{"id":6929,"date":"2023-10-25T04:35:20","date_gmt":"2023-10-25T08:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/?p=6929"},"modified":"2023-10-25T04:35:22","modified_gmt":"2023-10-25T08:35:22","slug":"my-money-goes-a-lot-further-here-this-woman-moved-to-italy-because-the-us-was-too-expensive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/2023\/10\/25\/my-money-goes-a-lot-further-here-this-woman-moved-to-italy-because-the-us-was-too-expensive\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018My money goes a lot further here\u2019: This woman moved to Italy because the US was too expensive"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Tamara Hardingham-Gill, CNN – After dealing with the death of her mother, losing her job of 10 years and finalizing her divorce, Barbara Barto was at a crossroads in her life.<\/p>

The 62-year-old, from Fort Worth, Texas, who had been working as an office manager, struggled to find another role and felt as though she had passed her \u201cexpiration date.\u201d<\/p>

Barto decided that now was probably the right time to retire, but was concerned that she wouldn\u2019t be able to live comfortably afterwards due to the rising cost of living in the US.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>

An avid viewer of the Home & Garden Television (HGTV) channel for years, she\u2019d often dreamed of packing up and moving to another country, but hadn\u2019t ever had the courage. However, she realized that it was likely now or never.<\/p>

New chapter<\/h2>

\u201cI\u2019ve never been one of those people who just pick up and move and do adventurous things like that,\u201d Barto tells CNN Travel, before explaining that Italy, where she\u2019d briefly visited in the 1980s, was high on the list of countries she\u2019d like to live in.<\/p>

\u201cSo I thought I\u2019m getting to that age, might as well try it out and see how it will work out for me.\u201d<\/p>

In 2020, Barto began attending regular webinars hosted by A Home In Italy, a company that assists foreigners with buying property in the European country, to figure out whether such a move would even be feasible.<\/p>

\u201cI put pencil to paper and saw that I could afford it, and it was going to be more affordable than living in the United States,\u201d she says.<\/p>

\u201cBecause everything\u2019s more expensive there. When I put the numbers together, I saw I could live there more comfortably with my retirement and the inheritance that I have. And I thought, \u2018Well, why not?\u2019\u201d<\/p>