digital nomad – Bullish on Coffee

September 25, 2019

Cost of living as a digital nomad

One of the most frequent questions I get is “how do I afford to travel so much” so let’s dig into my expenses!

Cost of living as a digital nomad in Asia

When I was staying in Indonesia, I spent three months living in Lombok and stayed at a hostel for the entire duration because I loved it there…

The hostel I stayed at was:

Bamba – the best hostel in Kuta, Lombok!

You can stay an entire month there for around 400$

The breakfast there is included and it’s amazing – there’s a cool swimming pool but more importantly, I love the team that works there, I made so many friends, and would even consider the staff family 🙂

That being said, if you are on a really strict budget, you can find cheaper, especially if you are willing to negotiate once you are there and go to smaller less well known hostels

Food wise, you can eat for 2$ per meal, but if you’re going to want to have something else than local dishes then it can go up, maybe even as high as 5 to 10$ but you don’t need to treat yourself as a king all the time so let’s say a 12$ average per day (that’s a lot) including coffee and beers?

So let’s say 350$ – which can easily be more or less depending on your lifestyle once again

A scooter rental was 5$ per day if I remember correctly so 150$ per month

Fuel + parking (when needed) could add up to maybe 30$ per month

That’s all you really need

400+350+150+30 = 930

With less than 1,000$

you can (easily) live in Lombok, Indonesia

But… That’s not including day trips if you want to rent a boat, if you want to go surfing, if you want to go trekking and need a guide, etc etc, so in the end it will cost you more – maybe even up to 500$ if you really want to go for it 🙂

So 1.5k and you’re set

From that you’ll need to add plane tickets tho

You also need to keep money on the side to pay your taxes, don’t make them wait, it’s not worth playing with them, especially if you run an online business!

So the truth is,

you’ll probably need to make more than 2k per month

Cost of Living in London

Now, I’m currently in London, so let’s compare 🙂

First off, let me start with:

DON’T STAY IN A HOSTEL IN LONDON

They’re fine if you are staying a few days, but more than that you’ll definitely want to use Airbnb – you want to remain productive while in London, and hostels here aren’t that great because there’s no privacy and not much space to do any work

yep that’s my affiliate link, but let’s be serious, if you don’t have an airbnb account are you coming from Mars?

In my case, the Airbnb is costing me about 1.2k per month, sure I could’ve found something cheaper, but I believe it’s better to stay in a decent place where I can work & cook ~~(without burning the apartment down)~~ than be too cheap

I’ve got a cool view from my Airbnb tho!

I really don’t want to look into how much I’ve spent on coffee, so let’s say that food + coffee + a few drinks ended up around 500$ for the month (wouldn’t be too surprised if it was more)

Probably spent 150$ on “public” transport

So with 1.8k I’ve got my basic living expenses

Then obviously if you want to eat in restaurants, go out and party, visit the UK (the train is bloody expensive), go to museums and all that it’s going to end up being more expensive

So you could live in London on 2k per month if you want a basic lifestyle

If you want something more fun, expect that number to rise very quickly, especially if you want to live in the center of London (I’m in Zone 2 to reduce the cost of rent, no need to commute into the city every day so might as well save money!)

You’ll also need to take into account taxes once again…

So the truth is,

you’ll probably need to make more than 3k per month

The digital nomad lifestlye

So to answer, how much does the digital nomad lifestyle cost:

IT DEPENDS ON YOU.

It depends on where you go

It depends on your standards

It depends if you are going to travel around

It depends on what food you’re eating

If you want to party

If you have loads of taxes to pay

Or you can start hitch hiking around the world and be a true nomad, even better, get yourself a camel, an Indiana Jones hat and hit the road

If you are willing to sleep outside in the nature it will be cheaper, same for a hut, if you want to stay in five star hotels tho… It’ll be different!

I hope that answers your questions!

Sorry I couldn’t give a straight answer but it depends entirely on you!

If you liked this post, it would mean the world to me if you could leave a like 🙂

Onwards!

September 21, 2019September 22, 2019

Work as a digital nomad

Digital nomad & work

One of the most frequent questions I get is: “How do I get work done while traveling?”, so will try to answer this one.

I feel like I’ve already used this photo

I DON’T DO ANY WORK…

I spend my days at the beach taking photos duh.

Okay, that’s a lie (I hope you knew that!)

The truth is, it’s not because you’re a digital nomad that you won’t be doing a lot of work – the amount of work you need to do is the exact same as if you were living at home.

But it does depend on your work, as a FX trader, I spend around three hours a day doing work, but that’s a normal amount of work for any trader? (Do you spend more time on the charts?)

All I need is to forecast, review my past trades, do some backtesting and watch some content in order to maintain my skill at the same level.

That being said, there are days where I spend a lot more time, if I am motivated I can very easily get into a backtesting session and spend around eight hours on it, because I love it.

That being said, if you are not self employed and instead get paid on an hourly basis (which is what I do on the side), you will have to spend hours doing work in order to go paid and finish the task you were assigned, and you’d do the exact same workload as if you were home.

But here’s where the “good shit” comes in…

If you’re in a country where your living expenses are half what you used to spend it’s rather easy to reduce your workload (still recommend getting more hours done than the bare minimum) – so instead of working 8 hours you could work 6 hours rather easily?

Where to work?

That’s the interesting/challenging part, I do try to spend more money on airbnbs where I know I shall be able to get work done in the mornings.

One of the challenges of being a nomad is that you never really have an office, especially if you change location rather often and there’s no co-working space close by that offers a “hot desk” membership.

You need decent wifi in order to be able to do your backtesting and watch content, and that’s not a given sadly…

To be entirely fair, “developing” countries (Indonesia, Poland, Colombia, Lebanon,…) please don’t bully me for putting Poland there… the wifi is a hell of a lot better than in developed countries when it comes to working in coffee shops.

So the answer is:

I usually work at home during my “productive” hours – the first three hours – if there’s a desk, one of my requirements for airbnbs (highly recommend it),

I like outdoor standing (home made) desks

Then go out and do work at a coffee shop, however the work done in coffee shops is a lot less productive than at home, but I need the change of scenery – and it’s easier to keep doing work when you’re not the single one, otherwise the urge to go out and explore is super strong

Be a tourist for the afternoon, then get more work done in the evening at home or with a glass of wine!

That being said, if you are spending a month or more in one location, I highly recommend joining a co-working space, you’ll not only get to meet other self employed individuals and make friends but you’ll also get into a habit of working from there, which is great because you have a separation between home and work, something that’s not really possible when working from home.

Growth as a digital nomad

Now, as I just talked about, it’s rather easy to get work done as a digital nomad, you just have to say “fuck you” to your excuses and remember that you are only able to travel because of the work you do, hence, you need to prioritize the work over being a tourist.

That being said,

I don’t think living as a digital nomad is the best way to grow your business, instead, I would even argue it’s a bad idea

If you are aiming to scale your business, launch a new product, create a new offering, or even increase your returns as a forex trader or even learn an entire new trading style you’d be better off staying in one place

I’m not going to write too much about this, because I think Iman Gadhzi did a great job explaining it in this video, highly recommend it, shows the life about being a digital nomad, but after the six minute mark he talks about the downside of Variation and being a digital nomad.

You want to be repetive, you want to do the same shit, you want to have your routine, you don’t want to do new stuff every day, have a schedule, make sure you’re productive.

Anyway, hope you’re well and enjoyed this blog post!

Onwards,

Oh, and, if you’ve enjoyed this blog post, would mean the world to me if you left a like or a comment 😊

August 29, 2019

Turning your hobby into your “job”

Congrats! It’s amazing you’re at this point!

If you’ve recently came to realize you could take your side hustle/passion and make it your primary source of income congrats! That’s amazing, I still remember the day I realized I could sustain myself trading forex – was when I was writing cover letters for jobs just before graduation, I didn’t end up applying for those jobs after that realization (except one, McKinsey but they shot me down – something I’m grateful for)😊

But yeah, congrats, that’s really impressive! Would it be trading, photography, your blog, designing cool tee-shirts or whatever it makes me so happy when I hear people are making a living doing what they love.

Maybe you take photos of fruits and vegetables and somehow managed to turn it into a business… I mean it looks cool!

That being said, it’s not because you are able to go and turn your hobby into your sole income that you should quit your job or become a digital nomad – first you need to transform it from a hobby into a business and start looking at it that way.

When it’s a hobby it’s amazing, you get most of the upsides and you are quite blind to the downsides while being able to stop whenever you wish since that’s not the only thing you do.

Be prepared for the transition!

If you decide to take your trading and make it your income source and quit your job then be prepared for:

Having lower returns that what you’ve come to expect in the first first few months since you’ll have some added stress, it happens to a lot of people who just took the jump

Create a rather strict routine, it’s not because you don’t need to be at the office at 8 or 9am that you should still be in bed… You will have nearly no external barriers to becoming a couch potato, you will be the responsible for everything. While making sure you prioritize sleep, I didn’t in the past, and that’s one of my biggest regrets, making sure the brain gets its off time is really important

See your income fluctuating, you won’t be making the exact same amount every month/every quarter (which is why I believe it is extremely important to have a six-month cash buffer before taking the step (mainly to reduce the pressure)) That being said, if you make three times more (on average) than what you spend you can probably just take out a fixed amount every month/quarter depending on your choice.

You’ll spend way more time on your computer (next to an ikea plant)thinking that it will mean you will make more money – sadly that doesn’t go in hand, I wish it did, but instead it’s actually important to start disconnecting from the charts, if you spend too much time looking at them you will likely want to take a trade or micro-manage them – which in turn will probably have a negative impact on your income/returns.

Accept the fact that your passion is now your job, which means you will need to find a new hobby and start learning something new in order to maintain your self development and your brain plasticity.

An advice I would give to anyone about to go full-time with their trading or side hustle would be to measure the amount of time they spend on it while still spending time at their job. Why?

If you spend an hour and half on the charts while working per day, make sure you don’t spend more than three hours (the double amount).

I understand that it may sound counter-productive, after all, you have now way more time to improve your craft and boost those returns, but if you were able to get to this point and replace your income with if there’s no need to spend that much more time working on it. There’s a point where spending more time will not only bring you diminishing returns but also reduce the enjoyment you get from it.

Something Neil Cartwright also points out is keep doing what brought you to this point, keep doing the exact same thing, don’t become too cocky, it’s not because your trading as really improved that you should stop your previous routine, if you used to watch content everyday, keep doing it, if you were meditating, keep doing it, if you were back testing three times a week, keep doing it. You probably got the point by now, but, just keep doing whatever you used to do.

It brought you here so it must be a good thing!

Now it’s your primary income… It’s a business

Now it’s a business, so start thinking about your monthly costs, how can you optimize and streamline the process, how can you leverage up and increase your profits, get in touch with a great accountant and figure out how to reduce your taxation etc etc.

While talking about the business side it’s also important to mention the fact that most successful businesses don’t pay out a 100% dividend, instead they constantly re-invest in the company (usually they do it to buy new machines or have more marketing or hire more staff, for us that just means leaving money in the trading account).

Now, if you’ve already been on this blog you’ll have noticed I also provide a monthly trade recap, which is basically an overview of my month (I have one way more detailed that I keep for myself) but the reason I do this, is because I’m treating my trading as a business.

Businesses need to publish quarterly income statement and all the other stuff, why wouldn’t you? If you run a business selling tee-shirts, wouldn’t you be looking at your revenue/profit/ad spend/ROI etc? If you don’t I would be surprised if your store keeps on going.

If you own a coffee shop, I’m sure you will be looking at your profits, revenue, costs etc while trying to figure out a way to boost your profits and potentially open in a new location?

Trading is a business, so make sure you spend time treating it as one. Don’t forget to think about the monthly reports, create a trading report where you will write down every single trade you took, the return, the reason for the entry and exit and all of this.

Obviously, you will have to keep doing your Advanced Self Review and spend time trying to find the tweaks you need to go through in order to improve.

A good example would be my mentors, even tho they have been trading for more than five years profitably they are still reviewing their months in order to make sure they are still on their top game and continuously improving.

Make sure you still enjoy it – and don’t only do it for the money

It’s not because you are going to turn your hobby/passion into your primary income source that you’ll start to despise it, I still enjoy trading and learning about the market remains one of my favorite things to do. But, you must start treating trading as a business instead of a fun activity you do because you think it’s nice side income or just because you want to keep yourself busy. We all get what we want from the market, so make sure you align your wants to this new reality.

Lastly, it’s something I’ve only recently started to realize but it’s not because you are now making money doing something you love that you should be blind to other opportunities. Diversity in your income source makes you anti-fragile and that should be the end goal.

Aim to become anti-fragile – being self-employed and having turned your passion into your income source is fantastic but keep in mind there’s no shame starting something new on top of that or even potentially getting a job in a industry you’re really interested in.

And I definitely recommend picking up this book, Nassim Taleb is one of my fav. authors 🙂

For example, I’m really into space because my long-term goal is in that world, if I get the opportunity to work in a cool start-up with really smart individuals in that industry I’d jump on that chance.

Anyway, I hope this was helpful.

I hope this was useful! If it was it would mean the world to me if you’d like this post or even leave a comment if you’d add something to this article!

Cheers!

August 26, 2019August 27, 2019

Being a DIGITAL NOMAD….

Let’s talk about the highlight, the downside and once there, what happens?

Let me start with, it’s pretty amazing – I mean it. We usually define a digital nomad as someone that works remotely to earn a living and are able to travel whenever/wherever they wish. Sounds pretty amazing if you ask me… But yep, there are downsides!

The highlight:

You get to travel (duh that’s pretty obvious Max…) to places you’ve always wanted to go – well I still want to go to Mars but apparently there’s no wifi there… One day 🙂

I mean Mars isn’t even on this map neither is the Moon 🙂 and I clearly need to do more of Africa & Asia

Traveling to new places is the highlight not because of the new location, but more about the people and experiences (read that as the memories you make). You won’t remember everything about your trips, that’s for sure.

Afterall,
Memories is the only thing we keep.

Life isn’t only about FOREX or affiliate marketing or copy writting or whatever. Do you remember all the trades you took a year ago? I don’t that’s for sure – but do I remember renting a villa outside of Medellin last August to celebrate el Dia de las Flores with friends I met there absolutely.

It was a fun night and an amazing group of people!

Working long hours is worth it, if it enables you to make memories forever. Heck, you don’t even need to work remotely or even for yourself, you just have to enjoy what you do.

You don’t need to become a digital nomad to make these memories, you don’t need to find a way to build yourself up as a freelancer or get a job that allows you to work remotely to be able to achieve these dreams of yours.

Being able to travel constantly is amazing – you meet more people, you get to explore more places – you get to dance in strange places you’d have never dreamt off and taste so many different beers (actually that may be the highlight: Being a digital nomad enables you to try an extremely large amount of different beers – fuck living in one place, after a while you’ve tried all of them 😀 )

Craft beers on the beach with a friend watching the sunset… Is the type of memory I chase

Anyway, all of this rant was to say – the best part of being a digital nomad is it becomes easier to experience different things you’d usually never even dream off because you are outside your comfort zone.

I’m guessing none of that positive aspect is news to you anyway..

The downside:

Now this kinda sucks because most people will hate me for saying there’s any downsides to being a digital nomad… But it’s true there are (quite a few to be truthful).

Everything we love as an opposite side
To know brightness we need darkness

Lewis Mocker does a great job showing the two sides, I just can’t remember which video to link sorry – it may be this one:

Give it a watch, he’s a good guy!

Having a lot of money has downsides (more taxes, people think you’re an awful person etc)

Being a digital nomad or even a forex trader has downsides (you are responsible for yourself, something you’re not used to, most of your revenue will never be stable etc)

But to be truthful being fully responsible and not having a stable income isn’t the real downside, they can actually be seen as a positive.

The main challenge with being a digital nomad is saying good bye to people. Every time you make a really good friend it’s more than likely they will leave or you will leave and you won’t meet for the next few months or more

You won’t be seeing your “home” friends as often, it’s a lot harder to meet-up for drinks on a friday night if you’re on a different continent (strange eh)

It gets lonely.

Literally – I didn’t spend more than 3 hours with the same person while I was in Greece

You end up hating saying good bye to those amazing people so you avoid making new friends after a while.

I’ve been in that trap, only recently realized I’m giving up the best part of being a digital nomad because I’m scared of saying bye.

When you become a digital nomad – I have no doubt you would like to if you’re reading this post – don’t forget this.

Learn to appreciate saying good bye to people, try to turn it into a positive, every single good bye you say will usually lead to a new friend, you just have to say “Hi” once more.

It’s not the easiest thing to do, but if you need to talk about it, feel free to message me.

Becoming a full-time FX trader enables you to become a nomad, but what’s next?

There’s so many courses out-there trying to teach you to become a “digital nomad” would it be marketing gurus, or even forex education company but once there no one talks about it…

The incentive for everyone that helps you (or tries to sell you stuff) is to help you get there, not to thrive once you’ve reached that goal.

Becoming a digital nomad isn’t the end of the journey,
it’s only the beginning

It’s a bit like climbing a mountain – but getting to the top is being happy, confident, consistent, and thriving. Becoming able to live life on your own terms is one of the first camps, there’s still a lot of hurdles you are yet to be faced with

I wish there was more about getting there, for sure climbing the first peak – becoming a nomad or a full-time FX trader is great but you need to keep hiking higher. Life doesn’t finish there, instead the view you have over your life is only starting to be amazing, so keep hiking because the view from the top is always more enjoyable.

I’ll do my best to share a few things on that aspect.

The first one being, keep saying hello to new people. It may sound obvious, but at one point you will fall into the loneliness trap, it’s happened to everyone I’ve met that have been on the road for more than a year traveling to different locations on a regular basis.

Everything that comes into your life will have to be balanced, everything bad will lead to something good, someone cheating on you will lead you to meet a better person, you losing money trading may teach you a key lesson, being lonely may help you find a new best friend etc.

Start to look where’s the lesson, where’s the pleasure you’re about to receive to every time you are faced with a challenge. For every challenge you are faced it will be offset with a reward, as long as you go out there and are willing to go through the pain and struggle. It’s all about balance.

Keep looking at the positive side of things and of your situation – and remember why you do it. It’s easy to quit if you forget the why.

The first step is to love what you do.
While remembering why you do it

Embrace the challenges, be grateful for them, offset the positive and negative – you need the two sides, avoid being in a negative mindset, try to become grateful for everything. It’s freaking hard, but as soon as you neutralize all your worries you will be able to keep on going forward and even thrive

Thanks for taking the time to read this blog post! I hope you enjoyed seeing the other side of becoming a digital nomad / full time FX trader – and realized that’s not the end.

If you liked this article, it would mean the world to me if you’d share it or even just liked it on wordpress 🙂