Work is an important — a critical — component of life. But it need not (and should not) rule our lives.
The traditional focus on money is often a zero-sum game (or worse). For example, have you ever considered to what extent the money you make is offset by the cost of work clothes, a car to get you to the office and a daycare to watch the baby?
And while there is great value in setting an example for our families by working hard to provide for their needs, it’s all too easy to get sucked into the type of “work harder, make more money” mindset that gobbles up time and scuttles our family cohesiveness. Even as one of the richest countries in the world, the U.S. is full to bursting with families struggling under untenable loads of debt. Where is all this “living” we’re so busy supposedly making?
This website is dedicated to people whose lives evince a nontraditional outlook on the 9-to-5 workaday life or who are in other ways devoted to shepherding their families by committing to family-first lifestyles.
About the Andersons
Our first fling with international living was moving to Budapest for graduate school. The reasons to make a break from our lives in the Pacific Northwest were piling up, and going back to school seemed like a passably sensible next step.
In reality, our favorite part of the plan — that the school was in a grand city on the other side of the world — was the least logical part of the plan, conventionally speaking, but the sensible part gave us the supposed legitimacy we needed at the time to 1) explain what we we doing to our family and friends, and 2) get a visa.
My wife and I and our three young boys moved to Budapest in 2016 so I (Matthew) could attend graduate school. We had never been to Hungary ― we’d never been to Europe, for that matter ― and had to discover everything on the fly. It was our first dip into living outside our home country, but it confirmed and expanded our desire to live internationally.
When we left the Pacific Northwest, we had a vague sense that maybe we’d settle down as expats. Over the past few years, though, we’ve been drawn toward the freedom of living location independent, and have spent a stint in Croatia and are now in Mexico.
We have ties to Puerto Vallarta now — a wonderful church and medical and professional needs that will keep us in place for a while, plus the goal of attaining fluency in Spanish — but we probably won’t set down roots here. Right now, to pay the bills, I work remotely as an editor, writer and web developer (check out my work site at https://www.hewanderson.com). Brittany homeschools the kids and expertly manages our home.
We are loving the experience of a travelling life — in Europe and now here in Mexico — and we look forward to adventures to come. The Lord only knows what those will be — a Central American road trip, perhaps; a return visit to Budapest, we hope; definitely an extended period in Asia, sooner or later.