I'm Jessica Smith, and I'm 35 years old.

And I'm Eric Smith, and I'm 37 years old.

And we actually relocated from Kansas all the way to Spain back in 2021.

And we live in La Grona, Spain with our two and a half year old son.

And also our two rescue dogs.

When we first moved here, I was teaching English for the first two years.

So I was getting 700 euro every month.

We knew we wanted to find a way to live in Spain long term.

And we also knew that we needed to find other ways to eventually make money if we wanted to stay living in Spain.

Jessica actually one day decided to start a TikTok account.

Looking for eggs at a grocery store in Spain?

No need to look in the refrigerator section because they're right here at room temperature.

People seem really interested in our lives abroad.

At that point, we never really considered it as a career.

We posted our, I guess now famous TikTok.

I mean, why not La Grona?

Not why La Grona?

Why not?

Basically overnight, it goes completely viral.

And we have all these people contacting us, all these news outlets.

We did a live interview in Spanish completely on national television in Spain.

We quickly realized that this is something that's valuable.

Marketing in English for Spain and in Spain isn't common.

This is something that we realized that we could offer.

[They are now self-employed content creators promoting their region and living in Spain]

If you know, you know.

They're so good.

Look how beautiful that is.

It's delicious.

We're still in the first year of really establishing our business.

So right now we're making anywhere from $1,000 to about $4,000 a month.

Just depending on how many jobs we get, how many projects we're working on.

So we live in La Grona, which is the capital of La Rioja, Spain.

The city that we live in is very affordable compared to other big cities in Spain.

So it's more affordable than Madrid.

It's more affordable than Barcelona.

Hello, welcome to our home here in La Grona, Spain.

We pay about $915 for rent.

We have a big terrace that we absolutely love.

This is our terrace, our absolutely favorite part of the house.

We love having dinner here almost every night.

Cheers!

Cheers!

Right now we're spending around $600 a month on groceries.

That's a lot here.

That's a lot here, but I'm married to a chef and we have to go to six different grocery stores to get the right seasoning and we have to get the fresh bread.

It's like another full-time job.

Should I get the cheap brand or the expensive brand?

That's always the question, right?

And La Grona in particular, it's a very comfortable city for families.

Everything is close.

That's what I love the most.

It's a very comfortable 15-minute city to live in that has a great quality of life.

I love being able to walk everywhere.

Depending upon the month for daycare for our son, we pay on average around $230 or $260 per month.

And that is full-time daycare for us.

For healthcare, we pay about $2,300 for the year and that's for myself, Eric and our son.

And that covers dental and everything.

We don't pay any deductibles or anything either.

[Jessica and Eric also studied Spanish at the local university]

Financially, what has changed in how we spend our money is in the United States, we lived our lives inside.

So, you know, we had the big screen TV.

You had your, what is it called, PS?

PlayStation.

PlayStation.

Where here, we found ourselves spending all of our time outside of the house.

(Speaking in Spanish) We need two orders of champis.

I mean, we come back in our house to rest, eat, sleep, but that's pretty much it.

When we lived in the United States, we thought about money all the time.

Where here, it's more like the benefits rather than the goal of money.

I've really enjoyed that mental change.

I was a sous chef at a country club in Kansas and I worked minimum probably 60 hours a week.

60 hours a week.

[Jessica owned and managed her own pet and house-sitting business]

I thought that was my dream was to manage a business of this type.

I was completely unfulfilled.

We owned our own house.

We owned two cars.

We both had careers and good jobs and we had all of these things.

The only thing from your typical American dream that we're missing is having a family.

[They spent the next three years trying to have a child]

After we had trouble starting a family.

And then the pandemic.

That's when we decided we're going to look into moving to Spain.

And at that point, I needed a break so bad.

I was like, sure, let's just act like we're 20 and let's move to Spain and it will be fine.

About six months into the process, we found out that we were pregnant.

Surprise.

All of our family was like, "Oh, of course, you'll stay in Kansas then."

Nobody picks up their whole lives and then is also pregnant and then also doesn't speak the language.

And we both look at each other and we're like, "Well, they have babies everywhere, right?"

The first 24 hours, we absolutely had a lot of doubts as to whether or not we made the right decision.

A hundred percent.

[Quinton was born two months after they arrived in Spain]

We wouldn't trade this for the world.

We love living here.

We love our daily life.

I would say the biggest thing that we just miss is we wish our families could be here with us.

But for us, we don't at all regret our decision.

Spain is, in my opinion, one of the best places for kids because they can pretty much go everywhere.

I mean, obviously, we don't take them to like the disco.

When we go dancing at three in the morning, he does not come with us.

But basically everywhere else, he comes with us.

And for me, that's the most amazing part is I can be a mother and also be myself.

I don't have to choose.

And in many ways, we are absolutely living our dream life right now.

Spain is our home.

Spain is where we want to be.

So yes, we finally made our dream come true of living in Spain.