So you might have noticed we focused a lot in this course about income and the
business side of things well the reason for that is of course income is very
important to your location independence now the other important part is not
running out of money in other words making more than you spent and so I want
to share some tips here about keeping your expenses down some of this might be
obvious for you if you're a veteran traveler but I'm hoping there's at least
one or two things that will be new information for even the most veteran of
travelers here so the first thing is a three-months rule what I mean by this is
try to spend three months in each location at least where you're based I
did this for my first five six countries I lived in where I'd say between two
months and about six months and I found three months is a great sweet spot where
it's still interesting if you're just there for the novelty right there's lots
to do but you keep your expenses down because you can get like a longer term
sort of mini lease on places or find a longer term sublet Jim's co-working
spaces all those kind of memberships three months is usually no problem to
get a fair price two weeks a month usually get up charge quite a bit the
other thing is there's always always more costs involved with moving than you
think I think oh yeah it's a 200 year old flight to just change countries but
it's always more not only financially in terms of maybe taxis short-term
accommodation and things like that but also time which takes you away from
earning money because you always have a resettling time somewhere new so three
months is kind of a sweet spot in terms of productivity up and expenses down now
the other thing I want to really emphasize when you're picking where you
go is try to avoid oceans oceans will screw with your money what I mean by
that is I've seen it's kind of crazy to me in retrospect so but it people did it
I've seen people who are on a really tight budget trying to be location
independent do things like spend their first month in South America
and then go to Asia and then go to Europe and each of these flights is
because they're also one-way tickets and swear
not on the best schedule always are getting a deal each of these flights is
eating up maybe a month of their living expenses it's crazy
so if don't do that try to think long term in terms of maybe a year now that's
not to say you can't change of course right this whole this lifestyle is about
freedom but if you think okay I'd like to spend a year in Europe or at least
six months in Europe that gives you six months of very low travel expenses short
little flights right rather than a big transatlantic or across the Pacific or
whatever flight so that's gonna really add to your cost so that's again three
months sweet spot and avoid oceans so that's in terms of planning what about
when you're actually there one big thing is avoid tourist traps this this is kind
of bordering on travel advice it doesn't really matter how long you're going but
tourist shops will screw you and if you get hit with a couple scams early on it
can really one sour you to a place big-time and also eat up your budget so
these will come in three different ways one is straight up crimes two is
straight up immoral screw jobs and the third is just man not a good deal for
tourists like locals wouldn't do it so let's start with actually the third
usually in a city you'll have kind of tourist restaurants and local
restaurants same goes with bars often with taxis like in a lot of cities if
you talk to a local they'll have a number for a taxi service that's a lot
different than what the tourists tend to get recommended at hotels and it's often
a lot cheaper restaurants of course right if you're looking the places that
have menus in six languages occasionally you find a gem that's a fair price but
almost always again it's thriving on tourist business overpriced not a good
deal in general you know ask ask around like a great question is just you can
even just stop people on the street in your neighborhood say you move into your
apartment ask people who are in the area just where do you shop for groceries
even because you know this is another thing
that you'll find you have kind of your premium grocery stores and then your
different tiers and sometimes the price is thirty or forty percent different so
you might be at the Spanish Whole Foods and not know it
where you're paying you know twice as much as you would if you just went to I
don't know the Spanish Trader Joe's or Costco equivalent or whatever so that
kind of thing right and that that carries over into another tip that I'm
gonna get into after which is do like the locals do
but back back to the scam so first it's sort of just not good deals second thing
is this like really immoral ripoffs money exchange places are terrible for
this some taxis occasionally it depends on the country but you still do have
places who also run pretty hardcore scams like restaurants or bars where
they'll just not show you a menu in charge inflated prices for that kind of
stuff always read like a Lonely Planet or online forums before you go somewhere
and usually you can find all the scams but then your things like money exchange
is almost always a ripoff what you'll find in most places is that nine out of
ten are a screw job and there's one out of ten that's just a great fair deal so
that's kind of how it is in Prague you can go to money exchange places here in
the main kind of tourist areas that will give you 13 crowns for every euro you
should get 27 crowns of Europe so they're literally stealing over half of
your money which is insane right so think you know you get off the plane
you're you're not really sure you're just like oh I need some money and you
go and exchange it and you maybe do a thousand dollars when you get here and
you've lost five hundred bucks that would suck so don't do that
Airport exchanges are always a ripoff just use the ATM at the airport it's so
much better or get some currency before something but just don't use the money
exchange places at airports ever please don't I hate them so much and the last
is the straight-up crimes so these are things like pickpocketing petty theft it
really varies by country and actually what makes it so dangerous when
I lived in Barcelona I saw people robbed right in front of me not not the you
know knife give me your money robbed but the guy saw a guy come up to there was
two guys in their 50s pretty big guys and two women their wives and they were
walking down the street and this guy about my age dressed in like a dress
shirt and jeans walked up just grabbed the woman's neck ripped off her necklace
and ran and before anyone could sort of realize what happened he was 50 meters
out same with phones you know people would go up and someone would have their
phone on the table they be eating along the beach people go up they do a kind of
distraction they put down there they have a survey form anyone with a survey
form in Europe is trying to rip you off or cheat you on something so they put
the survey firm over the phone and then they kind of nudge it off together and
then they run off and by time you were like wait where'd my phone go they were
I actually kind of the angle as I saw the whole thing they had ran around the
corner passed it to another guy and then they split up so even if they found the
woman she'd be like I didn't do it um so this happens a lot you noticed to like
German tourists because Germans can Germany you could leave your I book on a
table and go to the bathroom and in most German cities it would be fine because
there just it is so that's something that can actually make it more dangerous
is you get to a new country and you're used to your last one so you don't
really know the safety and you might have patterns of leaving your stuff
around or whatever so really just be careful with your stuff generally again
look online before you go to a place in terms of that safety yeah be weary
especially when you're first going somewhere that you're moving somewhere
and you have all your stuff that's when you want to be most careful in terms of
you know if you do get robbed or you do lose something it's everything right
passports laptop all your stuff and if you're on a tight budget I mean if I had
been robbed when I got to Costa Rica I would have been done like I did not have
reserve funds for replacing my computer and everything so you know something
just to be aware of personally if I'm just getting to a new
city I will splurge a little and do the taxi hotel for the first night
especially if I get in kind of later just because I get my stuff safe I can
you know I don't have to worry about you know taking a bus from the train station
late at night with all my stuff or whatever it is it's just to me not worth
the risk because if you lose your stuff it really sucks so I mentioned before
doing like the locals do and this will save you money in all kinds of areas
mainly food and drink is big so if you basically it's as simple as it sounds
right think of how the locals would eat so if
you go to Italy what telling people you you know you
don't need a guidebook pasta olives meat pizza cheese's wine so if you have that
stuff in wine there in wine you know you can see what I remember from when I
lived in Italy right wine literally would be a dollar a leader at the
grocery store and they'd have these big like local wineries and you just fill up
your own jars it was insane so you know if you're in Italy I would recommend
eating that way when I was there it was so cheap like amazing balsamic vinegar
great olive oil cheeses meats for a third probably of what I would have paid
in Canada now if I wanted to get Mexican food while I was there I probably would
have paid an extreme amount right and so by sticking to the local stuff you'll
always get a much better deal and I also think it's it's a lot better in terms of
your experience there right it's I mean not to be one of these travelers like
I'm a Hoth entick I'm like a local but if you're in Italy you know have the
wine have the food it makes sense right yeah that just makes sense to me so
it'll give you a better experience and it will save you some money and just
generally I think is a good way to figure it out quickly in terms of what's
gonna be fair prices and everything like that you could apply the same logic to
housing as well in terms of neighborhoods right
so I tend to like the Centers of City so I haven't necessarily done this myself
and everywhere I've been but if you if you look at a lot of cities the expats
and the the digital nomads and the tourists like tend to stay right in the
center because they want to be where the action is and pay a serious premium
where if you go just slightly out of the center or just a different part of the
centre even where the locals would stay not a bad area like the nice area the
locals would want cuz usually locals wouldn't want to be in the tourist area
you'll usually save a bunch of money and also things around you will all be a bit
cheaper because it will all be you know restaurants for locals bars for locals
grocery stores for locals so everything's going to be a more
reasonable price
you so the last step here is just to
negotiate for some of us obvious for others not so much
you'd be surprised actually how much you can get just asking for something tends
to get you something for example if you're looking at housing often people
will have a posted price for a month but if you're saying three why not ask for a
15% discount or just say hey could you give me a discount and almost always
people will give you something you might get a response I've got this a lot where
they say I don't do discounts but you know what you can have 10% which is 10%
that's huge right it's not huge but it's worth it lots of things you know gyms
co-working spaces short-term things you need to join look you know find the
owner talk to the owner offer cash say hey I'm just here for a month six weeks
three months can I just pay upfront cash and we can do a deal like I don't want
to sign a contract whatever usually you can get a better deal
so ask you you have nothing to lose and almost always it will work out at least
a little bit in your favor
you
last hero I I don't remember writing this down but I've got oh it sits on the
cue card is let less attractive people buy you meals and gifts so apparently
this has worked really well for some travelers just fine locals with money
who are less attractive than you and let them buy you things always away
you