Hi, I'm glad you found the write-up helpful. Feel free to email me if you have any questions. (my email address is in my blog header). At the moment I'm not pl

Hi, I'm glad you found the write-up helpful. Feel free to email me if you have any questions. (my email address is in my blog header). At the moment I'm not planning any more trips. I took a job with a startup in Seattle, and so I'll be here for a few more years. After that, who knows :) You don't need much of a war chest if you go to the right places & have a decent amount of work. In guadalajara (a big city), $1k / month will get you full-time spanish lessons plus room and board. Hostels are about $12/night if you want to go that route. My standard of living was very good. I had a 2 bedroom house in the trendy part of the city. Ate out whenever I wanted. etc. I imagine I was spending 20k a year (not including state-side expenses such as student loans). My spanish is pretty good. You learn survival spanish pretty quickly. After a year I'm able to hold conversations, understand song lyrics, etc...more or less :) I don't think I lost any clients from being in mexico. It was win-win. They got a good developer at a slight discount. I got my mobility. Actually, about 1/2 of my existing clients never knew I was in mexico. I didn't hide it from them, but it never came up. Coolest part: making a lot of friends from around the world.