as soon as i saw this place i fell in
love my life in tbilisi is better
because i'm able to live a higher
quality of life for a fraction of the
cost so this allows me to travel more
spend less time working because if i was
living in the united states i would have
to be working a lot more and now i'm
basically semi-retired
[Music]
my name is mike swagunski i'm a 33 year
old from wildwood missouri and i'm a
nomadic entrepreneur that's based in
tbilisi georgia
this year i'm estimated to make around
275 thousand dollars
the biggest crossroads moment in my life
was my senior year of university about a
month before my graduation my mom
tragically passed away from breast
cancer it showed me that you should
follow what you want to do and our time
is limited on this planet so i
eventually decided to follow my dreams
of traveling and book a one-way ticket
to europe
i do identify as a digital nomad but i
think more specifically i identify as a
nomadic entrepreneur a nomadic
entrepreneur is somebody who's able to
build a business that's location
independent meaning they can live
anywhere in the world and work from
their laptop
i chose debilisi to be my home base
after coming here for one month i
essentially got trapped here with the
pandemic the borders had closed and
luckily i fell in love with this country
so decided to stay here long term
currently i have six different sources
of income a lot of those are coming from
my book coming from a software business
that i acquired and coming from services
for the global career brand
[Music]
these services are helping others with
inspiring them to create a different
journey or start their own global
careers so essentially i'm helping other
people become digital nomads
there's a lot of tax benefits to being a
digital nomad essentially if you're
spending more than 330 days outside of
the united states you don't have to pay
tax income up to a hundred and twelve
thousand dollars
[Music]
running multiple businesses from georgia
is definitely a lot easier than if i was
based in the us and it mainly just comes
down to the cost if i were trying to
replicate my same infrastructure in the
united states it would probably be
around 10 times more expensive
hey everyone welcome to my home in the
center of tbilisi georgia so i'm
currently living in the barra
neighborhood which is a central area of
tbilisi it's a wonderful place because
it's really close to some of the best
coffee shops restaurants and other
things that are happening in the city if
i was based in the u.s i would most
likely be living in one of the 10 big
cities these cities are substantially
more expensive than a big city like
tbisi
currently living in a two bedroom two
bathroom and two story apartment that
has a beautiful italian garden it costs
only six hundred dollars a month and is
around 2 500 square feet it was a little
difficult finding this apartment i had
to view hundreds of different listings
and i ended up actually viewing around
10 different apartments but as soon as i
saw this place i fell in love
one of the things that's great about
georgia and tbilisi is it's really easy
to get around the city i'm normally
traveling by an uber alternative called
fault but there is a really great public
transportation system here you can get
pretty much anywhere in the city for
just a few dollars
[Music]
having a private chef actually saves me
a lot of money it's not super expensive
it costs around 250 for her to come six
days a week and prepare my food this in
return saves me a lot of time and money
and actually has me eating healthier
one of the great things about georgia is
whether you're eating out at a
restaurant or cooking at home food
prices are extremely low so on an
average i spend under 500 a month on all
my food budget
one of the things i love about being a
nomadic entrepreneur is every day looks
a little different my typical structure
is wake up in the morning come down have
some coffee enjoy reading a book and
then normally after that i'll do a
little bit of meditation and then head
to my gym where i'll get a nice workout
in
i usually work for my home because i
find it to be the most productive place
but a few times a week i like to head
off to coffee shops or cafes and
sometimes even co-working places where
i'll meet up with some of my friends
they have a saying here that a guest is
a gift from god and that really holds
true because georgians are very
welcoming to foreigners i think
americans visiting tbilisi for the first
time would be most shocked by the
day-to-day life essentially georgians
are a lot more relaxed a lot of places
don't even open until 10 a.m
and in short georgians are working to
live and not living to work
about once a month or twice a month i
was hosting entrepreneurial meetups so
this way i could meet with like-minded
people that we're also going to be
really interested in growing their
businesses and kind of have the same
perspective on life
[Applause]
i definitely don't think living abroad
is for everyone there's gonna be a lot
of different variables that you won't be
able to replicate from your old life of
living in the united states
one of the things i miss about living in
the united states is of course i miss my
friends and family to help improve this
i'm getting on calls pretty much every
two weeks with my brother and my dad
plays music today
so with the
guitarist
what were you playing my originals
of course there's downsides to living
anywhere and i would say in georgia some
of the downsides that come to mind is
it's still a developing country so
there's going to be things like your
electricity or water shutting off a
little bit more than other locations now
this isn't happening every day but it
does happen a couple times a year i'm
definitely happier living in tbilisi
than i would be living anywhere else in
the world georgia checks every box i'm
looking for i can find everything here
so would i ever live in the united
states i don't want to speak in
absolutes i love america but as of now i
just enjoy my life overseas a lot more
than if i were going to live in the
united states