How has your life changed in Brazil

10 everything change in my life most worse way

I retired and moved to Brazil due to getting married to my Brazilian wife.  I don't know if my daily activities would be any different wherever I live. I do walk every morning. I spend time on social media a few hours a day. I watch a lot of TV. We go to movies at least 2 times a week. I do like the variety of food available. I guess I rate my experience here as a 5.  My standard of living has changed some but it is because my wife and I are both getting a good retirement and it improved both of our standards of living.

Jim

-4 😓

When I arrived it was exciting for a month or two, then 6 months of pure hell followed
by a year of difficult work for low wages

The last 5 months have been a lot better though as things started happening for me

It's been a tough experience but now that i've adapted I feel a lot of positive personal growth

I'd rate it a 3 at the moment

After a year of living here, I am very happy with my choice. If I didn't have a retirement check coming in each month I would be screwed, but I'm only 40 and need to start another career. I work a few part time jobs and attend school. I would say my quality of life is excellent here in regards to social life, nice house, tons of friends and lots of opportunities. I would rate the change at a 8 out of 10, but good changes. I rarely have a free weekend where I haven't been invited to something, always busy.

My first 6 months here I experienced a lot of ups and downs. The language barrier, the high cost of living here, culture change, Goiania driving, etc.

The good outweighs the bad for sure!

Moved to Sao Paulo just about a year ago now. It definitely took a bit of getting used to. On one hand cities are not so different the world over, yet there's a ton of small things that don't necessarily strike you until you've spent a bit of time here. The first months were difficult due to having to deal with all the bureaucracy and different systems they have here. SP is also a stressful fast-moving place, and everyone is here primarily for the pursuit of capital, which I think negatively affects the quality of life here.

However in the last few months things have been on the up. I work long hours but my income is increasing, I'm making new friends and contacts, and opportunities (professional and social) are starting to appear. Although it was tough, as someone else mentioned here I have felt personal growth for getting through some of the more difficult moments. In some ways my old life was definitely easier and more comfortable, but at this point I don't have any serious regrets and I continue to feel better about the place.

Overall, I think I would rate the change about a 6 out of 10 at this point.

The biggest change I've been through since (because of) moving to Brazil is that I am no longer homeless. Landlords don't turn their noses up at me as if I have the plague when I tell them I'm a freelance writer.

I've been here almost 5 years now and have gone from renting a room in a "republica/aposentaria" in the Butantã part of SP, to renting a suite in a house near the beach with my fiance. Now we rent a house of our own and are looking into either buying a house or buying a piece of land here to build our own to MY standards (I come from a construction background before leaving the US).

My only real issue is her 30 year old son. We in the US would call him a worthless leach, sponging of his mother's "rich" American boyfriend, although I am in no way rich. I make enough to get by every month and have some to play with, not much more. But he refuses to work. Wants to be in politics and says he can't be tied down by a full-time job. I just say he's freaking lazy and a waste of breath. Oh, I forgot to mention that he's also a chronic liar. "I put the stuff I bought for you in my sister's purse. I have to wait until she gets home to give it to you." I'm really getting tired of supporting him since her paychecks pretty much just cover her expenses and the two accounts we have at stores in town.

He's getting a little better at this, but I also hate his habit of feeling that he doesn't have to ask permission to use or take things that aren't his. I bought some expensive cologne for myself and he used most of it. He has almost no hair, but he uses my expensive dandruff shampoo. He comes into our room and takes my razor to use. At least he knows to ask if he can use my computer and my electric trimmer.

All told, my moving here has been a positive experience and has greatly improved my quality of life. No more homeless shelters. No more sleeping in the back of a car. No more relying on the government to make sure I have enough to eat every day. I've gone from earning about $500-$750 a month and living hand-t0-mouth (when I was lucky) over the ten years prior to moving here, to feeling financially comfortable in knowing all that's in the past. I've grown professionally now as well, to the point where I now have some clients knocking at my door, instead of vice versa. My max of $750 a month has gone up to a minimum of $1500 a month and once all the cartorio, PF, state, federal, etc. fees are paid and out of the way, (oh, and I've put gears and disc brakes on both our bikes) my financial life will be even more comfortable. Hell, I've even been able to start putting money in a savings account for the first time in 20 years.

As far as using a 0-10 scale is concerned, I'd say it's an 8 or so. Without her worthless son it would be a definitely positive 10 or 12.

Oh, I do have to say that Brazil needs to discover Ranch dressing, maple syrup, teriyaki sauce, cherry drinks (affordably), and extra sharp cheddars. Something like Jimmy Dean sausage would be nice, although I've found a recipe that comes close. Having my mom and friends mail Ranch and cherry kool-aid to me every two to three months is getting expensive and takes far too long.

Wow Mike that's an interesting story....how did you actually end up in Brazil in the first place?

Mike:  Glad to see things are looking up for you in Brazil.

As for the "lazy" uncommitted young man, this seems to be a problem in Brazil.

I have traveled there several times beginning in 2001 to visit my wife's family near Belo Horizonte.

Although every body in my wife's family are hard-working people, I have, nonetheless, met several men similar to the guy you described. Seems to be a cultural thing.

Stevefunk: I must someone on a site back in 2009 and we hit it off. Three months later I was trying to get my passport. My ex and child support held that up for more than 2 years fighting her over the phone and the fighting the county in court. I won, obviously.

However, when I got here, the woman I met changed her mind after my visa extension had expired. She said I should go home and we should remain friends. I told her "Sorry, I like it here. I'm staying. Brazil is a big freaking ocean and you're definitely not the only fish here. I don't need a Brazilian girlfriend to feel comfortable here. It would be nice, but not a requirement."

ndfansince53: That's what she keeps saying: "Amor, é uma coisa brasileira. Vc precisa de aguentar." I call it a lack of respect. It's a "Brazilian thing" to ignore what the owner of something says?  It's a Brazilian thing to be told not to use metal spoons in an expensive Teflon pan and five minutes later to use metal spoons in that expensive Teflon pan?  No. I call that a total lack of respect for me.

"I can't get a full-time job because my patron in the Cámara might need me to do something for him and I won't be able to if I'm working."  Yeah, but you can't fucking eat unless you have money and I'm going broke feeding you!

He's the biggest stickler in our relationship. I never expected or wanted to have to support her 30 year old son. I kicked MY son's ass for not working. But I can't even tell her I don't like it or she gets mad at me and tells me she's not going to demand he get a job because it might mess with his dream of being a politician.

Mike:

Hopefully this will help -

It's not because of who or what you are that he shows little respect. He would do the same thing to anyone else in the same situation.

I know an elderly woman, a friend and neighbor of my wife's family.

She has a son whose dream it was to become an international soccer star. The only problem was that he wasn't good enough to play for a local team in Belo Horizonte, but instead of deciding on a career and getting a decent job, he continued to sponge off his mother and the two of them continued with the bs about him becoming a soccer star.

He's in his 50's now and lives with a woman who works. He's leaching off her.

These women don't see it. The problem is that there's so much of this thing in Brazil, that even those women (mostly mothers) who are  victimized by it don't get it. She will likely continue to be blinded.

Probably best for you to say a prayer and look for the  divine guidance to be able to accept what you can not change.

Yeah, if I believed that would do any good. 

I'm not sure how, but he's apparently come into three parcels of land within the past few months. One was given to him by the mother of three of his children because she lives in government housing and would lose that if she had her name on it. She acquired it when her father died. Although he was talking about selling it for something like R$75k or more, he ended up selling it for R$15k, which he split with his children's mother and her brother.

He's got another one that he's been saying he can sell for close to R$1M, but he has to have water and electric run to the front of it first. Last I heard that had gone down to R$500k, more than half of which would end up going to a lawyer. He's a chronic liar, so I'm not sure how much of that I believe.

No, knowing that he has no respect for anyone at all, except maybe the politician he calls his "patron" doesn't help one bit.

One of the big problems I think is the fact that his father kidnapped him when he was like 7 years old and my wife's daughter found him on Facebook two years ago. That was the first contact she had with him for more than 20 years. I think she feels that if she tells him exactly how she feels (and how I feel) about what he's doing, she'll lose contact with him again. I want to kick his worthless ass out of the house, ALL of which I'm paying for, but she won't let me. It sucks when everyone here relies on MY paycheck to pay rent, buy food and drink, and everything else they want to do, but I have less than zero say in what happens. She makes about R$1100 a month as a housekeeper, and her daughter makes about R$1500 working at another house, but my wife doesn't allow her to pay for much of anything because she has a son who she's put into the most expensive school here in town and her husband is on disability until he finishes moving down here.

I've been wanting to put disc brakes on our bikes because the brakes currently installed aren't safe. Every time I think I've got the money I need to do it saved up, I'm hit with another expense for one of her kids or our grandson and I have to put it off. She doesn't seem to notice (or maybe she doesn't want to notice) that this is really pissing me off.

If she had told me that she would hold me responsible for all of her kids' financial needs when we first started talking, I'd have probably stopped talking to her before we got serious. I didn't come here to support someone else's children. I stayed here because it was cheaper and I could get away with working a fairly light schedule and still have a quite comfortable life. That is no longer the case, although I will admit that some of that is because I have to pay my mom $250USD every month for the next 8 months for loans she made to me to help pay for the processes we went through unsuccessfully trying to get her a US tourist visa (5 attempts, plus paying an "assessoria" for help) to visit over last year's holidays.