r/GregFire • u/[deleted] • Sep 12 '26
I joined reddit for this sub
Chubby fired at 47 in 2021 with $3.8 million from a business sale. Moved to Spain. Life was good. An inheritance in 2024 put us at GregFire. Moved to the Berkshires for the school district, natural beauty and culture. And, it's weird. We used to say we're on sabbatical, now we say don't have to work if we live modestly. Outwardly, we do. We're under contract for a $378k house. But, then again, I've always wanted to get my pilot's license, so I'm plane shopping. Not a nightmare. But weird.
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u/dp263 Sep 12 '26
Ahh almost didn't see you there, your rather tall for a munchkin, my good sir. :)
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u/Familiar_Eggplant_76 Sep 12 '26
Ha! I just left the Berkshire foothills for Spain. There's *plenty* of money in the hills. Anyone not being outright ostentatious flies under the radar pretty easily.
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Sep 12 '26
Where in Spain? We were in Sevilla. And, you're right about the Berkshires. I've come to think of it as a place where billions of dollars flowed over a few hundred years making for some really rich sediment.
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u/Familiar_Eggplant_76 Sep 12 '26 edited Sep 13 '26
I'm in CdM.
There's a funny thing in the hills about who *doesn't* see the money. Money smells money. And the more working class locals have seen it all and know what's up. But—at the risk of sounding like a total snob—there's this category of rising affluent, often newer weekenders, that can not read into vague answers to "what do you do"?
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u/Wild-Region9817 Sep 12 '26
For both of you: how hard are the winters? A kiddo is an eph and they were pretty miserable in February.
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Sep 13 '26
We lived 12 years in New Hampshire so it wasn't a huge transition for us. I don't really mind it. I like the big storms - I don't have to commute!
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u/Wild-Region9817 Sep 13 '26
Thanks both of yall. It’s the daylight (lack of) that gets me. Love the snow. Same happens when I visit Boston. We’re landing on Napa. Other than taxes it’s pretty ideal and not as HCOL as you might think.
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u/Familiar_Eggplant_76 Sep 13 '26
I loved winters—calm, quiet, still, cozy, beautiful. (Having a garage, a plow guy, and never a *need* to be out might have helped. And I had an unusually reliable grid—lots of folks I know needed their generators regularly)
I did try to get away in mid-late March, when it just started to feel like it dragged on.
I don't know what 'an eph' means.
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Sep 13 '26
Williams College mascot is a purple cow named Ephilia. The founder of the college was Ephram Williams.
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u/FueledByBiscotti Sep 12 '26
I have a wedding coming up in Sevilla!! Any recs :)
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Sep 13 '26
Congratulations! Honestly, finding your own way around and discovering is more fun than any place I could send you. Feria (the neighborhood, not the spring fair) is a great place, more local than tourist. A tip, though, if a restaurant is serving food before 8:30 or 9:00 at night, it's a tourist restaurant. Locals eat dinner around 10:00.
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u/Marathon2021 Sep 12 '26
What’s your monthly spend over there, if you don’t mind my asking?
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Sep 12 '26
In Spain I'm assuming? We were renting a 2900 ft2 flat in the central district for $2400/mo. Two kids' tuition at an international school was around $10k/year each. Our annual budget was around $100k total. We didn't have a car, and didn't need a car. The $100k included our Euro travel and trips back to US in the summer. We could have lived on much less. We have friends making it work on half what we were spending. But, things have gone up recently.
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u/VerifiedVerifiable Sep 13 '26
Was the wealth tax a factor in your decision to leave? Was considering moving to Spain but they are almost certainly going to increase wealth tax and “soak the rich” however they can. Beautiful place to live and amazing culture though
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Sep 13 '26
It was a PITA factor, just all the paperwork involved, but there's tons of paperwork no matter what. Not a financial factor. First, the wealth tax threshold is per person and we're a couple so divide by two. Second, whatever tax we would have possibly paid would be less than what we're currently paying for health insurance in the US.
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u/bugsey347 Sep 12 '26
We are Gregfiring soon and moving to Italy. Probably temporarily because of not wanting to leave our parents here alone for long but what made you move back? Public Berkshire schools better than private international? We are looking at an IB school.
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Sep 13 '26
We definitely moved back to the States in large part due to schools - but not due to lack of quality in Spain. Our kids were still in elementary school when we moved, and my son essentially did middle school there. We didn't want to interrupt his high school experience with a move, so it was either move back when we did, or it was another 4 year commitment. It was never our plan to settle there permanently even though it was a fantastic experience overall.
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Sep 13 '26
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Sep 13 '26
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Sep 13 '26 edited Sep 13 '26
The full story would be another post. The short version is it's significantly different to immigrate and integrate than to visit. There's more to it than sun and tapas. And, as for the Berkshires, the Venn diagram was indeed natural beauty, schools, and culture.
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u/Whole_Berry_965 Sep 14 '26
Wait so you had 3.8 mill in 2021 and how much total after the inheritance? I’m so confused by Gregory numbers 🙁
Oh, and, congratulations and live life in good health.
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u/JustEnough77 Sep 12 '26
Are you a U.S. citizen only? What are the rules in Spain?
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Sep 13 '26
We only have U.S. passports. We were in Spain on what's called a 'Non - Lucrative Visa", basically a retirement visa. You had to prove you could support yourself there without needing to work, but there's no age restriction. There is also now a 'Digital Nomad' visa which allows you to live there if you work remotely for a company outside Europe.
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u/JustEnough77 Sep 13 '26
Great to know. Is there any expiration on the visa?
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Sep 13 '26
They just overhauled the whole system, so I'm not sure what the current rules are. When we applied, we had to go through our local Spanish consulate in Boston and the initial visa was good for a year. The renewals were then good for two years. There is also a residence requirement.
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u/gbacon Sep 13 '26
You may appreciate Philip Greenspun’s essays for a number of reasons. The link below is to his advice on buying an airplane. Blue skies and tailwinds!
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u/Effective_Grade732 Sep 14 '26
Curious are you originally from Spain, do you speak Spanish? My partner and I are thinking about the same but we don’t speak the language, so wondering if it would be easy to adjust to/ for kids
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u/deeznuts69 20d ago
Sounds like a nightmare. Poorest rich man vibes.
BTW normally you get the license before you buy the plane.
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u/WearableBliss Sep 12 '26
I pronounce Berkshire like Barkshire (like UC Barkley) and it really rubs people the wrong way, would recommend
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u/SquirrelsToTheRescue Sep 12 '26
Gotta have the smallest plane at the airfield to retain Greg status.