Travel – Bullish on Coffee – a Forex Trader Blog

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 😊

September 15, 2019September 15, 2019

A month in Lebanon

AUGUST 2019: BEIRUT (Lebanon)

It was amazing!

Okay, I may be biased, I was staying with one of my best friends for the first ten days before moving out to an Airbnb to be a little more productive… But yep, I definitely recommend going to Lebanon!

It’s insane to think about the history of the country, it’s a key location on the Med linking Europe to Africa and Asia so it had a strategic importance for thousands of years! Different cultures, different religions all living in the same country – didn’t see any conflict when I was there, but it is rather clear that they still have a lot of scares

This may sound stupid, but my favorite part of Beirut was going on road trips, the entire country is basically made of mountains (hence loads of valleys) and the view from up there is just fantastic – we went to the top of Mount Lebanon while on our way to the Bekaa Valley (to visit the ruins in Baalbek) – and were above the clouds… Driving all the way up woundy roads was a true pleasure!

All in all here were my favorite road trips:

1- To the Baalbek ruins in the Bekaa valley (you get to see loads of poppy plantations on the way too :S)

2- Byblos & Batroun (can be done together in one day) – really nice places to just enjoy a beer by the water –> If you go to Batroun we went to Colonel Beer Microbrewery for a beer on the beach while watching the sunset, it was magical

3- Doing a wine tour would be amazing, they have some really good wine growers in the region (especially Chateau Kefraya) but otherwise Jeita Grotto is highly recommended! (I didn’t go, but heard GREAT things!)

Now don’t get me wrong, as much as I love road trips I really enjoyed staying in Beirut itself!

During my stay downtown I stayed in Gemmayzeh, which is a really nice part of town! It’s close to Armemia, which is the road with all the bars, but it’s still really quiet, so was the perfect mix for me! Hamra (another neighborhood) is really nice, a bit more higher class and less young I believe.

One of my favorite things to do in Beirut was walk on the corniche (the road is called Paris..) next to the lighthouse during sunset, there’s loads of people there just soaking in the last sun rays

The “Place of Martyrs” is worth going to – you’ll have the view on the Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque and from there you can easily walk to Place de L’etoile, the Roman Ruins (not super super impressive) and then heading to the Souk or just get a coffee in the expensive part of town is quite fun, it’s a totally different side than what you’d expect!

Now for the important part…

FOOD

I have to say, I love eating a manou2she for breakfast, would that be with Zatar or whatever – my two favorite places for that was “The Lebanese Bakery” and Fern Ghattas, but that being said, wherever you go I’m sure they’ll be great!

Now a more random list of places I enjoyed the food is T Marbouta in Hamra, it’s nothing special, but great food 🙂

Cafe Em Nazih is a more or less really touristy place – but they have a decent amount of choice and you can play backgammon while having a beer or food 🙂 It’s also next to Coop D’Etat which is a rooftop bar

Two more random (and further out) recommendations are Falafel Abou Andre, it was the first place I ate when I got there, and we got hummus with pine nuts, it was amazing! I got addicted 🙂 La Girouette in Broummana (there’s a few places with a nice view of Beirut) has live music with an amazing musicians every thursday – friday and saturday (call ahead to make sure but that was the schedule when I was there!)

Coin Perdu was a fun place to have dinner too (mainly because it was close to where I lived :P) on the St Nicolas Stairs, Loris is another nice spot!

There’s also loads of good places for food, for falafel sandwiches, grilled haloumi etc etc, I’m sure where ever you go it will be amazing!

Oh and make sure you try out local beers, try loads of different coffee shops and get lost in the city

The only downside Beirut has, is it was too hot in August, I was sweating a bit too much for my liking, but I definitely wouldn’t mind going back one of these days!

Enjoy your trip!

Oh and I actually enjoyed going to museums when I was there! That’s me saying that yep… Rather surprised about that myself! We went to the National Museum of Beirut, which was rather cool! (You get to see the times when Egypt occupied Lebanon)