Pulling the plug? What would you do?

[BigBangWeary]

Good morning fellow Mustachians! I am looking for advice from a community of like-minded individuals who believe that life can be more than chasing the Almighty dollar.

Situation: Wife and I are early to mid 30s, One son .. two on the way!!! Yikes.

We left home (Canada) when we were out of uni with one goal in mind .. pay off mid 5-figure debt. Done.

We have been living and working in the Gulf, and while it has allowed us to travel and save, we really do not want to be here much longer. We have dreamed about pulling the plug, finding a low COLA and starting an e-business we have interest/passion for. I have a strong entrepreneurial mindset that has made working in an older company structure very frustrating.

The distance from family is also a factor. We are two flights away from all of our family and most of our friends in Eastern Ontario. It would be nice to be closer (even one flight)

Unfortunately, we have been saving in primarily CDN dollars (our original advisor suggested this since this was where we 'thought' at the time we ultimately wanted to be) and have watched the purchasing power go down a lot over the last few years.

Portfolio at the time of making a move - roughly $700,000 CDN

Our plan is to find 'home' where we can purchase a property (very cheaply) that we can raise our children in and keep a large chunk of our savings invested. We would set up the rest of the portfolio to produce income for the time being, with the plan to eventually add to it and live off of future business/entrepreneurial funds. Ideally, I want +500,000 CDN in index funds that we do not touch for a very long time.

I am not talking about ERE, but achieving the following goals:

1. Actually be there with our children between now and when they are 7 (we both work and the nanny-culture here is not something we want)
2. Be within one flight or a 14 hour drive from our families
3. Provide breathing room where we can attempt to start our business without constantly worrying about a mortgage, traffic, high COLA, etc.
4. Have some space, greenery and two or more seasons ...

Ok, now I am getting picky. But ideally, I am trying to find somewhere that is advantageous for living off of dividends and is business friendly. Closer to family.

So right now these are my options:

East Coast of Canada (PEI, Nova Scotia) - You can buy family homes here for $120,000 CDN or less
Panama - Tax advantages, can find cheaper property the more rural you go
Ontario - High real estate prices, close to family

I realize that Canadians may be able to advise us better, but we are willing to hear all of your thoughts. I wish I could look at a few other international options in the Americas, but with the CDN dollar likely to stay low for a while (only 6% of our portfolio in US Doh!), it will likely be Canada or a very affordable, safe alternative.

Ok, so pick my plan a part. I can take it ... honest ... I hope.

[Goldielocks]

You mention family many, many times in your post.

Therefore, I recommend moving to within a 15 minute drive (or less) to be close to family.  If this means a townhouse, so be it.
Hopefully your family is outside of the big, expensive town.   If needed, go 1 hr away, but there is a tremendous difference between 15 minutes and 1 hr.

We moved to a HCOL area with lower wages to be closer to family, and it was completely worth it.

Here is my take on it, having lived a various distances in 4 different locations before kids were 7 years old. If you are going to move for family, then move to where you will be a part of each other lives.

Live down the block / short walk / bike :  see each other every other day
Live 15 min away -- grandparents take son to his lacrosse games, help us build a fence, we have every birthday / mothers day / other occasion togtether.  See each other weekly, eat togther 2x per month.  Kids see grandparents up to 2x per week.   
Live 1 hr away -- See each other monthly
Live 16 hr drive / 2 hr flight away -- see each other 4x per year (max)
Live 4 hr flight away -- see each other 2x per year
Live in another continent -- see each other every other year.   (or every year, if GP will visit you, too)......

[1967mama]

Live down the block / short walk / bike :  see each other every other day
Live 15 min away -- grandparents take son to his lacrosse games, help us build a fence, we have every birthday / mothers day / other occasion togtether.  See each other weekly, eat togther 2x per month.  Kids see grandparents up to 2x per week.   
Live 1 hr away -- See each other monthly
Live 16 hr drive / 2 hr flight away -- see each other 4x per year (max)
Live 4 hr flight away -- see each other 2x per year
Live in another continent -- see each other every other year.   (or every year, if GP will visit you, too)......

+1 to what goldielocks has written here. We live 5 minutes away from one set of grandparents and see them weekly. We live an hour away from the other set of grandparents and see them monthly.  Years ago, we lived a 2-3 hour flight away and saw the grandparents 3-4 times per year (and we missed them terribly in between visits). 

[BigBangWeary]

Thanks for your suggestions goldielocks. We have actually managed to see our parents for 8-10 weeks every year for the past 11 years overseas. And this has involved actually living with them (or them with us). One thing that this has taught us is that, while we do want to be close ... we don't want to be too close. We have grown to be quite different in many ways ...

My sister-in-law lives right down the road and is at the grandparents with her children daily. We love our families, but this isn't for us. Unfortunately, while we are close, there is a great deal of closed-mindedness and anti-mustachian, anti-entrepreneurship, anti-anything different that we can't be around for too long. Not to mention our closest families are still spread out at least 4 hours apart, so being close to one family wont really work.

We have managed to make distance work for us, but want to reduce the distance to a more reasonable amount (Reasonable for Hardcore travelers like us). We are also very much focused on setting ourselves up for a stable financial future. We both grew up in homes where finances were not high on anyone's list of priorities and financial stability has been a major issue (I used to go to soup kitchens and lost my family home at one stage). Going forward both sets of parents may seriously struggle financially.

Homes the vast majority of homes within an hour of our families go for $250,000-300,000. If at all possible, I want to keep more of our nestegg working for us ...

[FLA]

this is not what I expected in this thread about "pulling the plug" as a former hospice nurse, lmao. I need to broaden my world view, clearly!

[BigBangWeary]

Ha ha, ya sorry about that. Not quite what meant. Maybe 'downshifting' is a better term?