35-year-old American moved to China, pays $278 a month in rent

At 30 years old, Alesse Lightyear decided it was time to leave New York City and her job in reality TV production.

“I was living check to check, which sucked. My last few years living and working in New York City were some of the most stressful years of my life,” Lightyear tells CNBC Make It. “I was tired of working 70 hours a week for ten years. Being in my 20s, I felt like a 50-year-old woman.”

Lightyear had lived in neighborhoods all across NYC and in Jersey City at one point, too.

“At the height of my career in New York, I was probably making $100,000 a year [and] working eight months out of the year, which on paper sounds great, but New York City is one of the world’s most expensive cities, so that $100,000 went extremely fast,” Lightyear says.

Lightyear took some time to consider where she might land next and decided on China, where should could teach English as a second language. In 2019, she made her official move to Beijing and hasn’t looked back.

Lightyear lived in the capital city for four years before relocating to Chengdu, where she got a job teaching at a university.

After securing her job, Lightyear had just a few days to find an apartment. She looked at six places in 48 hours and settled on a furnished three-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment with a balcony and laundry room. It’s located in downtown Chengdu and only a five-minute walk from the subway.

Some of the benefits and perks of Lightyear’s job include free health insurance, a travel stipend, a flight allowance, two months of paid summer and winter vacation, and a rent stipend.

The rent stipend she receives means Lightyear only has to pay half of her the $556 monthly rent — just $278 a month. To secure the apartment, Lightyear had to pay a security deposit, a broker’s fee, and three months’ rent totaling $2,780. Because her rent stipend didn’t kick in until after she received her first paycheck, Lightyear was responsible for paying that full amount up front.

“The process happens easily. As long as you have the money, you do everything right then and there,” she says.

In China, it’s customary for potential tenants to try to negotiate the rent price, Lightyear says. But when she tried, the landlord wouldn’t budge. Lightyear says she was OK with that because she liked the landlord and the apartment.

“The benefits of this job just make life easy and cheap,” Lightyear says. “The quality of my lifestyle in China is much better than the quality of life I had living in the U.S.”

Unlike in the U.S., most of Lightyear’s utilities are pay-as-you-go versus the usual monthly or quarterly bill. Since she moved into the apartment, she hasn’t had to pay for gas because her landlord loaded more than enough money on the gas card. Her additional expenses include $15 a month on her unlimited cell phone plan, Wi-Fi, and Internet.

Lightyear also pays $50 a month for electricity, an average of $75 a month on groceries and $150 a month on eating out. Since moving to China and supplementing her teaching salary with content creation and an active YouTube channel, Lightyear estimates she’s been able to save $1,000 a month.

With the additional money she’s able to save, Lightyear says she plans on buying a house outside the U.S., as she can’t afford to buy a house back home.

“I haven’t saved enough money to buy a house in the U.S. but I have saved enough money to pay off a lot of my student loans and I think I’ve saved enough money to buy a little casita on the beach in Mexico,” she says. “Fingers crossed that is the plan.”

Lightyear says she’s staying in Chengdu for at least another 18 months, since she recently renewed her lease. Eventually, she’ll return to Michigan while deciding where to settle down next.

Lightyear says she knows she’s ready to leave the country she’s called home for six years, but isn’t quite sure which country will give her the same thrill.

“I just think China is the hardest country to live and travel in as a non-Chinese person, so I know that anything other than this will be so much easier, but I fear that I might find that boring,” she says.

“In China, I can challenge myself every day and I know that in another country, after a while, those challenges leave.”

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