Have you ever dreamed of quitting your job and selling everything to move to paradise? Nadine Hays Pisani and her husband did exactly that and are now living in Costa Rica on $1000 per month. Paradise doesn’t have to be as expensive as you may think. Nadine shares her story in this interview.

How long have you lived in Costa Rica?

I moved to Costa Rica four years ago. We only traveled here a few times before deciding we wanted to retire there. We didn’t know anyone, just knew that this was the type of lifestyle we were dreaming about. It was a big leap of faith but thankfully it worked out.

 What did you do to prepare to retire?

We didn’t do too much planning. We sold everything and figured we could live for 10 years on our savings. It was important to have enough money that we were not rushing into any businesses since we knew nothing about how to set up one in Costa Rica. By taking our time, we were able to see where different opportunities exist. I think that’s the most important thing about moving to a foreign country, not rushing into anything.

What was the impetus to quit everything and move to a new country?

I knew that working the rest of my life in an office was not for me. We all have a tendency to put things off, thinking we will have the time to do it. But the longer I waited, the more I realized it was never going to happen unless I dramatically changed the way I lived. I finally decided to go for it. There is a lot of fear when breaking out of ones comfort zone. But once you do it, a whole new world opens up.

Do you earn an income at all now?

The income that I earn is now through my book. It’s a humorous account of the adventures my husband and I had during this process. No one can ever prepare you for the cultural differences you encounter when assimilating into a new country. I also had to learn to let go of a materialistic lifestyle so that I could have a happier life. The longer I lived here, the more I was able to identify all the things that made me unhappy, and a lot of that came from always thinking I had to buy something to achieve pleasure. Now I appreciate each moment and have gratitude for the simple things.

Can you earn a good living as an author?

I believe if you write a compelling story, others will want to read it. In August, a CNN reporter heard about my book and did a story about me on their website. It was a great break and the sales shot up significantly. It goes to show that you have to put your work out there, and each small bit of marketing you do will grow upon itself. In addition, having a good website is also important. It’s a great place to connect with your readers and answer their questions.

Can you give us a rough idea of your monthly living expenses in Costa Rica?

We live on $1000 a month. We have a great deal with our landlord and only pay $150/month. They live in the states and needed a responsible couple to care of their home. Although you may not find a deal like this, average rents are around $400 to $600 for a nice house, you just have to be here on the ground to scout them out. We pay around $125 in electricity, very high because we moved to the beach and like the air conditioning. Our health care is $50 per person and food is around $250 dollars a month. Fruits and vegetables are very cheap but anything imported is about twice what it is in the states. We ride a scooter to save on gas and I have a funny video on my blog of all the groceries my husband insists on stacking onto it. You can’t say he’s not resourcefull.

What are the drawbacks of living in a country like Costa Rica?

The drawbacks are few, but not knowing the language makes everything a little more difficult. Thankfully, the people are so friendly here, we usual accomplish things without too many problems.

Can you offer any advice or recommendations for people considering early retirement and moving to Costa Rica?

First visit and see if it’s a good fit. Then rent for a while in different parts of the country to see what area you like best. It takes at least a year to start feeling settled. And have a sense of humor, it makes the journey easier and you will end up with a lot of funny stories that can fill a book. I should know…it happened to me.

Links
HappierthanaBillionaire.com
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@happierwithless on Twitter

I have written previously about how my wife and I need routine in our lives. While it is great to live in new countries, constant travel is very time-consuming and stressful. We have been consider setting up roots again and having a more stable lifestyle.

The big problem with settling down is that it costs a lot of money. It actually costs a huge amount of money to have a normal western lifestyle.

Here is a rough breakdown of monthly expenses that we would expect to incur if we permanently relocated to my home city of Calgary.

• Mortgage on an average starter home: $1800
• Property taxes: $200
• Utilities: $350
• Telephone, Internet: $150
• Cell Phones: $200
• Car Payments: $300
• Car Insurance: $100
• Car Maintenance and Gas: $200
• Furniture and Household Items: $500
• Clothing: $200
• Food: $500
• Entertainment: $500

Total $5000

The North American Idea of a Normal Lifestyle

We don’t have to spend that much money of course, but it is hard not to when all of your peer group does. Expenses of $5,000 per month are normal for a professional couple in Calgary.  It doesn’t matter how independently minded you think you are, we are all influenced by society, peers and family. When your friends all have the latest iPad, LED TV or trendy automobile, you start finding pressure to buy too.

My wife and I could cut back on those expenditures if we rented an apartment downtown, reducing the need for a car and lowering our accommodation fees. We could also cut down on food and entertainment if we really scrimped, so cutting these costs down wouldn’t be impossible.

On the other hand, that mortgage payment is contingent on low interest rates. Payments will easily increase a few hundred dollars per month once interest rates start to rise. Also, in a sprawling city like Calgary it is common to have at least two vehicles per family, particularly if both parents work outside of the home. That could also add another $500 or $600 in expenses.

I have also left out health and life insurance which can get quite pricey, but it won’t change much regardless of where we live.

Despite all those caveats, I don’t think that $5000 per month is too out of line for a middle aged couple like my wife and I. In Canada, assuming a 40% tax rate, $5000 per month after taxes would require a salary of $100,000 per year. (60% of 100,000 = $60,000 or $5,000 per month.)

Factoring in commuting time, lunch hours and overtime, it is very likely the total hours dedicated to work would be 50 plus hours per week each. We would do all this with the reward of about 10 statutory holidays and a couple of weeks of vacation time per year.

What if You Only Had to Work 6 Months a Year?

There is a clear trade off between time and money. You can work 60 hour weeks and make a lot of money, but if you don’t have time to enjoy your life, what is the point? If you could cut your consumption in half, you could easily free up 6 months per year of time. What could you do with half a year of free time?

From living in Japan, and traveling across Europe and Asia, we know that we can have a pretty comfortable standard of living outside of Canada for about $2,000 per month. $3,000 per month would offer a great lifestyle with money to do almost anything we want. Even as visitors in Calgary, we only spend about $1,000 per month. (This is largely due to low accommodation costs because of an empty condo my mother owns.)

Not having a permanent residence eliminates so many costs. The fact that we are location independent means we can’t buy a car, furniture, household goods, clothes, tools, etc. We have no need for them and we have no place to keep them anyway.

There are benefits from being stationary like getting higher paid work, time spent time with family and friends, the opportunity to work with other people in person, more networking opportunities, etc. I don’t want to over simplify the choice, however after living a consumerist lifestyle in the past, my wife and I are not interested in setting up that life again. Less is much, much more.

Are you willing to control your spending in order to do the things you want in life?

Don’t have enough money to travel? Raam Dev went on a six month trip after bankruptcy, living on about $500 per month. He then went on to coordinate an ebook, Small Ways to Make a Big Difference, with 40 contributing authors that has been downloaded 27,000 times. He is another great example of what can be accomplished with the right mindset, talent and hardwork. Raam Dev is a fantastic writer with thoughtful and inspiring blog posts. I highly recommend subscribing to his blog at raamdev.com.

Please tell us about yourself.

In my late teens I decided to skip college and focus on building a career in the IT industry. Self-directed education wasn’t new to me: I had been home-schooled my entire childhood and began teaching myself at the 8th grade when my parents became too busy with the growing family business.

Technology has always come naturally for me so a career in the IT industry seemed like the best opportunity. I have since held titles like Lead Support Engineer and Software Developer. Although technology is what I’m good at, what I truly love is spending time outdoors, exploring the natural world, and traveling.

For most of my life, I followed opportunity in exchange for following my dreams. I listened to the advice of my elders and worked hard to secure a good job and build a fat bank account. But those were never goals that interested me. Getting rich or finding a high paying job weren’t my dreams. They were what society was telling me my dreams should be.

You started traveling after going bankrupt, didn’t you need a lot of savings to get started?

I bought my first real estate investment property a month before my 21st birthday with a $15k down-payment and a great first-time home buyer program. Using the rapidly increasing equity of my first property, I bought another rental property. A year after that I bought a third property.

Traveling the world was always something I wanted to do, but I never felt that I had enough money to do it. It was my hope that these real estate investments would give me the financial security I needed to start traveling in my late 30s and early 40s.

A few years later I was hit hard by the 2007 mortgage crisis in the United States. I managed to sell one of the properties but lost the other two to foreclosure. The following year I filed for bankruptcy. I suddenly found myself with new opportunities: I had no major debt to pay off and I was no longer tied down.

The bankruptcy encouraged me to get rid of unnecessary possessions and simplify my life. I began looking more seriously at what it would cost to fulfill my lifelong dream and start traveling the world. I discovered that I didn’t need very much if I went to a third world country and lived simply. In my research, I found other bloggers who were traveling and living in many places on $250-$500 a month.

So I sold my gas-guzzling pickup truck for $1,200 and bought a round-trip plane ticket to India. I quit my job with about $1,500 in the bank and $2,000 in savings. With that in mind, I set a budget of $250 a month for six months ($1,500) and decided to use whatever was in my savings for backup funding.

Not going on this trip and waiting until I had saved more money felt riskier than not going at all, so I wasn’t too worried about having a big safety net.

What countries did you visit on your first six months of travel?

I spent the first three months in India, slowly making my way over land from Bangalore in the south to Delhi in the north. I then flew to Vietnam to tag along with a friend and his Vietnamese wife for two weeks as they visited family in Saigon and Hue.

Then I flew to Nepal and spent two months in Kathmandu and Pokhara, trekking in the Annapurna region of the Himalayan mountains and visiting a non-profit who invited me to tour their project sites. They were helping build schools in remote Himalayan villages for children who would otherwise have no access to education.

My return flight departed from India, so I flew back to Delhi and spent another two weeks in India before flying back to the United States.

How much money did you actually spend on your six months of travel?

My plan was to spend six months, exploring three countries, on a total budget of $3,000 (that amount included my round-trip ticket to India). To show how this was possible, I began keeping a very detailed record of exactly where my money went each day. At the end of each month, I compiled and published a report of my expenses and described how I lived and traveled for that month.

Although my original budget was $3,000, I ended up spending a total of $5,102.67 for the entire trip. I attribute the extra cost to eating at restaurants when I could’ve made my own food, occasionally traveling by plane when I could’ve gone overland, and otherwise not making a consistent effort to be frugal.

I have no doubt that I could do the same thing again on $3,000 and the Frugal Travel Reports show how that’s possible.

Did you have health insurance coverage on your travels?

Nope, no health insurance coverage. Before I left, I had researched and read lots of horror stories of people who would’ve died if they didn’t have coverage. But the truth was, I couldn’t afford it. Even a few hundred dollars would be cutting way into my budget.

Instead of getting insurance, I spent my money getting vaccines and malaria pills. Since I hadn’t planned on doing anything particularly risky and I already considered myself fairly healthy, going without insurance was a chance I was willing to take.

Did you have any serious travel problems?

Throughout most of India, you can find people who speak at least some English. Signs are often written in English and people are very friendly and welcoming.

However, when I got off the train in the city of Surat to find a bus that would take me to Udaipur, it was as if I had gotten off in a different country. Not a single sign was in English, the people seemed less friendly, and even the ticket attendants and bus station officials didn’t (or wouldn’t) speak English. Everybody seemed to ignore me.

It was the first time on my trip where I really felt alone, confused, and incapable of finding my way around. I’m sure my experience was very localized: It was late at night and I was at a bus station where lots of people from different areas were in a rush to get somewhere. Thankfully, an English-speaking young man noticed how confused I was and helped me out.

Besides that one incident, I got sick probably 30-40 times during the entire six months. It was mostly travelers diarrhea, which I was able to remedy with antibiotics whenever it lasted for more than two days. I was eating at local restaurants and drinking the tap water in smaller towns because I really couldn’t afford to buy bottled water for six months. I knew I would get sick and I was prepared for it.

There was only one time I got sick where it felt more serious than travelers diarrhea (I had a high fever, nausea, dizziness, diarrhea) and that happened on my third or fourth week in India when I was living on a remote farm in the jungle. Just as I was considering admitting myself to the hospital, I got better.

I also had a near miss towards the end of my trip: Originally I had planned to cross into India overland from Nepal. My planned route took me through the city of Gorakhpur to catch a train to the mountain station of Darjeeling. Instead of going overland, I decided to fly straight to Delhi.

A few days after landing in India, I read a news story about a rare Japanese encephalitis outbreak in the town of Gorakhpur on the exact same day I would’ve been going through the city. Japanese encephalitis is one of the vaccines I skipped because it wasn’t common in any of the areas I was visiting.

Did you have an apartment or place to live on your return to the US?

A few months before I went to India, I left my apartment and moved in with my parents to save money on rent. Now that I’m back from India, I’m temporarily living with my parents again and doing what I can to help with the bills. Living expenses in the Northeast United States are astronomical compared with other parts of the world and it doesn’t make sense to get an apartment when I know I’ll be moving on soon.

How have your minimalism backpacking experiences changed your life back in the US now?

I’m definitely spending less and looking at life much differently. Seeing how incredibly simple millions of people are living every day makes you feel incredibly grateful for something as luxurious as a MacBook Pro and a latte.

I’ve decided to remain a digital nomad indefinitely. Being a nomad in the United States is a bit more challenging, but I’m committed to living out of my backpack. I refuse to buy a car, rent an apartment, get a full or part-time job, or do anything else that might tie me down again.

How do you earn an income now?

When I got back to the United States, my previous employer offered me a short-term contract that will last until the end of January. I’ve also been accepting any online freelance work that comes up (PHP programming, WordPress customization, ebook design/layout; contact me if you need something).

Those two things have kept me on my feet for the past few months. I’ve been setting aside as much money as possible for my next trip, which will be somewhere cheap (I might even go back to India) so that I can lay low and focus on business development.

My long-term goal is to support myself through my writing, so with that in mind I’m starting SustainableGuides.com, a business separate from my blog where I can provide digital products. My blog is a personal space and it doesn’t feel right to monetize there.

I’ve also been running a web hosting business for the past few years, but profitability has never been a primary focus. The focus of that business is to provide friends with a trusted hosting option and to occasionally feed my love for diving into technology.

Please tell us about your popular ebook, Small Ways to Make a Big Difference.

My journey through India brought me very close to the extreme poverty and inequality that exists there (over 500 million people below the poverty line). I felt something inside pulling me towards that problem, quietly nudging me to think about how I could help them. But what could I do? I was a poor traveler with no money and no influential political power. I felt hopeless.

Then one day I realized that the world changes not by the actions of a few, but by the tiny choices made by each individual. I also realized that everybody, no matter how well off they are, wants to do good things and help in a small way.

With that, I started the Small Ways to Make a Big Difference project and sent an email to about 50 bloggers asking them to describe a few things they do to make a difference — things they felt improve their lives and the lives of others.

The goal of the project was to provide a downloadable resource of inspiration that people could use to get ideas for small ways to make a difference. I didn’t have money or power to help millions of suffering people in India, but I could at least create something that would help push the world in that direction.

The project was a success. In less than three weeks, over 40 bloggers contributed more than 100 ways to make a difference. The following six months saw the ebook downloaded more than 27,000 times. I’ve received reports of it being printed and passed around in remote villages in Africa and people from all over the world have emailed in to thank me for compiling and publishing it.

Has it changed the world and brought world peace? Definitely not. But it was a start. It helped me take the first step towards doing something with my life that will benefit others and nudge the world in a better direction.

Do you have plans for more long-term travel?

After my six month trip, I feel certain that travel will always be a huge part of my life. I plan to live out of a backpack indefinitely and stay light on my feet so that I can continue traveling and exploring the world. Most importantly, I’ve realized that I want to use my love for travel to inspire others to see the world as a whole… as one big family.

We need to take care of each other and share our abundance with those who need it. That abundance could mean anything: Money, knowledge, resources, experiences, perspectives. We need to work towards a world of sustainable abundance and aim for a future worthy of looking up to.

Do you have any advice for people considering long-term travel or escaping a consumption oriented lifestyle?

Stop procrastinating and coming up with excuses. Set a date and make a list of exactly what you need to do between now and then (sell x number of things, notify landlord/boss that I’m leaving, tell friends/family that I’m going, buy a plane ticket, GO). Then get the ball rolling by taking one of the big steps. For me, that was notifying my boss that I would be leaving the country in three months.

Once I got that first big ball rolling, everything else started moving on its own. Telling friends and family that January would be my last month as an employee and that I’d be leaving the country in March helped move everything else along. It became exciting to see friends and family for the first time in a few weeks and wait for them to ask, “So what’s up?”. Hearing their responses to what I was doing was like adding fuel to a fire.

Think about your possessions as little anchors that tie you down (that includes the debt you own). The fewer of those you have, the more free you are to make decisions. Every time you’re about to spend money, ask yourself exactly what matters to you. Does traveling the world matter more than drinking a nice latte every day? Does exploring the Himalayan mountains matter more than your cable TV subscription?

Set your priorities and then compare those to what you’re doing and what you own. If they don’t match, work towards correcting the discrepancy. Life is too short — too full of beauty and adventure — to waste it by filling our lives with unnecessary junk. It’s not the material possessions and the social status that add real value to our lives, it’s the experiences we have and the people we meet.

Links

Raam Dev is a writer, changemaker and digital nomad. He writes about sustainable abundance and practical minimalism on raamdev.com. You can join his Community of Passionate Changemakers and follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

Biking in Calgary, Canada

I have been back in my home country of Canada for about four months, now I have two more weeks to go before I leave again. It has been great to be back home, but I think I enjoyed it more because I know it is not permanent. My wife and I have not made any roots and have not anchored ourselves to a lifestyle we don’t want. The greatest insight I have discovered is that life is fantastic.

Sometimes it is easy to forget just how good we have it. Several friends and relatives have recently undergone major medical surgeries. I have heard many complaints about how far they had to drive to get to the hospital, how long the waiting lists were to get a hospital bed, how many times their surgeries had been postponed, how late the doctor was, etc.

I understand people under-going life threatening operations are under huge amounts of stress and want to get out the hospital as soon as possible, however I think they may be over-looking how lucky they are to be in a rich developed country with amazing technological advances and medical knowledge. Canadians in particular should be ecstatic to have universal and affordable health care. In the cases of my family and friends, the patients went home after only a few days in the hospital.

Consider how amazing this is for a moment. People I know, probably you too, have gone into a hospital and had their bodies cut open. Some have had cancerous tumors cut of of their bodies, others have had hip and knee replacements. Think about how advanced a civilization has to be to cut into human tissue and fix what is wrong. Imagine how you would go about doing brain surgery on a loved one. Think about shaving a head, cutting into the scalp and sawing the skull to get access to the brain. Imagine the sound of sawing a skull. I personally don’t want to be doing any brain surgeries anytime soon, although I am pretty damn thankful that there are doctors out there with the skills and knowledge to help people now.

My wife and I are healthy and are able to live the life we choose. Nothing else is lacking from our lives. Sure lots of money, fame and things would be nice but they certainly aren’t necessary for a happy life.

When traffic is slow, think about how lucky you are to have a car. When you hate your job, think how easy it is compared to what your grandparents endured. When your body aches, remember that it is a sign that you are still alive and are fortunate enough to experience these great times. Life is good and we truly do live in amazing times.

Here is a great related video that has made its rounds but is worth watching again. It is Louis C.K. on Conan O’brien.

Louis C.K. talks on Conan O’brien about technology from Nathan Lunde-Berry on Vimeo.

I am constantly discovering  people who are not happy with their careers and are looking for something more interesting to do with their lives. Jason Demant and Sharon Duckworth are two people that share my philosophy on life. The time to experience life and travel the world is now. As Jason and Sharon have found, once you begin you may never want to go back. They share some of their experiences and advice in this interview.

Please tell us  a little about your background.

We’re both 26 and originally from northern California. We met in college at the University of California, Santa Cruz (go slugs!). We both graduated and independently moved to the Silicon Valley. Jason worked for Seagate Technology for almost five years in a few different positions: project manager, finance and finally marketing. Sharon worked at a gym teaching kids motor-development skills originally, but ended up selling out and joined a commercial real estate company.
We always knew we wanted to travel, but weren’t planning on leaving until October 2010. When the economy started going downhill, we started really pumping up our savings to leave sooner rather than later. Last October we left and have been traveling around Asia ever since.

Please tell us about your travels?

We’re currently in South Korea. We started our trip in China, did the Southeast Asia route, headed back to China and then took a ferry over to South Korea. (All of the destinations we’ve been).
One of the things we wanted to do on this trip was learn a language and settle down for a while. Sharon is 75% Korean and so we thought the perfect place would be Korea. We lived in Seoul for a little over 2 months and now have settled down in the coastal city, Busan. Assuming Kim Jong Il doesn’t decide to do something stupid (again), we’ll be here for another couple of months before hitting the road again.

What has been the most expensive country you have visited?

Japan, hands down!! We couldn’t believe how expensive Japan was. On this trip, our average spend per day was $35 per person ($70 for the both of us), Japan however ended up being around $260 a day! We didn’t really splurge either. We did purchase the Japan Rail Pass, which put us back $300 each, but other than that, we slept in hostels in a dorm and ate at what we thought to be reasonable restaurants.

What has been the least expensive country you have visited?

On the complete other end of the spectrum was Vietnam. We traveled from north to south and spent about $23 per person per day. One of the best hotels we’ve stayed in on the entire trip was in Vietnam and it was $8 a night. Not to mention, it’s an amazing country with great food.

What has been the worst food you have tried?

The most difficult place for us eating wise was China. We knew only the very basics of the language and many restaurants do not have pictures of their food, nor do they have their menus translated to English. There were times where the only thing we could do was point to a set of Chinese characters and hope for the best.
I think the two worst foods we have tried on this trip would be:  1. Some kind of fried pork rinds that tasted like what I assume sewer and garbage would taste like.  2. Fried chicken feet.  I realize that chicken feet are very normal in Asia, but why?  It was like eating fried bones- there’s no meat there, not to mention they still very much resemble feet from a chicken, and that’s not a very appetizing thing.

What is a safe travel budget for a year?

For the way we travel, which is staying at middle-range hostels, eating reasonable meals out twice a day, taking buses and ferries rather than planes, $15,000 ($41 per day) a year should be sufficient per person. Extrapolating our budget, I think we’ll come in at $30,000 for the both of us. Which is great, because we saved $50,000 for the planned year trip!
Breaking that down is going to vary tremendously, but roughly (per day):

• Accommodation: $15
• Food: $10
• Transportation: $7.50
• Activities/Entertainment:  $5

This doesn’t add up to the $41, so the rest would be on other things: health insurance, flights to and from home, netbook, whatever. More detail on our budget and how we spend money by country.

How did you save enough money to travel?

The Twitter answer is: saving more than we spent .
The longer answer: I worked for five years, Sharon for four, in corporate America. We focused on saving and had to make daily decisions that prioritized saving for the trip over other things. We were still able to live comfortably, pay off most of our debt from school and have a good time with our friends. The key is automating your savings so you don’t have to think about it. I wrote a more detailed post on this topic.

Are you getting tired of traveling?

Now that we’ve discovered our preferred travel method, no, not really. The first 4 months of our trip we stayed in only two cities for longer than 5 days (and both were less than 10 days). Other than that we were constantly on the move. We now know this isn’t sustainable for us. We prefer more structure, where we can unpack for a while and have a stable Internet connection, make friends for longer than a night or two and really connect with a city. As many travelers have found, I think we’re happiest finding a place to live for a month to 3 months and settling down for a while.
In terms of things that we miss from home, we pretty much only miss our friends and family.  There have been many times when we experienced something amazing but wished our loved ones could have been there with us. Other than that, this lifestyle is tough not to love.

Have you had any serious problems on your trip?

No, thankfully not. Asia’s a very safe place and we’ve been very lucky so far.

Are you trying to extend this one year trip into a more permanent lifestyle?

The trip was originally one-year. We were heading to Asia for a year, then coming back to Northern California and looking for jobs again. I don’t know what happened to that plan, but it went out the window pretty quickly. I (Jason) always had an interest in entrepreneurship, but somehow lost that at some point. This trip has sparked my entrepreneurial interest again and I’ve launched a new travel site that I’m really excited about.

The site is called UnAnchor.com and it’s a place for anyone to create travel itineraries for sale. Eventually it will be a place for travelers to find all of the information they need in an itinerary for their next destination. Because it’s new though I’m still focusing on growing the database of travel itineraries. If you’re interested in earning some extra money, check it out, it’s easy to start and free to sign up. [End of commercial]

What are the advantages and disadvantages of traveling as a couple?

To be honest, it’s been pretty much gumdrops and rainbows. We’re both very easygoing people, so the benefits of solo-travel – doing things on a whim, and going wherever you want without worrying about someone else’s opinion is pretty much what we have. If one of us wants to do something, the other is typically fine with it. The advantages of traveling as a couple are numerous: feeling less isolated, splitting up the research process, finding places and things together.  However, we have had our share of meaningless bickering, but these were very limited to certain times; when we were wearing our backpacks, when we were lost and hungry, and when it was hot outside.

How do you deal with banking, bills and health care?

Banking and health care took a lot of upfront research, but we couldn’t have been happier with the companies we went with. If you’re in the US, you should check out Charles Schwab. They charge zero ATM fees, no foreign exchange fees and on top of that they even reimburse you when the ATM you’re using charges you a fee. So, we never have to worry about which ATM we use. We couldn’t be happier with them.
Health care, like most travelers, we use World Nomads. It’s essentially emergency-only health care. The deductible is $100. So if it’s something basic, you’re paying for it, but if it’s something serious, you’re covered. It’s pretty cheap as well, only $500 for a year per person.

Do you have any advice for people considering long term traveling?

Our favorite advice comes from Sharon: “just do it” (the Nike corporation are thieves!). There are so many excuses: it costs too much money, I have a house, I have kids, I’m too old, I’ll have a big gap in my resume. For every excuse you can think of, we’ve met someone that’s overcome it. We’re not saying it’ll be easy, but if you’re serious about it, you can find a way and it’ll be the best decision you’ve ever made.

Links
LifeAfterCubes Jason and Sharon’s Blog
Follow LifeAfterCubes on Twitter
UnAnchor.com Travel Itinerary Site

The Secret of My Success

In a recent email, a reader of this blog asked me how I became so successful. He read in one of my posts about how I moved to Japan on one week’s notice with no job, no work visa and only $1000 to my name and later became a jet-setting global rock star celebrity. (Okay, I added the ‘jet-setting global rock star celebrity part ‘ for added effect. )

Here is the Secret to my Success

The short answer is … I am not successful. Most people, myself included, tend to glamorize or even exaggerate successes and hide set backs or negative aspects of their lives. Don’t believe everything you read or hear because you are only getting the positive side of the story.

I am not rich. I am not famous. I am not particularly smart or talented either. I am just an ordinary person that is not afraid of hard work. When I arrived in Japan more than 13 years I worked a lot to save money and pay down debt. I worked two English teaching jobs and a bar job.

A couple of years later I started teaching private students in my apartment. A year after that, I took those students and opened up my own English school. My wife and I worked 50 to 60 hour weeks for close to 10 years. For several of those years we lived in the same building as our school. We were able to save 50 to 80 percent of our gross income. Our secret was work lots of hours and don’t spend much money.

After several years of frugality, we started to grow tired of working so many hours and started working less. We hired other employees, bought a new car and house. Spent lots of money on furniture and started traveling several times a year. We were just burnt out from working so many hours for so long and we thought buying all the things we wanted would make us happy. Well it didn’t. The happiest times of my life have always been when I had no money and was working insane hours to build a business or work on a project of my choosing. The struggle to achieve is far more rewarding than the actual achievement. More money and more things are nice when you have nothing, but after a certain point they become a burden.

Get Out When the Getting is Good

As you can probably tell, my wife and I should have sold our school several years ago when sales peaked and our expenses were minimal. If we did sell at that time, we would definitely have had a lot of extra money in the bank. We both knew about 4 years ago that it was time to move on to something else but we kept procrastinating and making excuses.. We told ourselves that we had a great lifestyle with a good income and lots of vacation time. Why change when everything was so comfortable?

Finally, enough was enough and last spring I made a public declaration on this blog that we were going to leave Japan and change our careers within one year. It was that deadline and announcement that gave me the fortitude to actually follow through on the plans. I can honestly say that blogging has changed my life.

Three years ago we were spending about $5000 per month on living expenses, now we can get by anywhere on about $2000 and much less in cheaper countries. We are getting back in shape and starting to eat healthy again. I am running regularly and playing a lot more guitar. We are also just starting to get back to work on our other business projects. We aren’t making much money and we don’t expect to for a while yet, but it is nice to see new projects slowly come to fruition.

The Future is Bright but a little Scary Too

We have our fears and worries as well. We have enough savings to last for many years, but we don’t want to blow all of our cash either. We will need to work again, but we want to do it on projects that we are excited about.

We don’t have fat corporate pensions so we are thinking about our retirement and also worried about what will happen if one or both of us has a major accident or illness. Our biggest fears are not finding rewarding ways to spend the rest of our lives. We want to do interesting things but we are afraid that we are getting too old or we don’t have the right experience. (We are 40 and 41 years  old.)

Overall, we are extremely happy about where we are in our lives but we also have a lot of regrets about all the things we could have and should have done. We can’t change the past so all we can do is make sure that we are putting in 100% effort everyday into everything we find important in life.  I just want to end each day knowing that I lived as much as I could have.

Am I successful?

I don’t have a house in the suburbs with two SUVs parked in the garage. My essential possessions can fit in two bags on an airplane.  I don’t have a prestigious career or major accomplishments behind me. I am not successful by any of the popular metrics of society. However, I am happy. I now know that material possessions will never satisfy me so I don’t want them anymore. My wife and I are both healthy and we were fortunate enough to be born in rich countries with good parents. Everything else has been a fantastic bonus.  I want to be fully alive each and every day and I am doing that now. Life is good. We live in amazing times.

Are you successful? Please share some of your accomplishments in the comments.

Who says Lifestyle Design is Easy?

My wife and I made it out of Japan. It has been almost one year since  my wife and I made a one year plan to leave Japan and begin a new career. We did it!

Lifestyle Design is Hard Work!

It was a lot of work and will still require a massive effort to keep moving forward but we committed and made it happen. We sold our business and car. Got rid of most of our possessions. Cleared out our house and started to get it ready to rent out. In particular, the last few weeks prior to departure were extremely busy and stressful.

Getting all the necessary paperwork, finishing up everything in Japan and liquidating all of our possessions was a phenomenal amount of effort. It was much more work then we imagined. The last week was the most stressful. So many things had to be done that we were sleeping for only a few hours per day. After a couple weeks of sleep deprivation and a 9 hour stop-over in Tokyo, it took about a week to get back to a regular sleep pattern. I will be more regular with my blog posts and connecting in the future, Internet connections permitting. I have finally reclaimed my Twitter account after it was hacked. Again I apologize for all of those spam DMs.

We prepared for months to leave Japan, but we never fully realized just how many things needed to be completed before departure. My wife and I were hoping to spend a relaxing night at the airport hotel in Osaka before the night of our flight but we were busy packing, cleaning and organizing right up to the last minute. We didn’t make it to the airport until after 11:00 PM and had to wake up at 5:30 the next morning.

Actually, we didn’t even completely finish. Fortunately, my wife’s sister helped immensely in cleaning out the house and dealing with the real estate company that will rent it out. As with most things in life, it is great to get help. We couldn’t have done it with out her. Thanks Noriko!

Minimalism with a lot of Stuff

I would like to say that we managed to condense our life down into just a couple of bags but that would be a lie. We gave away all of our furniture, but we still have many boxes of personal possessions in storage at my wife’s parent’s house just in case we ever decide to return to Japan. It is too hard to eliminate everything from our lives.

We were about 20kg over-weight with our luggage but managed to hide it when boarding the flights. Thankfully, Japan and Canada are not as strict as the US for carry-on luggage.

My Future Work

Now that we have finally recuperated it is time to get busy building the next stage of our life. It is such a strange feeling to be traveling but not be on vacation. This is our life now. We have a feeling of urgency to progress with our lives, yet we are no longer under any timelines or restrictions. I still haven’t come to terms with the notion this vacation is not going to end.

I am now blogging about business trends, idea and creativity at IdeaEconomy.net as well. If any of you are interested in those topics please make your way over to my new site. I would love some comments and encouragement.

I also am planning on changing the format of JetSetCitizen. There are many great blogs on lifestyle design and travel so I am not sure I want to continue writing about those topics. If there is anything you would like to read about please let me know in the comments or by email. I would love to hear from all of you even if it is only a ‘Hello!”

I hope to hear from you soon.

You Sexy Thang, You!

In my twenties, I thought I was going to live forever. Of course, I knew that was an impossibility but my actions and lifestyle just never factored in the inevitable and unstoppable onset of age. I still feel young and live young, but now in the last year of my thirties, I hope I am also a little wiser. I am sure all of you “young uns” are starting to shake your head and are moving your mouse to the close icon, but stick with me and I promise not to give the “I wish I were your age”  lecture you have heard a thousand times before.

What is Old Age?
Scientifically aging is the result of the cells in your body not regenerating fast enough. It is a little more complicated than that but essentially your cells are no longer healthy. After about the age of 30 your body will start to deteriorate no matter what you do. Everyone will lose hair, lose muscle mass and gain fat. Your skin will get softer and sag, with spots appearing all over your body. Your teeth will become more yellow and crooked. You will get a little shorter, your posture will bend forward and you will become weaker. To top it off, you can look forward to diminishing mental acumen. Basically we all become weaker, uglier and more stupid as we age. (No offense to any of you old farts that may be reading this. )

It is Not All Bad!
Eating healthily and exercising can do amazing things to your longevity, so it is not all biology. Indeed there are many 60 year-olds that can put today’s teenagers to shame in the physical fitness department. My uncle Dave is in his seventies and spends half the year hiking around South East Asia. I also run with someone in his late fifties who has just completed his third 100km race. However, old age and death are inevitable. Or are they? There is an interesting video on TED talks about new cell research that may greatly extend our lives. Certainly with all the advances in genetics and medicine it is no longer ridiculous to imagine that people will be living to 150 years old or more. It is unlikely to happen to anyone living now, but maybe your grandchildren will benefit from that research.

Aging is all Physical!
Even though I am approaching the big four zero, I am still the same person inside. I have more knowledge of the world and I may or may not have become wiser, but my personality hasn’t changed much in the last 30 odd years. Life experiences alter who you are and hopefully we all grow as human beings but our personalities are likely formed as young children and do not change much. Consider that idea when you see and meet people around you. That seventy-year-old woman you see walking slowly with an arch in her back, years of wrinkles and a frail body was not always that age. She was once young, energetic and attractive. Picture granny doing the wild thing with grandpa and you will get an idea of what I am talking about.

Inside the mind of that elderly woman, if their mind is still healthy that is, are the same thoughts that person formed many decades earlier. Her ideas have been forced to adjust to the structural constraints of her body, society and relationships, but…. she is the same little girl running around with her friends in the playground six decades ago.

Consider that as you age. Who you are will never fundamentally change. You will always be you. However, age will bring increasingly constrictive barriers and obstacles to the freedom and ideas you had when you were younger. A twenty year old has every option in the world. An eighty year old does not. Those obstacles to your dreams and goals are not only your physical body. You, your circumstances and society will also place more and more restrictions on what you can do or can’t do with your life.

Purchasing a new home will require you to pay a mortgage, taxes and bills. Getting married will restrict your freedom in that you will have to jointly determine and choose your future with another person. Having children will mean that you will have to consider what is in the best interests of your family, before your own desires. Consuming expensive durable items will mean that a large portion of your income will go towards things rather than the experiences you would like to have. As you can see, not all restrictions are negative. Many of the choices in your life can bring you great happiness and enjoyment, but they remain constraints nonetheless.

People keep putting off all of their dreams until all circumstances are perfect. I’ll do it when:

• I get enough money,
• I get enough experience,
• I get back into shape,
• I finish school,
• I lose some weight,
• I have more time,
• I sell my house,
• etc. etc. etc.

The Worst Case Scenario

Delaying anything poses serious risks that people never factor into their life choices. What happens if you get cancer in six months? What happens if you get into a car accident? What happens if you die? How would you feel, if something terrible were to happen in the future and you spent all the previous years of your life waiting for the perfect moment? Certainly your priorities would change with the onset of a life catastrophe.

Risk Free Goals
Doing something exciting and challenging is NOT a risk. The future is never a better time. As you age, you will only find more reasons not to do the things you really want to in life. The greatest risk in life is not pursuing your dreams now because your days will most certainly run out. There is no tomorrow, only today. Make sure you do the things you want to do most in life while you still have options.

Lifestyle Design the Genki Way!

How would you like to travel around the world, doing work you love, while having an impact on the lives of millions of people? Richard Graham of GenkiEnglish.net, has done just that. (Genki means energetic in Japanese.)  He started as an English teacher in Japan, then went on to create his own English learning CDs and materials which he now sells all over the world. Between running his own company, doing seminars, consulting and magazine writing, Richard is always dabbling into new niche websites and business opportunities. Every since I first heard of Richard Graham, I have admired him as a person of action. Richard just gets things done, and most of the time he is doing it from some exotic location around the world. Richard Graham is a JetSetCitizen who has mastered the art of lifestyle design. He was kind enough to answer my intrusive questions and offer some insights into his unique life.

Please tell us about your current life. Where do you live?
I think John purposely picked the right time to email me. Yes, I’m living on a gorgeous tropical beach at the moment. I had a month of computer work to do so why spend it in an office?

Next up is Beijing, then Japan, Kazakhstan and Europe. Last year I lived in Portugal, Italy, Japan, India and China.

It sounds like you are living out of a suitcase for a large part of the year. Is that enjoyable and something you want to continue for the rest of your life?
It just seems normal to me now. I don’t need half the things I have. Digital stuff like books, movies etc. are a godsend, as is digital music gear.

Are you just traveling and experiencing the world while you are young?
I think that’s part of it. Why be stuck somewhere boring and more expensive when you can be in fun places? As a kid we couldn’t afford to travel to places, and as the head of Sony said when he retired early “it’s so I can enjoy the world’s food whilst I still have my own teeth!” The point about being location free is that you don’t just have to stay in one place. If you get bored, you move on. And I think you should to keep your mind active and fresh. A trip to Singapore last week really opened my eyes to new things, as did living in the Arctic circle last year!

Do you have a home base where you spend a majority of the year?
No, not for many years now.

Have you been able to live a minimalist existence without all the consumer trappings?
Yep, it’s much better! I still buy stuff, but for example I enjoy buying people presents and things more, that’s my shopping therapy and of course you give them away!

Do you keep toys somewhere for you to enjoy?
I do have stashes of things like folders and keyboards around the world. But those are mostly for business stuff, like if I ever need to remix a track in the future.  What toys do you need? If you want to see movie, go to the cinema, if you want to play a video game, go to an arcade, if you want play the guitar stage-crash a band. The only thing I do miss about this lifestyle is not being able to have a full recording studio. That would be amazing. But then again I think I’d be bored with it a couple of months!

Do you travel alone?
Yes and no. I do mostly travel alone, but it’s usually to locations where I have friends so, no I’m not alone! If it’s somewhere my Mum might like and I’ll be there for a week I usually fly her out once a year. I used to travel a lot with my girlfriend, and actually it felt more lonely because we didn’t mix with the locals as much. She didn’t quite get the having to work part of the lifestyle though!

Will you ever get married and have a family?
Hope so, with lots of kids!

Would you continue traveling with them?
Why not? There’s this limiting myth that says you can’t travel with kids, but I know from many of my friends that’s not at all true. It just costs more money and takes more preparation time, i.e. you need to save up. But why would you limit your kids’ horizons and education to just one place and one location? I used to move schools a lot as a kid so had the whole “having to make new friends” thing, but never got the excitement of living in a new country. Learning French or geography just isn’t the same if you’ve never eaten a croissant or seen a live volcano erupting.

Practically, I think in the future, having three or four houses in various locations around the world would be best and split the time between those. Of course the tricky bit is trying to find those locations! That’s one reason I’m moving around so much now, to find out where I would like to spend more time. I always thought Italy would be the top of my list, but after living there last year it’s not anymore! But that’s cool, at least I learned beforehand!

How do you earn an income?
I pay myself a salary from my main company, which I run remotely, and also have income from other internet projects. I also get paid for consults and magazine articles.

Is it possible to make a good living with niche sites and Google Adsense ads?
Yes and no. Yes, it is because I know quite a few people who earn more from Adsense than their traditional day jobs. But it’s a lot of work and more importantly a lot of luck, some sites get big, some don’t. Short term I’d say have a few sites as one of your streams of income, but don’t put all you eggs in the Adsense basket because Google could just change all the rules tomorrow.

Do people need to do freelancing work, such as your consulting and article writing, to live?
You don’t need to, but for many professionals it’s the easy route to being location free. They also pay well in general, much more per hour than internet marketing.

There are two ways of looking at it. One is to simply have a “traditional job” but do it over the internet. For example writers, artists, programmers, teachers or anything that uses a computer. You still have a boss or clients or whatever, and you’ll never be a millionaire, but at least you’ve got an income and can travel.

The other way is to set up your own business. These days it’s much easier over the internet than it ever used to be. I’ve given a few examples I’m familiar with on the LocationFreeLifestyle.com site. It’s especially an exciting time for musicians or film makers who now have chances to monetize their gifts, which is something your average person on the street never used to have!

How much money does a person need to live a nomadic lifestyle?
It depends where you live and how comfortable you need to be. As I say, I spent a long, long time living on $100 a month in Japan! I didn’t have rent to take out of that though. If you’re on your own you should be able to live easily on $1000 a month, and that’s quite an easy sum of money to earn. You should however aim to earn more so that you have a safety net and can invest for your future. Anything above $10,000 a month and you are into seriously rich territory!

Could you do it with a spouse or family?
Yep, see above. If you didn’t have family and your spouse was also working online you’d be sorted!

What do you like and not like about your life now?
Likes are basically everything you read about in the books. Cliched as it seems, I am writing this sat by the pool. Other good things are having no boss, no wasted time in commutes, I can wear whatever I like, I get to meet cool people, get to choose how I help people. I still work crazy ten hour days, that’s the price you pay for making your passion your life, but then I get to spend the rest of the time as I like, visiting the Great Wall of China, Pompeii or festivals in India or Japan, wherever I happen to be really.

Bad things are that however much you enjoy your work and however much you can outsource, some parts of it still are “work”. I’m working on a new software project at the moment and cutting up thousands of sound files is not fun! But unlike a lot of jobs I actually choose to do that.

To be honest I don’t think there’s anything really lacking. In some places like Tokyo or China I’m out drinking every night with mates. Then in other places I just love having time to chill. It’s always cool to meet nice people. As I say the only bad bit is doing the boring mechanical side of work, that’s not fun, but it’s just the same as being “back home” wherever that is. One thing I do miss is martial arts. I did Tae Kwon Do in uni and loads of others in Japan. I was just a whisker away from a black belt and regret not getting it now. I should really plan to spend some time in Korea to finally get the black belt!

The world is really small now and if you did ever really “have to have” something then you can get it anywhere. You’re never more than a couple of hours away from a capital city that will sell anything. I like being back in Japan for just a week because I splurge on Japanese food, same with the US or Thailand, but once every year or two is still fine!

Even with physical things you don’t really need to own them. I always pop into music stores and play their keyboards and that’s really fun! But I don’t need to “own them” I just sort of rent them by buying other more portable things from the shop like software or whatever.

Finding good locations does take a lot of time, allow much more than you need, and sometimes you get it wrong. But basically I just couldn’t stand being in a 9-5 job, so this life is perfect for me at the moment.

How could you improve your life?
A few billion dollars would help no end. As would a gorgeous, intelligent, caring, rich blonde girl to travel around with. Or a 25th hour in the day. But the key is that even if you did have everything, would you still be doing what you are doing right now? That has to be the guiding factor. Work is the main part of my life at the moment, and especially with the new projects with private schools for the poor in Africa and Asia, as well as being lucky enough to live where I choose then I’d say that I am exactly as I want to be right now. If I wasn’t I’d change and do exactly what I wanted again.

What were you doing before you became a JetSetCitizen?
I don’t think I’ve ever not been. I was at uni in France (skiing every weekend!) then went to Japan on the JET programme, which is probably one of the best jobs in the world, highly recommended. There I found the education system was terrible so instead of teaching English I taught science and got a bit of fame as well as appearing on NHK TV every week. Then I started my own English programme for the new primary school curriculum and that became quite popular. I had quite a few teachers asking for workshops outside my island, so when I finished JET, I teamed up with a mate who had a 1975 camper van and we did a tour of the country doing workshops for teachers and shows for kids and making sure we got the press to attend each event. By the end of 3 months I was shattered, but a little famous and things sort of went from there!

What sacrifices and risks did you make in order to get to where you are today?
Sacrifices: Two years with no salary living in a wooden house with no shower or heating. Putting myself in hospital every year for the first three years from over work. Losing several girlfriends.

Risks: Well everything’s a risk. I know tomorrow I could lose everything. Then again crossing the road is a risk, but you have to do it to get to the other side. Having lived on $100 a month at the beginning doesn’t make me scared of going back to that. But the upshots are huge, so you really owe it to yourself to take the risks.

Even today I could be out swimming, relaxing or partying. And with the state of the internet at the moment if it was all about the money then you could get by with only working 2 hours a day and make a nice living online. But when you have a mission in life things are still really tough and I make sacrifices all the time, I certainly don’t live a champagne lifestyle because I know there’s still a long way to go!

What advice would you offer others pursuing similar career objectives?
Don’t! I guess there are two sides of this. If what you want is to be happy, experience the world, to provide for your family and enjoy life then certainly a location free lifestyle based on making money on the internet and living wherever you choose is 100% preferable to any other job at the moment. You have total freedom and it is amazing! You would be absolutely crazy to even consider a 9-5 job. That’s madness!

On the other hand, if you want to change the world, then get ready for so much hard work. But the amazing thing is that thanks to the internet and working online you can actually have a bigger influence than you could possible imagine. I’m sat here helping teachers all over the world to make a better life for hundreds of millions of kids and there’s no way I would have been able to do that twenty years ago!

The key is to open your mind to what is possible. Everything that you’ve ever seen was thought up in the mind of one person. Think big, think where you want to be, what you want to do and how you want to do it. You owe it to yourself to be as happy as you can be and make your life exactly how you want it. No one is going to do it for you, it’s 100% up to you, and you can do it! Start it, today!

Links
GenkiEnglish – Richard’s English teaching resources.
LocationFreeLifestyle – Richard’s Lifestyle design and travel blog.

Focus on THE ONE!

Everyone has many dreams or wishes for their future. However, with out focus and a lot of hard work, that is all they will remain: wishes. I wish I were rich and famous. Big deal, so does everyone else. Success only comes to people who are able to commit to one career goal. No one can be great at many things. Look at any world class person from the Barrack Obama to rock stars or olympic athletes and you will find decades of superhuman effort to one single aim.

There are 168 hours in a week. If you sleep 8 hours a day and spend another 2 hours per day on tasks like eating and personal hygiene, then you are down to about 98 hours per week. Of those 98 potential hours, the overwhelming component will be your work week. Considering that you spend 40 hours a week working, with another 5 to 10 hours for commuting to work, it is safe to say that half of your time is spent earning money.

All of your other goals for your personal relationships, spirituality, and health are important, but none require the time and effort of your career.  If you love your current job, then move on to the next most important category on your list. If you don’t love your job and you want to do something to change it, then you need to create a plan to make money from alternate means.

Most people, myself included, have many dreams about how they would like to earn money. You may dream of being an artist, actor, author, musician, or entrepreneur. Maybe you even know the field you want to be in so you have many projects in the works. This might include several blogs, a book, a new business, an e-book, or a seminar. It is great to have many ideas and dreams. However, your best chance at success will come if you can narrow down the list. It is time to focus on THE ONE. What is the one thing that you can work on now that will have the greatest impact on your future success?

Writing a book doesn’t necessarily take a life time, unless you are Marcel Proust. With a constant part-time effort you can probably finish your best-seller in a year or so even while keeping your current job. Perhaps more education is needed for your goal, you could take online courses or evening classes at your local university. Whatever, you want to accomplish is quite feasible if…. and this is a big IF. IF you can decide on THE ONE. AND put all your energies towards this one thing that you want to accomplish. Try to do two or three things at a time and you are almost guaranteeing your ideas will die a slow death do to lack of progress and your inability to put in a consistent effort.

Choosing the one is not easy, there are many great ideas competing for your attention. One thing is certain, the greatest talent in any field will have undoubtedly chosen their one. Mark Spitz didn’t divide his time between swimming and playing in a rock band. He swam harder and longer than probably everyone on the planet. Eric Clapton wasn’t a guitar god AND olympic athlete. Eric Clapton has spent a lot of time playing his guitars. It is likely that he still practices more, even now after decades of playing, than many teenagers dreaming of being rock stars.

It is very easy to talk ourselves out of doing the thing we most want to do. We tell ourselves things like: It’s not practical. The odds are too small for success. Do I really want to do this for the rest of my life? Blah, Blah, Blah. So what if you fail. I assure you if you are really doing the thing you love your time will be well spent. You may sacrifice time watching TV, or time at the shopping mall, it might even be things you value like time at the gym or weekends with friends. Even if you never reach the pinacle of your field, the very act of pursuing your sole passion with all of your energy will lead to opportunities.

You may never be world class in the one goal you choose, but I can guarantee one thing. If you do not try, you will never know if you had it in you to be great or not. That is the greatest tradgedy of mankind, fear of trying.