43-year-old American moved abroad 16 years ago and is happier than ever—how she lives comfortably on $44,000 a year

This story is part of CNBC Make It's Millennial Money series, which details how people around the world earn, spend and save their money.

In 2008, during what would come to be known as the Great Recession, stories like Nicole Brewer's were all too common.

At 27, she'd recently bought a condo on the South Side of Chicago with little money down and a loan that would likely stretch her mid-$30,000's salary thin. Then the market research firm she worked for did layoffs, and she lost her job.

Amid a financial crisis, finding another one proved difficult. After collecting unemployment benefits for five of the allotted six months, Brewer, like many of her peers, was growing desperate.

"I remember I got scared and I was like, 'OK, what are you going to do if your unemployment runs out? You don't have a job,'" she tells CNBC Make It. "That's when I started looking at opportunities. I said, 'I'll think outside the box, look at some teaching jobs abroad.'"

Brewer found a gig teaching English at a primary school South Korea, a move that would satisfy some wanderlust while she waited for the U.S. economy to bounce back.

But that's where her story gets a little less common. After three years in Korea, Brewer took a college-level ESL job, this time in Nizwa, an ancient city in Oman about a 90-minute drive from Muscat, the nation's capital. She's been there ever since, living happily and traveling — and currently earning a salary of just over $40,000 a year, plus some side-hustle income.

"I have had such an incredible experience living here. I never even imagined that I would be here for 10-plus years, because I just felt comfortable here," Brewer, 43, says. "My mental health has definitely been great here."

A move abroad can be daunting — especially for someone in a precarious financial situation. But for Brewer, who'd moved to a new country with just two suitcases, things were surprisingly seamless.

"Fortunately at that time, being recruited to work for the education department in Korea, they helped set you up," she says. That meant covering the cost of her flight and assigning her a liaison from her school who helped her find an apartment and transition into working life in Busan, a city of just over 3 million people.

Back home, things were still rough. The renter she'd found to take over payments on her Chicago condo lost his job too and soon fell behind. The bank foreclosed on the property.

That may have made life difficult for Brewer had she chosen to return to the States on her original timeline. But it didn't take long for her to realize that expat life suited her.

Her home base in Korea, along with a modest cost of living, allowed her to see parts of the world she would have likely otherwise missed, including trips to India and the Philippines. "I was able to live comfortably and still travel a bit," she says.

After three years, Brewer was looking for a change of pace, and initially thought she might like Dubai. While researching the region, she came across a posting for a job at a university in Oman. "After seeing that posting, I ended up researching on my own and I was like, 'Wow, this is a very beautiful country,'" Brewer says.

She gave it a chance, boarding a plane in 2012, once again with two suitcases and plans to figure things out when she got there. Other than brief stints in Germany and South Africa to complete an accelerated masters program in international humanitarian aid, she's stuck around.

Brewer's main gig is still teaching English, a job which pays her about $3,400 a month, even when school is not in session. Over the years, she's picked up some side hustles, too, as a freelance travel writer and part-time travel advisor. Those brought her an extra $3,400 in 2024.

Brewer is still an American citizen and pays income taxes in the U.S. And even though she doesn't necessarily blend in with the locals — she doesn't speak Arabic or practice Islam — her Yankee status comes with a certain level of respect. "I like to call it 'passport privilege,'" she says.

Overall, she says, being a Black American woman doesn't come with many of

the burdens while living abroad as it might have back home. "I wouldn't say that I deal with much or any racism, because I think it's more so, you're American — we take pride in having an American who loves living in Oman."

Even though it took a while for Brewer to adjust to the conservative Omani lifestyle — and casual dating is still a struggle — she says she consistently feels welcomed by the Omani people.

"They welcome me. They say, 'Oh, hello, sister,' when I get in taxis. They call me sister like I'm one of them because I respect the culture," she says. "It's been very great. I wouldn't have stayed as long as I had if it wasn't a good life here."

• Travel: $2,630 on flights and hotels for a trip to Bali, Indonesia
• Rent: $650
• Food: $348 on groceries and dining
• Cab fare: $277
• Discretionary: $133 on clothing, donations and various fees
• Health and wellness: $65 on spa treatment and prescriptions
• Netflix subscription: $15
• Phone: $10

Brewer's two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment came fully furnished, and she pays 250 Omani rials — or roughly $650 — a month in rent, utilities included. She spends about $70 or $80 a week on groceries. Insurance, a major line item in most American workers' budgets, is covered by her employer.

Living relatively modestly for most of the year allows Brewer to devote significant funds toward her life's passion: travel. More than half her January spending went toward a trip to Bali during her school's winter break.

She generally takes two or three big trips a year, and her location in the Middle East makes it easier to travel to some parts of the world than if she had stayed in the U.S. Trips to Namibia and the Seychelles, she says, are much more affordable with Oman has a home base.

"I'm able to travel to Europe, of course, as well, because it's right there," she says.

Even given her relatively low cost of living, traveling the world on a teacher's salary means Brewer has had to put some financial goals on the back burner. Although her credit cards are paid off, she still carries about $24,600 in student debt from her time as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan.

And while she has about $22,000 invested across stocks and cryptocurrency, it's hardly enough for her to feel like she's on track for major financial milestones, like retirement.

"I do feel like sometimes maybe I beat myself up because I feel like I should have more in savings, considering how long I've been abroad," Brewer says. "Sometimes I'm like, 'Maybe I could have not gone to this destination and have a little more money padded in my savings.' But the reality is, I'm grateful for every trip that I have been on."

In the coming years, Brewer hopes to ramp up her savings enough to fund a semi-retirement of sorts in Portugal.

"In the perfect scenario, I would have a hostel. It would be a place where I can live, as well as have additional rooms to be able to rent out and make an income from the property," she says.

For now, though, she has no plans to leave what she says is a fulfilling and peaceful life in Oman.

"It's not an easy life to be on the other side of the world from your family, especially when emergencies and family situations come up," she says. "You have to take the good with the bad. But overall, I do have a peace of mind living here because it's so safe and people are really kind-hearted."

Conversions from OMR to USD were done using the Bank of Muscat's conversion rate of 1 USD to 0.3877 OMR on Jan. 1, 2025. All amounts are rounded to the nearest dollar.

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