I think most people that found out I was moving to South Africa, they had questions, especially my
very close friends.
I was moving with the guy that I just met.
They're like, how could you live in a completely different country?
How? What are you doing?
How do you do it? My name
is Tanisha Colon-Bibb.
I'm originally from Harlem, New York, and I recently relocated to Johannesburg, South Africa, where I spend
$88 a day to live here.
I am the founder of Rebelle Agency, which is a full-service communications
company and Rebelle Management, which is a talent management company that manages talent from
various industries and fields.
I don't necessarily consider myself a digital nomad.
I like to tell people I think I'm a global citizen in the sense that New York will always be home.
South Africa, Johannesburg will always be home.
I just am really enjoying the freedom of being able to work from anywhere.
I moved to South Africa October of 2020 because my boyfriend is from Cape Town and he
currently lives in Johannesburg.
We randomly met about two years ago.
I was in Cape Town for a wedding.
My boyfriend is from the Xhosa tribe and he speaks Xhosa, and he speaks two other
languages Zulu, English and Afrikaans.
Then I found out that he plays cricket professionally.
I am completely fascinated by his culture.
Being a Black American woman in South Africa has definitely taught me so much about how connected we
are versus disconnected.
Sometimes I hang around with my South African friends and I think I feel like I could, I could be in New York having
this exact same conversation with my Black American friends.
You know, that was like a trend for a while.
Remember, it was like, definitely.
I think having a company and being an entrepreneur eventually was the reason
why I wanted to travel more.
I got to a point in late 2018 where I felt kind of stuck in New York City, you
know, emotionally, spiritually.
I wanted to experience new things.
And now being in a completely new space with the safety of being here with someone who knows it, I was
able to really just focus on my business.
It is absolutely cheaper to live in South Africa than it is to live in New York City.
New York is the center of the world, but just as much as I was mentally drained, I was also financially drained.
Anyone who is from there who lives there knows that you step outside.
It's a joke. You step outside, you spend $100 easily without even doing anything.
So I was grateful to be able to have a little bit of more financial freedom and be able
to save when I came to South Africa.
My biggest expense in South Africa right now is rent, and I made it a point to find a place
that would allow me to have a home office so that that expense would then be just put into our home
expense for the rent.
When I first moved to South Africa, my boyfriend had two cars, so he was able to give
me one and over the course of a weekend, teach me how to drive on the other side of the road and then let me fend for
myself from there.
But once we sold that car now, a lot of those expenses for travel are in
Bolt or Uber.
I mainly cook from home for breakfast, lunch and dinner because I have a home office.
We spend roughly about 2,500 rand a month on groceries, which
is about $170 a month.
Because we split most things, I pay about half of that monthly, which is about $85.
That is a lot cheaper than what I was spending in New York City when I could go to Whole
Foods and spend $200 easily one time.
When I do go out and jump into a coffee shop to work during the day, I definitely get a
latte and that averages from about 25 to 35 rand, depending on the coffee
shop, which is about $2 now in New York.
You know you can get a $2 coffee at the breakfast cart, but most coffees and a nice coffee
shop will run you $7 to $8, so it's definitely a cheaper expense here to grab
coffee while I work.
Sometimes I work for a few hours, so I'll grab lunch and lunch is a salad or sometimes a burger and fries,
depending on how I'm feeling.
And that can range from 150 to 180 at the most, which is just
over $10.
One of the things I love about South Africa is how much people love going out to restaurants, lounges and
bars. I really do enjoy hopping around the different spaces and eating new
foods and checking out different bar, different music, different DJs.
When I go with my friends, I usually get the South African Classic, a gin and tonic.
Me, I like Tanqueray, double, please.
And it's usually about 75 to 80 rand, which is $4 to $5.
Actually, I just spent a girl's weekend with my good friend.
All in all, with both, with dinner, with drinks, we went out three nights and I think I spent
about $120 in total for the weekend.
So that is a very expensive weekend for me.
Usually, I'll spend about half of that when I go out.
When I got here, I didn't really have to go to the doctor, I did
once or twice, and I remember those bills being about 1,500 each, which is
about a $100 for those visits.
I do know, although I haven't signed up for any insurance, that insurance can be about
3,000 rand a month, which is about $200.
So when I first got to Johannesburg, I took about a week off before I dived back into business, a
lot of my clients thought I was just going on vacation.
It was definitely an adjustment period for all of us.
Seven hours is a long, long time as far as time difference.
I try different things.
I try to stay up later and wake up later, waking up earlier and going to sleep earlier.
I think in the year, I've definitely figured out what works for me.
I wake up at 5:00 a.m.
I work catching up on yesterday's events throughout the day and I do my South Africa
meetings with anyone that I need to speak with.
And then at about 2:00 or 3:00, I start to log on to Zoom meetings with people in the states.
And I do that until about 7:00 or 8:00 p.m.
When I was thinking about coming here with my boyfriend, we had already talked about it.
So when it happened, I just did the research very quickly and was able to
come over here kind of without much issue.
So when you land in South Africa, you don't have to pay anything upon arrival, you do have to have a returning
flight just in case.
Sometimes they ask, sometimes they don't.
But you don't have to pay for anything. You don't have to apply for anything before you land.
I could keep renewing the 90 day visa, but of course, I want to build more of a permanent life
here in South Africa.
So me and my boyfriend are working together for me to actually apply for a more permanent visa.
Relocating through the height of COVID wasn't as difficult as I thought it would have been.
When I got to South Africa, at the time, it was way more open than New York was, and it was
summertime here and in New York it was beginning to be fall.
We were still able to go out and do things.
It was just curfew was probably the biggest restriction.
So right now in South Africa, we are still in a curfew from midnight to 4 a.m.
I remember there was a lockdown curfew that started at 9:00 p.m.
when I first got here, but no more than just some frustration because I wanted to hang out.
Now they're talking of a fourth wave.
We don't really know, things are up in the air.
So we've been vaccinated for a few months, and I know a few of our friends also got vaccinated back in
September late August.
So yeah, I think the country is doing the best they can to get information out there and to get people vaccinated.
My relocation, fortunately, has helped me save a lot of money.
In New York, I felt like I was kind of working paycheck to paycheck or a client retainer to client retainer.
And I think just being in South Africa and being in a new space, in an
environment, but also the fact that the cost of living is about a quarter of the
expense as it would be in New York has allowed me to save money and to pay off a little bit of debt and
actually raise my credit score, which are goals that I have had for a very long time.
I want my business to expand.
I want us to have a stronger foundation here in South Africa with more clients.
I want to be able to bring South African clients to the states and clients in the states here.
I want to employ people here and in the states, and I just want to continue to grow the business around the
world and myself.