part of one of my thumbs). Having a place where the table saw can just be (i.e. not a storage facility) is for me part of what "having a home" is all about.

The same would be true of things like my cookbooks. In the age of the internet, I don't even use them much anymore, and I certainly would not take them with me on any bounded-term move. Having on a shelf at home is part of what makes home actually be "home" rather than just "where I'm living".

But to be fair, I moved because I married a local, and they already had some stuff and I was able to replace other stuff as I wanted.

I recall that time as oddly freeing. I had my pick of how to build my new home. New beds, dining tables, the works.

We started out with salvation army stuff because we didn't want to commit to expensive things without even knowing the marketplace here. We were TRULY new to the US. Didn't know a single store except Walmart (from what we saw online).

Now we have a very comfortable life but some days I do wish I could light my belongings on fire and start fresh.

These days I see things I purchase as liabilities. I bought this super nintendo classic, oh now I have to take care of this thing. There it sits collecting dust. I don't buy many knick-knacks anymore.

There's a shift in perspective with possessions. I'm less attached to anything, but at the same time, I appreciate the nice things I own more. And there's definitely a lot more, stronger opinions, on what I want, and what should be a part of my "home".

A bunch of opinions have sharpened unpredictably. Like, I hate grass. I don't want something I have to build an irrigation system to maintain. I like owning a single family home, but I don't want it do be this 'castle' where I'm totally isolated from my neighborhood. I hate big garage doors in front. The front of the house is for the doorway and a porch. The car has its place to the side.

Had I not had to rebuild from scratch a couple of times, not sure I'd be this focused.

Edit: And though stressful, it gave me a different perspective of, for instance, people who walk thousands of miles from Honduras with children.

Often there are allowances for "reasonable" amounts of personal possessions but sometimes they have to be old enough. I hear some places don't have any allowance at all. And sometime specific things are too much hassle/cost to do at all (e.g. cars).