Go Where You are Treated Better – 6 Disability Nomad Strategies

You’ve decided that things aren’t going to work out where you are at… so, what are you going to do next?

I’ve been researching this for a while and here are 6 strategies I’ve found that you can consider along with some of the trade-offs. This is definitely preliminary and I’d really welcome your thoughts!

Move somewhere else within your current state

This is probably the easiest strategy to implement as it has the least effect on any of the disability programs or other government services that you are using. The main benefits it has are potentially changing the cost of living or going somewhere else within your state that has better disability services and programs.

The regional centers here in California are a mess overall for services, but some centers may be better (my experience would tend to be that your case manager makes the most difference – and that seems like Russian Roulette).

The most common reason to move within a state though is to change schools or school districts (as I’ve discussed before). School districts and schools with more resources are likely to be able to provide more and better services and attract better teachers. But, you still need to research down to the specific school and individual teacher.

Move to another state

The sad truth is that disability services, general health and financial benefits, and schools vary very widely between states within the US. And depending on your specific needs and circumstances the rules for and availability of the services they make a substantial difference in the quality of your disabled life.

One area of disability services that can make a substantial difference is the availability of a self-determination self program. This state funding approach allows the disabled individual or their trustee to have substantial control over the selection of their disability services.

The split strategy

I will take no credit for this, but I love it!

I heard about while chatting at a local public pool (talking to random disabled people and their families is awesome!).

Apparently, they know a family with a disabled adult son spends half a year in California and half the year in the Philippines by using the self-determination program.

My mental gears started turning immediately!

I suspect that they spend just over half a year in California and just under half a year in the Philippines to maintain their residence in California (and access to disability services funding) but can use self-determination to take advantage of the much lower cost of living and cost of getting support in the Philippines

Now I think what is unstated than this is that I believe currently you can either get SSI nor Medicaid if you are out of the country more than 30 days, but this is an area for further research and if you’re doing some sort of strategy like this, you’re gonna have to be super careful

And of course you’re not restricted to the Philippines you could consider any other country around the world.

Digital nomad

Many countries around the world have a much lower cost of living more affordable healthcare than the US. They also have access to caregiver support service services a fraction of the cost that they would be in the United States. For a number of years, American workers have chosen to work remotely from other countries and taking advantage of these differences.

The common term is digital nomad.

Almost all of us were doing this for a while during Covid so the idea as well proven, but you do need to find a company to work for, but you can work for.

Some countries actively encourage this with a special categories of visas for digital nomads.

Slow travel

A different way to either work or retire is to do something that just commonly called slow travel. This means you are traveling, typically on a tourist visa to a country for sometimes a couple months up to in some cases a year without a resident visa you may or may not be able to legally work while you’re doing this but again you get to take advantage of the lower cost of living healthcare and support services that countries other countries can provide without meeting the residency or other visa requirements.

And the cost of travel itself when you’re traveling, slow slowly goes down and the cost of staying in a country often as much lower once you’re there more than just a week or so… you’re no longer a tourists.

Expatriate 

Establish permanent residence and country either to work or to retire. Many countries have programs that encourage this they welcome the income and may give you even give you substantial tax advantages. This can vary a lot between countries…

Temporary Expatriate

The rules for US disability benefits change depending on age. For us, the Disabled Adult Child program works really well as it avoids a lot of the penalties of US disability services rules… but that is because I’m such an OLD dad!

If you aren’t “lucky” to be old (and eligible for Social Security), you might move abroad temporarily as a family to reduce costs and wait for your correct birthday … “bridging itno DAC”…

You could also consider this option just to save money as many costs are lower abroad… and then return to your home country later.

Resources

I haven’t seen anything really directly dealing with being a “Disability Nomad” abroad… here are some resources that I’ve found so far. Suggestions welcome and I’ll work to keep this up to date!

Raising Wildflowers – this is a really scrappy family talking about their experiences leaving the US without a lot of money.

Amelia and JP – information on living abroad, digital nomad lifestyle and slow travel. Also reasonably frugal, so talking about doing things affordably.

Expat Money – talking about taxes as such if you are an expatriate.

Nomad Capitalist – interesting, rather different politics, but a lot of good information on different countries. There are a lot of resource in this topic. I’m not recommending (or not not recommending) their services.