33-year-old mom sold everything to move her family from Texas to Greece: ‘Our life is just so much more fulfilling here’

This story is part of CNBC Make It’s Millennial Money series, which details how people around the world earn, spend and save their money.

After their daughter was born in 2022, Cara West and her husband Harley decided to sell all of their belongings and try living abroad.

A number of factors led to their decision. First, they were hit with a $10,000 hospital bill after their daughter’s birth. On top of that, because West was a contractor for a German company at the time, she didn’t qualify for the same year-long paid maternity leave her full-time colleagues enjoyed.

“There were so many things that started to come to light after becoming a mother in the U.S. that made me truly understand that the U.S. does not really support families and mothers and children,” she tells CNBC Make It.

West began looking into how other countries around the world helped parents, and tinkering with the idea of moving her family abroad.

When the deadly mass shooting occurred at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in May 2022, West knew it was time to take the leap. She and her family lived about three hours away in Austin at the time.

It was “absolutely devastating,” but “unfortunately, it wasn’t surprising to me to hear the news of the school shooting,” West says. “It was truly in that moment that I knew I needed to get my daughter out of the U.S. for her safety.”

From there, she and her husband set out to live as digital nomads. Around two years and visits to 14 countries later, the family has decided to settle for the foreseeable future in Syros, a Greek island in the Aegean Sea.

Now, West, 33, works remotely from Greece as a luxury travel concierge and travel content creator and is on track to earn over $136,000 in 2024. Her husband stepped away from his job as a restaurant manager in Texas and is a stay-at-home dad.

“[It’s] a dream lifestyle that I honestly never thought would be possible, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” she says.

First stop: Portugal

Before fully committing their family to expat life, West and her husband decided to try life abroad for three months through a startup called Boundless Life.

The organization offers families fully furnished private apartments, co-working spaces and educational centers for children in a variety of locations, including Bali and Tuscany, per its website. West opted for Portugal.

“It was the perfect solution for what we were looking for,” West says. “We could test this out, see if this is something that we could see ourselves doing.”

West was already working as a food blogger in addition to her full-time job and says they had put around $10,000 of her earnings from that into savings.

Although they initially planned to live off of that, West landed her current role as a luxury travel concierge right before they left for Portugal. So, she left her previous job and her husband decided to take unpaid time off from his job for the duration of their stay.

With that plan in place, the family landed in Portugal in January last year. The first thing they noticed was the slower pace of life that allowed them to enjoy more time together as a family than they did in the U.S.

“[My husband] saw how happy I was, how much of a glow I had, how much time we were spending with each other and as a family,” she says.

Born and raised in Texas, West’s husband, Harley, was initially hesitant to move their family out of the U.S. But by the end of their three-month stint in Portugal, he was fully on board.

Selling everything to leave the U.S.

After falling in love with their first experience living abroad, West and her husband arrived back home with a singular focus: moving out of the U.S.

But to move abroad and travel full time, they would need money. The couple had already downsized from a two-bedroom apartment to a one-bedroom unit to cut down on their housing expenses. From there, they began selling as many of their things as possible, including furniture and one their cars, West says.

“We had to think outside of the box because of the fact that we didn’t have a home that we could sell, or really, any assets that we could sell,” she says.

The couple used the money they raised from selling their stuff to help pay down her husband’s debt. And this allowed him to step away from his full-time job and become a stay-at-home dad. Meanwhile, West continued to work remotely and earn money from content creation, she says.

Their sacrifices eventually paid off. Once the lease term for their Texas apartment ended in July 2023, they packed up for Belize, their next stop as digital nomads. After living nomadically for almost a year, the couple decided to make Syros, Greece their home base in June.

“I wanted to be somewhere that was by the water that was really calm and peaceful,” she says. “And that’s exactly what we’ve had here in Syros.”

Pros and cons of life abroad

West says the slower pace of life and lower cost of living in Greece has made a “huge difference” in her family’s life.

“In the United States, it’s all about hustle culture and your worth is tied into your productivity,” she says. “But here in Greece … rest is really valued.”

The family enjoys exploring the island, trying new foods and traveling to various countries, including Albania and Italy.

“It’s really easy to get around the country. You can take the ferries, you can take flights,” West says. “Overall, our life is just so much more fulfilling here in Greece.”

Plus, the language barrier isn’t too much of an issue since many locals speak English.

As a Black woman, West says she feels freer to be herself in Greece without worrying about encountering the racial microaggressions she faces in the U.S.

“I just get to exist in peace and I’m not worried about someone following me around at the store or treating me differently because of my skin color,” she says. “I’m just seen as an American here.”

Her family’s sense of security contributes to that peace. “I realize every single day as I walk the streets here in Greece with my daughter of just how safe we are. And that to me is the most important.”

West and her family have experienced one notable downside: missing holidays and birthdays with relatives. “It’s been tough having to miss big moments with our family,” she says. “But, honestly, I would give everything for us to be able to live this lifestyle.”

How they spend their money

Here’s how West and her husband spent their money in June 2024.

• Moving expenses: $5,880 toward first and last months rent for their apartment in Greece, flights, digital nomad visa application and attorney fees
• Credit card payment: $4,221 toward credit card bills
• Food: $1,952 on dining out and groceries
• Housing and utilities: $1,428 for rent, Wi-Fi and utilities
• Medical: $1,278 for international health insurance, doctor visits and prescriptions
• Discretionary: $446 for clothing and makeup
• Subscriptions: $131 for gym memberships, Netflix, HBO Max and Apple storage subscriptions
• Phones: $192 toward phone bill
• Transportation: $78 for a rental car and gas

Since they officially moved to Greece in June, the family’s spending for the month was much higher than usual, West says.

In addition to needing to pay for their flight to Greece and first and last months rent for their apartment there, they paid an attorney who helped them apply for their digital nomad visa.

The couple carries a little over $60,000 in credit card debt which felt nearly “impossible” to pay down while they were living in the U.S., she says.

The lower cost of living in Greece helps. Now, “I try as much as I can to put that extra income to paying down our credit cards as much as possible,” she says.

After lowering their credit card debt, the couple plans to begin saving for retirement and working with a professional.

“Next year is going to be such a huge transition for us in being able to have the resources to put towards getting the assistance that we need [and] having a financial advisor who can tell us where to start putting our money so that our money is working for us,” she says.

Plans for the future

Although West doesn’t foresee her family being nomadic forever, she doesn’t plan to ever permanently move back to the U.S.

“It is truly such a more fulfilling, more richer life abroad,” she says. “Just being able to see the world, to meet new people, to experience a new language, cultures, traditions — it’s just so special and something that we aren’t really exposed to enough in the United States.”

Now that they’ve made Greece their home base, West looks forward to growing her family.

Once their daughter is old enough for school, the couple plans to register to homeschool her and connect with educational centers around the world that cater to nomadic families and their children.

“This is a really great way for her to have that social engagement, but also be able to still learn through travel,” she says.

When West first began planning to move out of the U.S., she didn’t see many families that looked like hers or were in a similar financial situation. She hopes to inspire more people to explore life abroad and not be intimidated by the process.

“There’s always going to be something that comes up in your path on your journey to becoming a digital nomad or to being an expat living abroad,” she says. “But it’s absolutely possible if you continue to just manifest it and keep the goal in mind.”

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the correct spelling of Vicky Markolefa’s name.

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