I hated this most before leaving the United States. But don’t worry, I won’t be bashing the USA. This was more of a character trait that caused me trouble. Some of you may have it and it will likely end for you too if you ever retire overseas like me.
I will give you the bad news first and then the great news. The beautiful woman you see in the photos is Qiang. Qiang travels the world with me now.
I was born and raised in the United States. But I left for good in 2007 at the ripe old age of 46 years old. I am 64 years old now. That means I have lived outside the US for 17 years.
I only go home to visit friends and family in the US, every other year or so, for one or two weeks. The rest of the time, I slowly move forward through the world. I usually live in 6 to 8 countries per year. I call my lifestyle slow travel.
When I left the USA, I was looking for the best place to retire in paradise for pennies. You see, I wasn’t really enjoying my job and was looking for a place in the world that was affordable enough to retire early overseas and start a new life with more personal freedom.
If you are investigating places to find the ideal retirement on a budget, you have to go slower. By going slower, you experience what it costs to live like a local in that part of the world. Fast travel is more like tourism, and everything costs more when we live like a tourist.
So, Today I was sitting on the beach in Thailand and I remembered something I hadn’t thought about in at least 10 years. Something that bummed me out while I was living in the USA. And that is what this video is about.
When I was living in the USA, I would travel somewhere in the world for a week or two each year. That part I loved. Travel gave me something to think about during the other 50 weeks a year. That part I loved too. Taking time to travel the world was central to my identity.
I often found myself daydreaming about where I would go next. I would watch YouTube videos of each new place I learned about. I would learn what activities they had there, like snorkeling, scuba, sailing, windsurfing, snow skiing, and historical tours.
When I was single, I would go to all-inclusive places that were known places for singles to meet and have fun. Places like Club Med had resorts where singles would go to have a good time.
They had all sorts of activities where you could get to know potential lovers around you in a casual setting during the day. They also had discos or live music at night where you could dance the night away with someone beautiful you had met during the day.
When I was in a relationship, I would go to places more suitable for couples, such as more romantic settings where you could focus more on your existing relationship rather than socialize and meet other singles.
Invariably, I would spend so much time planning this 7, 10 or 14 days, that it would turn out to be an amazing experience. Each time, I would completely forget about my old life and my job, and I would dive head first into the joy and decadence of my good fortune.
I would have so much fun, that I would forget that I even had a life before arriving in paradise. The contrast between paradise and normal life was so extreme, that I would forget about the other 50 weeks of the year.
But eventually, I would remember. Usually 3 or 4 days before I had to fly home, it would suddenly occur to me that it was all coming to an end. The realization would slap me hard in the face. I was running out of time. They would soon be shipping me out of heaven
No. No. No, I would say silently to myself. I didn’t want to go home. Is there a way I could stay here? Could I make enough money here to live here?
Then the countdown would begin. I would wake up every morning in paradise and say to myself … only 3 more days. The next day in paradise … only 2 more days. Then … only one more day.
Before I could do anything about it, I found myself on an airplane flying home. And that next Monday, I would wake up and drag myself back to work. Once back at work, I would start counting down the 50 weeks until I could fly back to some new paradise.
That is what I hated most before leaving the United States. That feeling in my gut I would get in paradise that I would have to leave. Of course, it doesn’t matter what country you are from, when the fun ends, they ship you home too.
Trust me, I know how entitled that makes me sound. But the contrast between normal life and paradise made me feel it down into my bones.
Are you ready for some good news?
Things have changed since I left the USA back in 2007
Here are three things that can take you off of that flight back home and allow you to stay in paradise. We didn’t have these three things, or at least, I didn’t know about these three things when I was living in the USA.
The first is the possibility of retiring early in paradise based on geo-arbitrage. The second is continuing to work from anywhere in the world on your laptop. And the third is making money online with your favorite hobby.
I will give you a short explanation of all three. And at the end, I will share a video with you in case you want more details. I have personally done all three of these.
Geo-arbitrage: Retiring Early in Paradise
Geo-arbitrage is a fancy name economists gave to something really simple. You will understand it in about 2 seconds once you hear it in plain language.
The last few years living in the USA I was living on about $3000 USD per month. But that was 17 years ago. Now that same life would probably cost me about $4 or $5 thousand per month.
But 17 years later, these days, outside the USA, for my basic costs of living, like rent, food, transportation, and entertainment, I am often able to live on around $1500 to $2000 USD.
That means that I don’t need the $4 to $5 thousand today that I would be paying if I still lived in the USA. I need only about half as much. So, a little simple logic here, if I had stayed in the USA, I would have had to work into my 70s to feed the retirement monster.
So, by not flying home anymore, I am able to live on less, which means I can retire early. So That is what Geo-Arbitrage means. Geo means geography. So I move my geography outside the USA and need less money.
Arbitrage means buying and selling currencies to take advantage of different markets. So I take my dollars and turn them into local currency and I buy my life with less money. So my $2 thousand pays what would have cost me $4 to $5 thousand in the USA.
So Geo-Arbitrage allows me to retire early because I don’t need to work until 70 to raise my retirement income to $4 or $5 thousand dollars, because I need less money if I don’t fly home from paradise.
Okay, … now you are a fancy economist and can impress people at cocktail parties on the beach in paradise. I am doing this one now. I used to do the next one, but not anymore.
Geo-Arbitrage Laptop Lifestyle
In about 2010 I started doing the laptop lifestyle. That simply means you work from wherever you are instead of going into the office. Many people started working from home in 2019 when the pandemic happened. That is when the laptop lifestyle really took off.
If you move to a cheaper country instead of just working from home, then you are living the geo-arbitrage laptop lifestyle. Since it is cheaper to live in many countries, you will be able to save more money each month, which also means you could retire earlier.
Would you be surprised to learn that someone who does the same job as you at another company is working on their laptop under a palm tree right now in paradise? I have met lawyers, accountants, data entry people, medical doctors, teachers, administrators, HR people, head hunters, programmers, translators, editors, writers, counselors, psychiatrists, and other people working on laptops all over the world.
You could just switch what company you work for if your company doesn’t allow you to work in paradise. Or you could just get a job in another industry that does allow remote work overseas. There is a shortage of qualified people in almost every industry, so employees have power in the market.
Plus, many employers prefer it because there is one less physical space they need to provide for employees who rather work away from the office. And if you prefer to be self-employed, you can just do project work based upon some skill you have or you develop.
When I first left the USA in 2007, I was working overseas. But after almost 3 years, they allowed me to travel all over the world and work from wherever I wanted. That is when I started my journey looking for my favorite paradise location.
But eventually, I realized that I wanted to do work for myself doing something I was excited about. I had become bored with what I was doing. When people want to fire their boss and start working for themselves, they sometimes start bidding on project work to get started.
Over time, they can build a large customer base and are never in fear of getting fired by a single employer again. Having a larger set of people paying you, reduces your dependence on any single employer. It increases your chances of successfully working for yourself indefinitely.
If you are interested in learning about online portals where you can have multiple people who are paying you, go check out a company called Upwork and see what self-employed gig workers are up to.
Companies like Upwork provide a forum for people to offer and use specialized skills of all types on a project or gig basis. You just post your skills on there and bid on any job requests you get and they collect the money from the customer and pay you as the projects are completed.
But if you are like me, you will eventually want to be totally free from doing anything that you don’t love.
Make Money Online with Your Favorite Hobby
The great thing about being old like me is you may know a bunch of other stuff that other people want to learn about from someone who has been doing it with a passion for years. When people ask me, I always suggest that they should share their favorite hobby online.
You have something that you love to read about whenever you have the chance. And you know more about that thing because you have been dabbling in it for years, possibly for your entire life.
This is how I was able to quit my laptop lifestyle job and travel the world freely doing only what I wanted every day. I will share more on that in a second, but first I want to share some sample hobbies that people get paid handsomely to do online.
Here are a few sample hobbies people do online: growing flowers, dividend stocks, how to wallpaper, handyman tricks, laying pavers bricks, painting, playing the guitar (any instrument), online marketing, editing resumes, teaching languages, panning for gold, making clothes, cooking, picking wines, barbeque tricks and products, teaching math and science, fantasy football, sports trivia, war trivia and history, how everything works, psychology, diet, weight training, weight loss, natural cures, survival skills, tennis, golf, volleyball, dating, how to do research, how to file your own patent, how to file your own copyrights, how to do a will, how to get rich lease optioning homes, how to flip houses.
There is something you know and love to learn more about. You can make money online doing that. If you don’t believe me, search online. For almost anything you think up, there is somebody already making a full-time income doing it online.
When I was doing a job I hated, I kept banging my head against the wall trying to think about some trick or gimmick that I could use to make money online so I no longer had to report to any boss.
I spent thousands of dollars on courses looking for some way to get out of the rat race. I even did what they said in the courses and never made a dime. Eventually, I tried a course that cost like $3500 USD and I was successful at it.
But then I realized, I was just doing something I wasn’t really excited about. All I really did was buy a job. So I kept looking.
One day it occurred to me. I should just start sharing something that I am most excited about. The thing I was most excited about was my hobby. Traveling the world finding the best paradise locations on a budget.
So, I started sharing my hobby, which was really just my life, online. Now the thing I love to do most in the world, finding paradise on a budget, pays for itself. Now I never have to do what I hated most before leaving the United States. Now I just stay in each new paradise as long as I want.
I never have to leave paradise again. Now I just fly from one paradise location to the next.
I started sharing my hobby part-time at first, but eventually, it was making more money than I needed to travel the world freely. So now I get paid to do my favorite thing in the world. I teach people how to retire overseas in paradise.
I also teach people how to get paid to do their favorite hobby online. To learn more, watch the video in the upper right-hand corner of your screen right now.