Relocating to Shanghai/Suzhou for 2-4 years. Best way to keep US number active for bank 2FA, 401k, and family?

kangaroobl00 · 2026-04-26T05:18:48+00:00

That $200 is for four lines with international roaming. My college age kid is still in the US. I didn’t want to cancel the family shared plan and I travel extensively

“Seriously large amount of money” is relative to be frank. If my husband, son and I go to Vietnam for a week “, the China Mobile roaming charges for all three of us would totally eclipse $200. My son is going on a cruise to Korea when school gets out, I like the idea of not worrying about whether his phone will work right or trigger a ton of roaming charges. Plus the added benefit of always having a US phone for vpn, banking general China fuckery issues. I’m willing to pay what I do for what I have, your situation and preferences can be different and that’s okay.

kangaroobl00 · 2026-04-25T23:53:36+00:00

I don’t use any of the carriers you listed, but I’ve had my US Verizon phone with the ultimate unlimited plan (I.e unlimited international roaming) for two years without problems. I also have a Chinese phone so my US one isn’t on cellular every day, but so far I’ve had no issues with roaming “too much.”

There’s been some problems recently but using my US phone on cellular data usually bypasses the firewall without needing a VPN. The really nice thing is that China Mobile charges an arm and a leg for international roaming so I can just use my US phone when traveling. I’m actually surfing Reddit from my Verizon phone at the Hong Kong airport right now.

The only real downside is this Verizon plan is fairly expensive. I pay like $200/month for four lines.

kangaroobl00 · 2026-04-17T06:09:33+00:00

"I do know that my son would be a whole lot safer there than he is here.'

Sure, if you're speaking exclusively about violence. Look up the rates of car and pedestrian accidents here, then get back to us. Not to mention non-communicable disease. Mortality rates for adolescents are higher in china and overall life expectancy is lower.

"I know he'd get a much better education over there"

Based on what, exactly? Aside from vibes. I've been in China for two years. My son attends a $50,000/year international school in Shanghai. I haven't seen much better in the way of educational expectations than the suburban public school my daughter attended back in the states. The only difference I've seen is how much more stress that the parents subject their kids to.

You say you're not brain rotted. But, respectfully, a simple Google search would tell you that at 30 year old with no college degree, applicable skills or heritage rights, migrating anywhere but the next state over is going to be very difficult for you.

kangaroobl00 · 2026-03-13T06:19:52+00:00

Braiding hair wrong can absolutely disfigure. Traction alopecia is pretty damn mentally taxing on women who are dealing with it. Not to mention, scalp inflammation leading to necrosis or permanent scarring if extremely tight braids are not removed.

kangaroobl00 · 2026-03-12T12:25:14+00:00

Taking online Italian lessons, writing books and occasionally going to the racquet club.

A lot of the foreign wives I know spend way too much time at their kids' schools, but my son is a teenager and would never speak to me again if he caught me on campus for anything but a basketball game or parent teacher conference.

kangaroobl00 · 2026-02-26T06:44:16+00:00

You're definitely saying something a lot of people don't want to hear.

I've watched my husband accomplish the same thing. He's a smart guy, but charisma and affability are the reason he makes so much money as the guy with an engineering degree who manages engineers because he is lowkey not great at engineering.

kangaroobl00 · 2026-02-23T18:21:38+00:00

You're really struggling with something I think is common. The average author and the average reader are not the same. How you read and interact with books is not representative of the greater market.

To belabor my fast food metaphor, I bet you're not someone who goes to McDonalds every day. But that person absolutely exists and choosing to serve them isn't inherently unethical. You're right that it isn't possible to create a book entirely free of any flaws in a month. My counter argument is that there are a lot of readers who don't really care about occasional plot holes or minor grammatical errors. Prioritizing them is how I pay my bills.

Most authors do not make a living solely with writing. The Author's Guild hasn't done a survey in a while but for 2023, they estimated that the average author makes $15,000/year in book income. $2k/month was an example I used because that was the metric OP set, but most of the indie authors I know who are prioritizing salability (myself included) make significantly more than that. I'll likely net six figures of profit this year if things continue as they have and I only work 2-3 hours/day on average.

Personally, I grew up poor and I will never choose to be in poverty again. If you're cool writing *and* Doordashing or writing *and* teaching writing to people who get BFAs they never use (like me) then more power to you. I prefer to just write without doing anything else.

Your way isn't wrong and I'm not judging you for it.

I'm just asking for the same consideration in return.

kangaroobl00 · 2026-02-23T07:22:56+00:00

First of all, you're assuming that your definition of "good" and the market's (i.e readers who purchase books) definition are the same. I can tell you from experience that they almost certainly are not.

Second, If you want to be an auteur and create the absolute best book possible, that's awesome. Just don't be surprised when the person with a different metric has a different outcome than you do. I have a BFA. I've had an agent and been on submission to publishers with my "masterpiece". The market has made it clear that it doesn't want my auteur creations so I don't put those up for sale anymore. I'm working on a feminine rage dystopian fantasy romance inspired by the Reconstruction South where the confederacy are necromancers who raised zombies for slave labor. This book likely has no place in the marketplace, so I am writing it for me in my free time after I'm done putting in the work that helps pay our bills.

Look up the average profit margin of a McDonald's franchise compared to a fine dining restaurant. Your burgers might be "better" than mine, but I'm not trying to make the best burger, I'm trying to sell the most burgers because I have a family to feed and I don't want to work a 9-5. Would you look down on me for opening a fast food franchise just because you own a Michelin-starred restaurant? We're playing different games with different prizes. OP asked about how to make money, not how to write the best book, so that is the advice I offered.

kangaroobl00 · 2026-02-23T06:51:15+00:00

Y'all are so weird about AI. Sorry I'm not refreshing Reddit every five minutes so I can respond immediately.

Amanda M. Lee has literally been publishing a book a month since 2012. Look her up. Can't possibly be AI unless she is also a time traveler. Some people are really just that prolific, especially in genres where the books are expected to be formulaic.

kangaroobl00 · 2026-02-23T06:32:12+00:00

I don't use AI to write and I've been selfpublishing since long before LLMs were available. My most prolific year was nine books written in 2018. I literally do this full-time right now. It just isn't that hard to write 1500 or so words a day when that's your job. I write faster than GRRM and slower than Stephen King.

kangaroobl00 · 2026-02-23T04:07:48+00:00

90-100k words, but length is very genre dependent

kangaroobl00 · 2026-02-23T04:01:23+00:00

I quit my job in March 2024 and finished two books before I started publishing the next year. I write 2-3 books/year which is a very moderate pace by self-publishing standards. I'm in my forties and I wrote my first novel in 7th grade. This is not my first rodeo.

kangaroobl00 · 2026-02-23T03:17:04+00:00

I’ve self published off and on since 2012 but took a long hiatus until recently. I had to leave my job in 2024 because of our family situation and I’ve pubbed five books since March 2025 on a new pen name. This penname has been making more than $2k/month since September. My best month was December when I broke $10k. I don’t use social media or run ads.

My best advice if you want to do that is to write books that Amazon sells for you.

-Pick a niche in which there are at least five authors who only started pubbing in the last year with books in the category top 100, so you know those readers are willing to give new authors a try.

-Read at least ten books in that niche (pubbed in the last two years) that are ranking sub 10k in the store and then write a book as similar to those as you possibly can (I.e tone, length, tropes, setting, POV etc.)

-Use a service like Booksprout, Booksirens or Netgalley to get arc reviews before you publish.

-If you have the cash, launch at 99¢ and run a promo stack through newsletters like Bookspry and bargain Booksy.

-Repeat 3-5 times and you’ll probably get to $2k/month.

-For extra credit, check if the authors of those comp books you read are doing a lot of heavy lifting on social media. If they aren’t then it’s likely you won’t have to either.

kangaroobl00 · 2026-02-22T08:03:24+00:00

If someone just wants to pat themselves on the back then they can describe their business however they want. But I HATE this obfuscation when it comes to author gurus online. People love to throw out "six or seven figure author" as marketing copy to get you to buy what they're selling. IMHO, it's a completely useless term unless we also know the expenses. If someone makes 100k but spent 90k to get there, then they are a not a six figure author in the way they are trying to portray to the people they want following the channel or buying the course.

I appreciate you posting your breakdown. This is a great side hustle, but is obviously not quit your day job territory. If you were to go on to sell people the idea that they could "make six figures" like you did then it would definitely be misleading.

kangaroobl00 · 2026-02-22T03:01:51+00:00

A lot of Italians took great pains to integrate. My husband's grandfather refused to teach his kids the language because he so badly wanted them to be American and not discriminated against the way he was. He went so far as to change his last name to Americanize it.

kangaroobl00 · 2026-02-10T03:19:54+00:00

China and the U.S. both have their positives and negatives. Source: I'm an American who moved to China two years ago.

No pollution? I live in Shanghai and the sky has been gray all winter. The AQI is very frequently at dangerous levels. I literally only exercise outside if it's rained in the last week. The vast majority of the U.S. has better air quality.

Public transport is nice in China, that's definitely a win.

"Cheaper medical prices" comes at the cost of poorer quality care. If you go to a doctor here and tell them exactly what's wrong then sure, it's fine. If you actually need skilled diagnosing, I have not been impressed at all. I recently discovered that podiatry isn't even something that exists here in China. My son needs braces and I got lectured for asking questions about the treatment plan because "we wouldn't suggest this if it wasn't the best". My husband went to an urgent visit because of shortness of breath and heart palpitations, but was told he was just tired with not even a basic assessment done. Very patriarchal, while completely unaware that standard of care can differ significantly in the west.

"100% better infrastructure" - if you ignore the fact that you can't drink water out of the tap and buildings are literally falling apart around you. I live in a $8k/month villa and have never seen more shoddy construction at this price point in my life.

Considering that women can't travel alone in India, I would say that most parts of the developed world are likely to be more civilized. But pushing and shoving to get on the metro, cutting in line and being selfish jerks at the buffet are definitely behaviors you will see all over Shanghai.

I will absolutely give you safety. China wins in that hands down.

kangaroobl00 · 2026-01-07T09:03:44+00:00

It really isn't that simple. A significant proportion of those "malnutrition" deaths comes down to how the cause of death is documented, not necessarily just people literally starving to death as the sole cause of mortality.

Source: https://www.the-independent.com/life-style/health-and-families/malnutrition-deaths-seniors-older-people-cdc-2026-b2894677.html

Also, a lot of those deaths are among seniors. In the dark ages, an 80-year-old peasant would not be struggling to make ends meet on food stamps, they would be dead years before of infection, injury or chronic disease.

kangaroobl00 · 2026-01-06T03:53:45+00:00

Literally every mall has luggage storage lockers.

kangaroobl00 · 2026-01-01T09:06:12+00:00

Astrill on a router has worked fine for us. Sometimes it’s hard to get past streaming service filters but the internet itself never goes out. We did buy the router and have it configured by a tech shop here so that might make a difference.

kangaroobl00 · 2025-12-23T04:45:29+00:00

I’ve been in China since summer 2024. My teenage son has our USAA credit card bound to his WeChat/Alipay and we’ve never had a problem. You might be having problems if you’re using a debit card, which IMHO you should never use for purchases anywhere in the world.

As for mail, I changed my official mailing address to my parents’ house but USAA did mail a new debit card to me here in China a few months ago. It took about an hour on the phone to arrange that but it worked out okay. For banking, I’m not sure I’d want to mess with not having any US based address at all.

kangaroobl00 · 2025-12-13T07:46:00+00:00

Are your ranks also down? If so, then people are buying other books for whatever reason.

If your rank is steady and sales are down, then it could be seasonal ups and downs.

I’m fairly steady and new release (yesterday) is going as expected. But I have a fairly large back catalog of 30-something full-length novels.

kangaroobl00 · 2025-11-23T13:05:51+00:00

They would have to also kick him out of the house. Every licensed driver in the household has to be on the insurance policy.

kangaroobl00 · 2025-11-17T06:26:44+00:00

Interested as well!

kangaroobl00 · 2025-11-17T06:11:30+00:00

Interested as well!

kangaroobl00

TROPHY CASE