I got dropped from my corporate tech job after the dotcom bubble burst in the early 2ks and moved to Thailand. Freelanced for 20+ years until that dried up in the last few years. Pivoted into trading stocks and XAU, which is one of the few jobs safe from Ai. We did buy land, put away a lot of money and gold, which is easier offshore. You need some sort of income to live in SEAsia. It's cheap but not free. Thailand has minimum bank balance or income requirements.