May is really too soon to be moving overseas

Now that I've been giving it some more thought, I've decided that May is way too early to be moving my (and my partner's) life to another country. Not only do we have zero savings, but we've got lots of other things to arrange beforehand. I have to rent my flat out and decide what needs to be sold (the rest will go and 'live' with my parents), and I have to find a home for my 2.5-year-old cat (I hate to leave him behind, but it would be difficult to bring him with us).

I've also decided that I don't really want to take up a teaching gig in Thailand - too restrictive. Part of the lure of moving overseas is the freedom to travel to different countries, and to do this I have to work on getting enough income to survive on through location-independent writing. Already, I think I'm making enough to be able to survive in Thailand, but I'd like to get a few more paid blogging and writing gigs lined up before we go. I have a theory that once we make it out of Australia, we'll end up doing a lot of globetrotting, and the flexibility of writing makes that a lot more plausible.

My partner Tim has never been overseas, and he's getting increasingly more psyched about us moving to Thailand the more he realises how serious I am. But he just raised a good point: he wants to go to Thailand on holiday first before deciding if he wants to move there. Fair enough (I've been there three times - twice to Bangkok and once to Phuket). I just had a look on Flight Centre and they're advertising return rates to Bangkok for $999. Not cheap, but doable. I might also have enough United Airlines miles to be able to fly to Thailand for free. I've never redeemed flyer miles, so I don't know what the process is or how long you have to wait to get an eligible flight - something I'll look into tomorrow.

I'm thinking now that maybe we'll be able to scrape together enough money to fly there for a two-week holiday in May, with a view to moving there in June or July. Decisions, decisions.