Transcript
This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altiger Show on the Choose Yourself Network. Today on the James Altiger Show. My happiness and my quality of life is much more important than cashing out some money on a business. I I didn't care anymore. I wanted to be happy again. But, you know, most people wouldn't have the confidence to say, okay. I'm also gonna do something I never did before, which is travel around the world. And at the same time, I'll be able to make a living. Americans don't understand how insanely expensive it is to live in the US. I did the math on this. I'm kind of depressed listening to this. So why do give me another excuse. Why don't people do this? I mean, I'm getting ready to I I feel like packing myself right now. So what if you could completely throw out all of your possessions and go completely off the grid, travel around? Let's find out how to do it, who did it, how you can do it no matter what your position in life is, no matter how much money you have, how you can get started. This is the ultimate digital nomad minimalist, Bobby Casey. Welcome to the show. Hey, James. Thanks for having me. So, Bobby, I remember reading appreciate the time. Yep. I I remember reading once when you you you decided you were sick of it all. This was, like, a whole bunch of years ago. You threw everything out. You sold your your home, and you and your wife, picked up and and just started traveling around the world with no with no home and no no goal in mind or anything. Yeah. That that's true. I it's kinda kind of a long backstory. I won't give give you all of it now, but, basically, around 2007, I I kinda realized that I was sick of my business and I mean, you know, I I hate to say it, but whatever. I hated my customers. I hated my employees. I hated my job. I hated my business. I get it. You know? Customers are hard. People don't realize with entrepreneurship, it's not in general, you're not, like, hanging out with your friends. Like, customers are hard. Partners are hard. Like, everything's difficult in a business. Well, I I mean, it it just I came to a point. I said around 2007, I said, I I'm I'm tired of this crap, really. I'm I'm ready to do something different. I traveled the world a bit at that point just like visiting places, but never never like living as a a a local. And so I sold my business and went through a whole long process selling the house, the cars. I had a motor home. I got James, I had 27 motorcycles. You had 27 motorcycles? I had 27 motorcycles. It was kinda funny. Like, I started thinking, you know what? I probably ought to sell my motorcycles, and somebody asked me, how many motorcycles do you have? I'm like, I don't know. I'm I'm guessing, like, 12, 15. And I walked out into my garage and, like, pulled the covers off of a bunch of them and counted them. And I was like, holy cow. I've got 27 how did this happen? You know? So how much did you clear from selling all the motorcycles? Honestly, I don't know. At the end, I could tell you this. I don't remember. I sold ridiculous amounts. But at the end, like, when I was ready to just, like, close the doors and throw away the key, I was giving I gave away, I think, 5 or 6 motorcycles. I just had buddies. I'm like, hey. Do you like that one? Yeah. Just come get it. You can have it, man. I had one of my buddies, like, just I wish I knew you then. Sort of friend. I had some one of my buddies who he's kinda sort of a friend who said, how about I buy that thing from you on a payment plan? I'm like, dude, just come get it. He goes, I'll pay you over, you know, a year. And he he made one payment, never never paid me again, but I'm like, whatever. I had to get rid of it anyway. Whatever. So so you sold all these things. You and most people okay. So most people would think, when they get sick of of running a business, oh, no. I have to get a job. What made you think, you can sell all your belongings and go on the road forever? Like, when you weren't you scared that eventually you'd run out of money and and, you know, you'd come back and you were out of the job market for all these years and and you'd be lost? Well, I I've never had the mentality to get a job to begin with. I haven't had a job since I was 19. So, I mean, I've always hustled self employed solopreneur, investor, something or other. I mean, I I don't know. For for me, the mindset is never I need I need money. Let me go ask somebody else to pay me money for something, you know, in a job setting. I've always just worked for myself in some way or another. So when you when you sold the business, though, did you sell it for, and this was right, like, right before the financial crisis. Did you sell it for enough that you could travel all around, or, you know, was it just sort of kinda to get you started? Oh, no. No. No. It was it was more of a fire sale. But you but you had confidence in yourself? I had confidence in myself. I got some money out of it. I I cashed out some money, but if I would have sold 2 years earlier, it would have been, you know, a heck of a lot more money. It just and I was already doing some consulting in my field that I do now. I was doing some consulting with some friends and some other, like, people I knew that were entrepreneurs. And so, you know, I had a little bit of money from investments. I sold the business, but, honestly, I'm telling you, I was at the point, I told you before, I hated my customers, I hated my employees. I I reached the point where I said, I I don't care if I sell this thing or not. If I have to, I'm just gonna go lock the door and walk away because I my my happiness and my quality of life is much more important than than, you know, cashing out some money on a business. I I didn't care anymore. I just wanted I wanted to be happy again. But, you know, most people wouldn't have the confidence to say, okay. I'm not only am I going to, you know, shut the door and throw away the key, but I'm also gonna do something I never did before, which is have no home and and kind of just travel around the world. And at the same time, I'll be able to make a living, make enough money to to to pay the bills, particularly when the the financial crisis was just, beginning and probably, you know, it was hard to to make money. Where where do you find that confidence? I I don't know. Maybe I'm maybe I'm, let's say, over overly confident, maybe. I don't know. May maybe I'm overly confident or arrogant in a way, but I I just knew I would work I would work it out. I would make some money. I mean, I listen. I I bought a one way plane ticket to actually, my well, it's kind of a kind of a funny story, but my oldest son who now is 17, but at the time was, I believe 9. How many kids did you have? Me and I have 3 kids. I have now my daughter is 20. She's a rapper living in London. My, and my 2 boys are 17 and 9, But at the time, my oldest son who was 9, him and I got a one way ticket to Prague, and this was in 2009. And and, we we decided to move to Estonia. Like, I I had met a friend of mine who had lived in Estonia, and they said, oh, it's a cool place. You'll like it. I speak some Russian. I thought, oh, that'll be cool to live in Eastern Europe. I can practice speaking Russian. So we I mean, my at the time, my wife, my daughter, and my youngest had a one way ticket to to Estonia. And my, my oldest son, we bought a one way ticket to Prague, or I bought a one way ticket for us to Prague. We went and we just backpacked around. We I I didn't even know how from Prague we were gonna get to Estonia. We just basically, we took a train down to Brno in Czech Republic, went to a motorcycle race, MotoGP race, then we took a train up to Warsaw, spent a few days there. We took a bus from there to where was it? Vilnius in Lithuania. Spent a few days. We ended up in Riga, which is where I live now or where my home base is, let's say. And then we just kinda took a couple weeks, worked our way up. But, essentially, we we moved on a one one way journey to Estonia after I mean, we'd never been there. We'd never And and ever since then, you've been all you've basically lived all over the world. Right? Yeah. I've lived I've lived there. Estonia, I've lived in Latvia. I've lived in, Where else? Italy, Panama, Colombia, Belize. I got it. I I can't remember. And you've tried and you you and you've traveled all over in between as well. It's not like when it's not like you buy a house and move all your furniture to Belize. You just kinda go from country to country. Yeah. James, I I travel with a carry on and a and a small backpack. That's it. I I I mean, even when I moved to Estonia, I I moved with a carry on and a small backpack. So this this this brings to to to mind a 100 different questions. So let me if you don't mind, I'm just gonna just ask you questions, and and then we'll see where it goes. Let's do it. So so Okay. Financial crisis. You you had just started out. And, you know, the reason I ask about this is anybody can can take off and say, oh, I'll I'll do some consulting. But when when the s**t hits the fan, so to speak, it's hard to make money. So what did you do for for, money, let's say, from 2,008 to 2010 when peep when pockets were tight, wallets were tight? Well, I I had some I had some investments. Not enough to live on for sure, but I had some investments. I, I got into well, when the markets crashed, I started I started trading options also. I mean, let's see. 2 thou my god. My memory is not so good. When when the market crashed in it was 2,008. Right? Yeah. 2,008, 2009. Yeah. Yeah. When the market crashed in 2,008, I I kind of I can't say I foresaw it. I just thought, you know, it was getting a little bit risky. So I put all my money in treasury bonds, all my investment money in treasury bonds. And, of course, what happened when the market crashed to treasury bonds, they took off. So I was like, wow. You know? I I was in the most boring investment ever and it took off. So that did fairly well. Once the market crashed, I saw I saw craziness in the market, like Goldman Sachs selling for $50 a share. You know? I mean, what was it? Bank of America went to a dollar a share, stuff like that. So I started selling naked puts at the time. Mhmm. On, like, some really big well known, like, blue chip companies. I was just selling naked puts and, you know, 3 6 month expiration and, basically, they never got put to me or most of it. I mean, obviously, some did. But for the most part, I managed my risk pretty well. Most of it didn't get put to me. So I made money selling, buying and selling options during that time. I did some consulting. What kind of consulting? I do, I do asset protection and and business consulting, business structure consulting on how to structure your small business, like, where you register your company, how you can minimize taxes and minimize risk and stuff like that. I mean, that's basically what I still do now. And so so so, your kids, what were they doing? Like, you you took 3 kids out of school. How most people would say, oh, well, I have to wait till my kids graduate school. What were you doing about them? Put them I put them in local school. Put them in in Estonia. We put them in local Estonian school. You know, it's kinda funny. I was literally my son and I were walking through the center square in a city called Tartu. Tartu, in Estonia. It's the 2nd biggest city there, which is not saying much. It's still small town in US terms. But walking through the square and this woman overheard me and my son speaking English, and she said, oh, you guys are American. I said, yeah. Yeah. You're American too, I guess. She goes, yeah. She said, do you live here? I said, yeah. We just moved here, like, couple days ago. She said, what are you doing for your kids, like, in school? I said, I have no idea. She said, well, I have a son that's the same age as your son here. She said, we found this really good school up the hill, you know, Tartu's got some hills around the center of the city. She said, there's a meeting tonight at the school for, you know, foreigners who want to put their kid in the school. I said, okay. Cool. So I'd we just I mean, that I figured my my view is you figure it out as you go. I mean, like I said, maybe that's an arrogant response, but, I mean, we literally just moved there. I didn't even have a place. I hadn't even looked at the property market to see if I was gonna rent a house or an apartment or whatever. My son and I just showed up, and I found, a couple of real estate agents to show some apartments. And I ended up literally we looked at apartments for, like, a week, couldn't find anything we like. We stayed in, in a hotel, and I found an apartment for us to rent the day, my wife and the other two kids showed up. We didn't even have we literally checked into the new apartment I had rented, dropped our bags, and took a taxi to the airport to pick them up. We didn't even unpack our bags before that they got there. So so when when you move, though, from country to country, do you pull all the kids out of the one local school and then go into the other? Does that affect them socially? Like, do they say, dad, I I was just making friends. Now you're moving me to the other side of the world? Or what what do they say? Well, you know, my, well, move to move to or, Latvia. After Estonia, we actually moved back to the States for a brief period because I still had some stuff. Before we moved to Estonia, I had sold a bunch of my stuff, but not everything. And we still had a house and a couple of cars and some stuff. We moved back for a few months from Estonia to the US and said, okay. We gotta get rid of everything. This is crazy. There's no reason to have a house and all this other stuff here. So we moved back to the US. That was when I felt like I had an eBay and a Craigslist job for a while. You know? I mean, I I was literally just taking pictures of stuff in the garage, putting it on eBay. I mean, I was spending a few hours a day doing eBay and Craigslist stuff. Because we I had a like I said, I had at one point, I had 27 motorcycles, 5 cars, a motor home. Oh my gosh. I mean, I had all kinds of stuff. But but But moved back to the states and got rid of everything. Yeah. And then and then your kids, do they again, when they go from country to country, are they in different schools in each country? Or how how did you kind of educate them all the way through? So what what what we did at that point of course, back in the states, they just went back to the US school for a little while. We moved, moved to, Latvia, and they all just went to Latvian school at that point. And then my daughter, her last two years of high school, that's when she really got into music. So she was writing music and performing and doing she was actually doing some small events. And so, she actually did an online, like an online school for expat kids. It's, what's it called? I forget the name of it now. I IVLA, International Virtual Learning Academy. IVLA. I think it's ivla.org maybe? But there there's a bunch of online online schools for that, but she did that. And then my 2 boys were in local school. So And was she able to make friends, also though? Like because part of school, I imagine, growing up is, the social aspect. Yeah. No. She had no problem making friends. I mean, that's her personality type. So and I think that that that, you know, that is an interesting point because my my oldest son, he's much more introverted than my daughter. And so he needs the the the kind of a forced environment for social activity. Whereas my daughter, she she would she would find it I mean, if she lived in the middle of the woods, she'd have friends in in a day. But when you were, like, in, Belize or Anguilla or wherever, how did your boy was he based mostly in Latvia then, or what did you do? Well, it yeah. So I've I, my wife and I actually, split up about three and a half years ago. So most of my extra travels or extra places I've lived have been in the past three and a half years. And if you don't mind my asking, did you guys split up in part because of the lifestyle was was getting difficult, or did the lifestyle affect the relationship? No. It it didn't. It you know, I I don't wanna get into the personal reasons on my divorce, but, I I can tell you without a doubt, the the lifestyle itself really had no no bearing on on the the demise, let's say, of the relationship. So so You know, ultimately, we just grew apart. So some people would also say, look. I it it's easy for this guy to say he sold, like, 27 motorcycles or whatever. He he had some money. I can't probably can't just pick up and and travel around the world and make ends meet. What what would you say to someone like that? You know, honestly, I I I think I mentioned to you before, I've heard a couple of different reasons, excuses, rationales, whatever you wanna call it behind why not to do it. Now, like, for example, like you said, well, I can't travel. I can't I can't go live in a foreign country because of my kids. You know, my kids I'll do it after my kids graduate high school. Or I can't do it because, you know, I don't have the money to do it or something like that. Honestly, I think those are all excuses people make to justify their own current choices. People say, well, I I can't move abroad because of my kids. Well, my my view was I want my kids to experience the world, experience different cultures and different languages. So my view is I need to do it because of my kids. You know, I I need my kids to have, you know, this this different experience. I I want them to see more than just a very small geographic area where they go to high school and they, you know, go bowling on the weekends or something like that. You know, I need them to experience more. So I I kinda framed it a little bit different. I not that I can't do it because of my kids, is I need to do it because of my kids. Does that make sense? Yeah. Totally. I mean and look at your your daughter as, like, a global citizen, you know, being a a rapper in London now. Yeah. Well, my my kid my kids are actually dual citizens also because, on their their mom on their mom's side, they they had, Italian ancestry. And through some of my connections, we were able to reclaim their Italian citizenship. So all my kids are now dual citizens, which probably wouldn't have happened if we hadn't taken this lifestyle because I wouldn't have met the person who could help facilitate that. My daughter wouldn't be living in London now. You know? All all these things. So so so okay. So so one of the excuses might be, well, I need to make my salary and pay my mortgage and and make ends meet and and so on. Sure. Yeah. That's that's an interesting one too, and I get this a lot. I have a lot of digital nomad clients, and I have a lot of clients who wanna be digital nomads. And the money issue, of course, it's it's a it's a real situation. I mean, we all wanna live indoors and eat. Right? I mean, we need we have some, you know, the Maslow's hierarchy of needs. We have our own we have our own needs we have to do. But what people don't understand is how, at least if we're talking about Americans, and we could talk about some other, you know, developed countries as well, but if you're talking about Americans, Americans don't understand how insanely expensive it is to live in the US. I did the math on this, and I it's funny. I just went to lunch with an old friend of mine yesterday, and we discussed health care costs. I estimate, I'll save $15,000 a year by not living in the US just in health care cost. Just in health care. Is that because like like like, what what what cut what would have cost you $15,000 this past year? Well, for well, for 1, I would as an American living in the US, you, you know, under the Affordable Care Act, you have to be insured or you have to pay the penalty. Right? And I'm 4042. I'm in good health, but I would estimate I pay 6, $700 a month at least. Maybe $800 a month for health insurance for, you know, decent health insurance. You could get it cheaper, I guess, but it would be terrible health insurance. And then if you go to the doctor a couple times, you have co pays and all that stuff. So you go to the dentist a couple of times, you go for a checkup once or twice. I I estimate that would cost me 12 to $15 if I lived in the states. Living living where I do, I don't have health insurance in the US. I don't need it. I pay I pay for catastrophic health insurance in Latvia because as a resident of I'm a legal resident in Latvia. My health insurance cost in Latvia, you you won't believe this, but I pay $42 a year for a ?10,000 deductible plan. A year. And and catastrophic for like, if you're hit by a car, catastrophic, you're you're confident the insurance company would take care of you? Anything over ?10,000. I pay up to ?10,000 if anything over ?10,000 is covered. Anything. Including if I wanted to be airlifted to Johns Hopkins in the US. It would cover a 100% of my airlifting back to Johns Hopkins. And what what is for example, if that's what I wanted. What does catastrophic health insurance cost? I I pay $42 a year. Oh, I see. So that's total. That's all in. For a year, $42. It's ?38, which is about $42 a year. And beyond that, like, if I go to the dentist, it costs me ?20 for, you know, a checkup and a cleaning. If I go, I had a root canal about a year or so ago. It cost me ?300. In the US, it costs, what, $1500 now to get a root canal? At least. Yeah. You know, a couple of years ago, I had a chest infection, and I was too sick to leave the house. I called my doctor. She came to my house and brought with her 2 rounds of antibiotics, did the checkup at house with 2 rounds of antibiotics. Total was ?80. Wow. Total. It's, like, $90. So so what are what so so someone who's making a 100,000 in the US, now you've got them down to 85,000. Let's let's bring them lower. Okay. Well, also, as a if you and I'm talking to Americans here. I'm I'm sure the the majority of your audience is probably Americans, so we'll focus on that. You have, what's called the foreign earned income exclusion. If you qualify for the foreign earned income exclusion and, basically, if you live abroad. I don't wanna get into the details on how to qualify for it, but, you know, it we can go through that process if you want. It's a little more complicated. But if you qualify for the foreign earned income exclusion, your first $100,000, you don't pay tax on, and then you get, a housing allowance depending on where you live, and it averages around $50,000 a year. So you can make about a 150,000 tax free as an American living abroad. So so so that's amazing. So you basically oh, sorry. Go ahead. Well, I was gonna say, so if you're an American, you make a $100 a year. I'm saying gross. Like, your gross paycheck's a 100. You're probably netting. What do you think? 60? Yes. 60 tops. Yeah. Yeah. Let's let's go with 60. So right off the bat, you're you have an equivalent you need to earn an equivalent income abroad of 60 to have the same living in the US as a 100. That's one one thing. Then you have the health care costs. You can knock 10 or 15 off from that because of the the difference in the the cost. And then when you consider cost of living, there's a website called Numbeo. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. Numbe0.com. You can do a cost of living comparison between cities on Numbeo. But if you compare, I don't know, let's say let's use Budapest, Hungary, for example. If you compare Budapest, Hungary to, let's say, New York City, the cost of living in Budapest is probably I'm gonna guess 50% or even less than that of New York. I would guess even less. But okay. So now you It might be less. Yeah. Now you just took me from we we've worked our way from a 100,000 to 22,500 because you don't Approximately. Yeah. To have an equivalent quality of life. Yeah. Right. So, basically, you could go to Budapest. If you if you have skills that translate over, you know, a mobile platform like consulting or website design or, Photoshop design or writing or whatever, instead of making a 100,000, you could live, you know, in in any of these, you know, probably many different countries for less than $25,000 is is essentially what you're saying. Correct. Yeah. And Budapest is just one example. You know, I could rattle off a bunch of play you don't you don't like Eastern Europe, you know, try Lisbon, Portugal in, you know, in the south. Nice weather year round. Ridiculously low cost of living in Lisbon. You know? Or Malaga, Spain is also a very low cost of living place to live right on the right on the coast of the Mediterranean. What about, what what are some good places in South America? My my all time favorite place in South America is Medellin. That's what I keep hearing is that's the new place, and it's all Americans there now, apparently. If you're in the Poblado area of town, yeah. I mean, you and I have a, a a good mutual friend who's been living down in Medellin for a couple years. I'm I'm sure you probably Yes. Know who I'm talking about. Yes. But yeah. I mean, he he's one of the ones a couple years ago that convinced me to come check out Medellin, and I love it. I last year, I spent, I don't know, a month and a half or close to 2 months in Medellin. So so major city, what's the cost of get let let's say a 2 bedroom, 2 bath apartment rent per month? Well, our our mutual friend has a ridiculous apartment. It's a 3 level penthouse apartment with a rooftop jacuzzi in the nice one of the nicest buildings in the city, in the nicest part of town. He's got underground parking garage, a gym in his building, a pool, and he pays I think he told me he pays 1800 US a month, but that that apartment is like Oh my god. That's something you might see Will Smith in in Miami, though. Like, that's his apartment's crazy. I I love his place. But, like, a normal 2 bedroom place, you can easily find 3, $400, $500 a month. So, I mean, you can't even compare that to New York City. There's there's nothing there there's no comparison. That's like a fraction of what New York City would cost. I'm You can get a broom closet in New York for $500 a month. Depressed listening to this. So so so why do give me another excuse. Why don't people do this? I mean, I'm getting ready I I feel like packing myself right now. Well, honestly, Medigene is a is an excellent place. I I would highly advise the deal. You know, I think the reason people don't do it is is fear of the unknown. I mean, why don't we do anything? Why why do people stay in the same job for 10, 15, 20 years? It's fear of the unknown. Right? Lack of confidence, maybe. Fear of, you know, not being able to provide or picking Oh, Bobby, I think I just lost you. Bobby, are you still there? Should I should I hang up and call him? Let's stop to take a quick break. We'll be right back. Hello? Oh, hey, Bobby. I think we lost you. So just start with fear of the unknown. Okay. Yeah. So most people have a lot of fear of the unknown. Right? They get in this zone. Right? You go to college, you get out of school, you get a job, you know, and you kinda follow that the Jones's path. Right? You get a job, you're making good money, you go get a house with a mortgage, cars with a car payment, and they don't they don't have this understanding that, hey, maybe I can do this. Like, it's not even it just looks like something cool that they see on the Internet or some some cool picture on Instagram or something. And a lot of times, it's, you know, who we associate with. Right? I'm I'm sure, James, you're you've you've heard the you are the, you know, the average of your 5 closest friends you associate with. Right? Like and that generally goes your income level, your your net worth, you know, your religious views, your political views, your hobbies, so on and so forth. You spend time with the people that are most closely, you know, in in agreement with your views. And so when you see or hear about some guy who has done all these crazy things, who lives in, Southeast Asia, you know, different countries 2 months at a time, you think, oh, that sounds nice. I would never be able to do that because I have a mortgage and car payments, you know, and that sort of thing. So I think it's really just a lot of times fear of the unknown and, you know, sometimes, of course, it's just not it's just not what people want. Like, I've got a good friend of mine that lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. His name is Steve. He owns a golf course there and a bunch of apartment complexes, and he's very successful businessman, brilliant guy, but he doesn't even like to go to Vegas or California. Like, for him, to to get outside of a 10 mile radius from his house is, like, beyond the scope of what he wants to do in his life. So Right. So It depends on the person. But that's a really great point, though, about being the average of the 5 people around you. Because let's say you're you develop this traveling or digital nomad lifestyle, you're gonna also learn the skills from the people around you if you associate with the right people. Like, for instance, in your in the course of your travels, how do you see people make the transition from making a living at a job in the US to kind of, you know, taking their skills overseas and making a living? Like, how do they do it? What do you see people do to to earn that 25,000 or 50,000 a year, whatever they need to to make? Yeah. I I see I have a ton of clients that are digital nomads now. They're they're actually my biggest client base at this point for what I do. So I talk to a ton of these nomad guys every day. And I've seen all range of things. Like, I have, one client who, she just quit her job. She had a good paying job, saved up some money over a few years, and quit her job and said, look, I'm gonna give it a shot for 6 months and see how it goes. Well, during the the 6 months, she started doing some freelance work, and she's good at this and good at that and What type what type of freelance what type of freelance work? Like, what were what were her inroads? Graphic design, website design, helping people set up their WordPress sites, stuff like that. It's not big money, but like we said, the equivalent if you're living in some boat like Hungary or Portugal or Colombia or Vietnam or something, you can make 20, 25 grand a year and have the equivalent of a $100,000 US source income. And so you go help somebody build 1 WordPress site for a few hours and you charge them 6, 7, $800. I mean, that's 2 weeks' worth of lifestyle income. Right? Right. And and, also, I should mention, like, specifically WordPress setups and things like that, you could learn that at there's a 100 different websites. You could learn that for free over the course of, let's say, a few weeks or a month. Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's the u Udemy, u d e m y. I don't know if I'm saying that right. Yeah. Udemy. Udemy, Codeacademy, Linda. Yeah. I think even Khan Academy has, some free courses on, website design and WordPress sites. Yes. I'm pretty sure Khan Academy my oldest son does Khan Academy courses sometimes, but, you know, I mean, it it's not that hard. Like, this person does, you know, some graphic design work, some website design. And I think what'll happen is she'll eventually find some product niche or some service niche and build a business out of it. But for now, she's just doing freelance stuff. What what other things you see people do? Amazon. Selling products on Amazon. That is the biggest thing I see right now. People just building Amazon businesses. They're building let's call I I say Amazon businesses. They're not. They're ecommerce, but Amazon's the biggest platform in the world for ecommerce right now. So, you know, I I say it's like you you can't avoid if you're selling a product online, avoiding Amazon is kinda like selling selling your product from a yard sale in your front yard when the biggest, you know, the biggest, flea market in the world is across the street. You just don't avoid the biggest marketplace. What what's an ex what's an example of, of what somebody sells on Amazon? What do they sell there? I've got one client who's selling, these, glassware, like wine glasses, beer mugs, the these he has them custom designed, and then he has them manufactured in China, sells them on Amazon. He's I I haven't talked to him in a few months, but last time I checked, he was grossing. Gross revenue around $80 a month, netting about 30% of that. I've got another friend who just sells the vitamins. How does he how does he advertise the glassware on Amazon? Like, how do people know to find him? He just he puts the product on Amazon, and Amazon has a pay per click, like a just like Google pay per click, but in Amazon, you can have pay per click ads within the Amazon platform Mhmm. Where you pay for higher placement on certain keywords. So if in his case, he's selling, let's say, wine glasses, for example. He might pay he might pay an ad budget to, get the wine glasses keyword on Amazon when people search search there. Okay. And it it's it's also SEO. You know, you have you have, you have to use SEO keyword keyword heavy, in in your in your advertisements and that sort of thing. And it's it's like building any other business. You know, you have to find your products. You have to sell a good product. You have to provide a good service. You have to reach the target audience. People but, like, I've I got a friend of mine who, sells, ghillie suits. I don't know if you know what a ghillie suit is? No. You ever seen these suits, like, people go play paintball in, and they have the string the camouflage suits with the strings hanging off? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. It's like a military application, but now people use it for paintball and hunting and everything. He sells ghillie suits. Years ago, he had ecommerce sites selling these ghillie suits online, but now 6 70 I think 70, 75 percent of his, sales come from Amazon. But he but he manages his client base. You know, he'd been doing this for a few years. He has his his list of clients. He has ecommerce sites that are, you know, normal ecommerce sites, but most people buy on Amazon now. 75% of his audience goes to Amazon. Just like building any other business, you just have to you have to get your product in front of the right audience. You have a business, You're just using Amazon as your as your as your platform. But, most people I know that sell on Amazon are on multiple platforms. They have a Shopify site, you know, they have an Amazon site. They're, you know, maybe they're selling on walmart.com, But you think you think living the the mobile lifestyle is what kind of encourage them? Hey. I can build products cheaper here and then sell them in the US on, like, Amazon. Well, I mean, I have one friend of mine who sells supplements online. His he actually has all of his supplements, made in the US. He's not he's not having them done in China. I mean, he he wanted a higher level of quality control on the the ingredients and everything. So he he actually has, private labeled his products from a US manufacturer. I would think that's a very competitive, I would think that's a very competitive area. Like, it seems like everybody would sell. So so he he probably did a lot for for advertising. I I'm telling you, he he only started the supplement business less than 2 years ago, and he's doing close to a $100 a month. Wow. And what's he what's he netting? About 35%. Wow. So that's that's great. And what do what do his help supplements do? Like, what what kind of how did he design his vitamins? He's he has all kinds of crazy ones like, you know, feminine hygiene supplements, let's say. Some are for he doesn't it's not like just vitamin it's not just like multivitamins. They're all very specific ones. You know? You've got some I mean, like, his one of his biggest sellers is a yeast infection product. So That's interesting. So so and how how what do you think his initial this is I know this is a little off track. What do you think his initial outlay was to get this before he was, like, netting that kind of money? Before he was netting anything? Oh, he he I I know exactly what it was. He's he's a good he's a good friend of mine and a client too. Him he made money in his 1st month. I mean, he was make he his net profit in his 1st month was already a couple $1,000. Wow. So so it's interesting. So there's many things, basically, people can do in this mobile sort of nomadic world that we live in now because of all these different platforms, whether it's Amazon or Airbnb or, you know, whatever. And, you know, there's there's essentially all the what other excuse have you heard for people not doing this? I mean, I guess my excuse would be my kids because I'm divorced and my kids live with their mom, and so I need to see them every couple, you know, as much as possible. And it would be hard for me to to travel all around, I think. Well, you you and I are in the same situation. I I see my kids, every month. Right. So and you and you do that in Latvia? No. My my kids live in in North Carolina with their mom. Okay. Because they they they're younger ones. I see. Because they the youngest moved back. Yeah. They they live in North Carolina with their mom. I see my kids every every month. And Generally, what what I what generally, what I do is I will come, like, like, my next trip, I'll go the last week of February and the 1st week of March. I'll I'll see my kids in February. The last week of February, I'll have them. In the 1st week of March, I'll have them. We do all kinds of stuff, you know. I I mean, we do the normal stuff too. I take them to school, and we do all that normal stuff, but, you know, then we do we do all kinds of stuff together. I work from wherever I'm sitting with my laptop and my phone. But usually, I tie that into other trips. Like like, right now, I'm in the US. I'm heading back in a few days, back to Latvia. I'll be in Latvia for a couple weeks. Then I'm going to Tbilisi, Georgia for a couple weeks. What are you doing there? Then I gotta I got some, looking at some business stuff. I've got a a lawyer that I do some work with there, so I've got some meetings. Okay. That sounds looking at some real estate projects, stuff like that. What do you mean you have, like, a a lawyer in Georgia you're looking at some stuff with? That sounds almost like KGB ish. Well, so Georgia is a really good, market for investment right now because it's, real estate prices are very cheap. Like you can buy, in Tbilisi, the capital city Tbilisi, you can buy apartments in the center city for, you know, like you're looking at $800 per square meter, which is ridiculously cheap. So I'm going to look at some properties. You know, I have a lot of clients that always look for investing opportunities. And I have found in my experience, a lot of times, if you find the right lawyer to connect to in that area, they can open up doors for other things. Like what? Generally, investment opportunities and connections with partners, for, different business opportunities. Like, we're looking I've got a couple of clients that are actually going with me. One of them is looking to, do some import export business of some, Georgian food products. So we're going to meet with some suppliers. That's one of the things we're doing. We're looking at real estate. There's a a resort project that's being built there. You can go in as an investor. And then the other thing is is this is a topic we haven't really hit on, but there's an opportunity in Georgia for, people that are going there to invest some money there to become permanent residents and citizens of Georgia, and then they can get a second passport there. So that's part of the reason we're going there as well. And why do they wanna do that? Why would you wanna get well, if you're a nomad, for example now now we're getting back into the the foreign earned income exclusion. But to qualify for as a as a nomad, let's say you wanna live as an expat or a nomad, and you wanna qualify for the foreign earned income exclusion, there's 2 ways to do it. 1, you need to be physically out of the US, 330 days in a 12 month period. The other way to qualify though is if you become a bona fide resident in that country. You actually become a legal resident in that country, and you have some connection to that country. You can become a bona fide resident in that country. And then, let's say you're an American and you get residency in Georgia, and you you are now qualified under the foreign earned income exclusion as a bona fide resident, you can actually physically be in the US about a 120 days a year. So, it actually allows you more flexibility in traveling back to the US on a on a time basis, if that makes sense. So, you're a legal resident in Georgia. When I say legal resident, you you're claiming that as your tax home. And then the good thing, Georgia doesn't tax your foreign income. So if you don't earn any income in Georgia, you don't pay any tax there, but you still get the tax benefit of being, you know, an expat or a nomad American with the foreign earned income exclusion. So so, Bobby, there's sense? Yes. It totally makes sense. And and, Bobby, there's it sounds like, obviously, you're incredibly savvy with with all the details and all these different countries and all these different rules and regulations and how to make money in these different places. How do people find you on the Internet if they wanna get in touch with you? I mean, the easiest way to to reach us is, through our website, globalwealthprotection.com. That's our main our main website. We've got a few other, like, specific product pages, but that's our main site. That's where all our articles are. That's where our blog is. If you wanna subscribe to our new our free newsletter, that's where you would do that. So globalwealthprotection.com. There's a contact form on there that'll that'll reach me. Alright. Well well, Bobby Casey, this has been fascinating. You've really, you know, we people might not know this, but we had a little audio glitch in the middle, and we had to take a a a break for a few seconds. And the audio engineer, I I he's almost ready to pack and, go on the road now after hearing you talk. Well, I tell you, there's a lot there's a lot of good places to go. I've I've I have a lot of my, entrepreneurial friends who I've I've pushed over the edge to take the leap. And, you know, I had a really good friend of mine a couple years ago. I sat with him by his pool, and he was telling me he said, you know, you finally convinced me. I'm gonna I'm gonna go travel a bit and experience, you know, some different parts of the world. I've never left the US, but I'm gonna give it a shot. I said, yeah. What are you gonna do? He said, I'm gonna go live in Thailand for a month, and then I'm gonna go live in Bali for a month. I said, okay. What are you gonna do after that? And he said, well, I'm I'm just gonna move move back here. He was in Arizona at the time. I said, he said, I'm just gonna move back here. I said, oh, yeah? He goes, yeah. Bali for a month, Thailand for a month, I'll move back here. I said, no. You won't. He goes, yeah. Yeah. No. I will. I said, I'll bet you money right now that you will never move back to Arizona. It's been 2 years. He hasn't even been back to visit yet. Oh my god. Where is he right now? I just talked to him this morning. He's in Vietnam. Oh my god. Alright. Well And he's he's gonna be in Latvia in a week. He's gonna come visit me for when I get back, he's gonna come stay with me for a week or 2. And how's he making a living, abroad? Amazon. Interest what's he selling? He he well, he did have a a pet product he was selling. He actually sold that business, cashed out a little bit of money, and, you know, now he is selling, like, I don't know exactly which product, but it's like, man I call it man products. You know, they're, like, shaving stuff and, you know, things for that men buy. He has, like, a man store, let's call it. That's fine. But he has a bunch of products on there now. Alright. Well, Bobby, Bobby Casey, globalwealthprotection.com. Thanks so much for sharing all this expertise and, getting me thinking about it as well. So I really appreciate you coming on the show. Yep. Sure. No worries. I I will I will make one plug. You can cut this out if you want, but, I had sent that, report over to you guys. How to go off the grid without leaving your couch might be interested for your audience that have access to that. And I am gonna I'm gonna do a follow-up report that adds the, the offshore component so we can get that out here in the next week or 2 if you want. That'll be great. No. It's okay. Sorry. Sorry, Bobby. Go ahead. Yeah. No. That sounds good. I will, I'll make the email intro again. You know, I'll do the re intro to the editor, and we'll we'll get that all hooked up. Yep. Perfect. And I think I what I might do is I might actually even, package this tightly with that and then rerelease it later as well so get the most possible, interest. So alright. Well, thanks, Bobby. And I and stop by next time you're in New York. Let me know, and, we'll we'll try to get together again. Yeah. Will do. I'm I'm usually in New York at least every couple of months. Usually, one of my flights at some point ends up going through New York for a couple days anyway. So Okay. Great. Well well, let me know when you're in town. We'll get together. Yep. Plus, my girlfriend is bugging me to go spend a few days in New York. So at some point, I'm gonna have to do that. Yeah. Well, she New York is a great city. So once it's warm here, it's a good idea. Yep. Right on. Will do. Okay. I'll be in touch. Thanks, Bobby. Talk to you soon. Bye. Alright, James. Take care. Cheers. For more from James, check out the James Altiger Show on the choose yourself network at jamesaltiger.com, and get yourself on the free insider's list today. Listen. I have a big favor to ask you, and it will only take 30 seconds or less. If you like this podcast, please let me know. Please let the team I work with know. Please let my guests know. And you can do this easily by going to either Itunes or Stitcher or wherever you download podcasts and subscribe. It'll probably be the biggest favor you could do for me right now, and it's really simple. For instance, go to Itunes, search for the James Altucher show, and click subscribe. Like I said, it will take 30 seconds or less. And if you subscribe now, it will help me a huge amount. Thanks.
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