Hi everybody its Bruce here welcome to my channel Travelling with Bruce I hope you
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right now Hi everybody its Bruce here with Travelling with Bruce One of the things I love
to do on my channel is not only tell you about places I've been but people I've
met and I'll tell you my wife and I we met this young lady in Grand Cayman at a
restaurant on a Sunday morning we used to live on the island full-time and we
decided you know rather make breakfast today why don't we go for a bite to eat
I feel like pancakes and we went to a restaurant down there and we caught up
with this waitress who was from Canada and delightful young gal and got to talk
to her a little while and found out she's 24 years old and she had just
recently finished her university education and she had about $40,000 in
student debt and her game plan was that she was working on was she was working in
this restaurant serving breakfast and lunch and dinner for regulars and
tourists and being paid in Cayman Islands dollars so
for her efforts and making tip money and her plan was to pay off her student loan
and we asked her how long she thought it would take based on how it was going so
far and she had mentioned to us if she'd been there for both three months
and that she was averaging about $3,000 to $3,500 a month towards the
debt and she felt that within the first year that she would pay off the loan and
I was just delighted to hear this news and I asked a little bit more
about her what her big picture is her big game plan and she said well she's hoping
to stay on the island for up to two years she had a one-year work permit
the renewal wouldn't be a big deal she go for a second year and that by the
time the second year was over that she would have upwards of fifty thousand
dollars saved up and then she would go traveling with her good friend of
hers who was also doing the same thing there and then they were
gonna travel the world for a year and I gave her kudos I thought this was an
absolutely wonderful story what a great strategy you have a goal in mind first
to get out of debt number two you travel the world and I said have you thought
about what happens after that and then she said well we've been tossing this
around a little bit but well the two gals were saying you know what we might
do is we might either come back here or do the same thing again for a two-year
stint on another Caribbean island where again we can cater to tourists from around
the world and save up enough money for perhaps a business or for advanced
education where we really haven't decided but we were pretty determined
that we're going to take least a year off to travel and then we'll work two
more years and we'll have a bit of a nest egg for our next venture for our
next step forward and I thought man this is absolutely fantastic and I
asked her do you recommend this for any other students out there
she said I recommend it for anyone who is a student that has student loans so
this is the way to go were renting an apartment or like a
condo with two other workers for them were were paying about $2,000 in rent
per month with a unit which is typical in the Cayman Islands nothing outrageous
with that number so they were splitting it four ways and with utilities and their
grocery bill they were each able to live down there for about of thousand bucks a
month I'm quoting basically US dollars just to give you an idea what's going on
about a $1000 us a month is what it really costs you and they were making
more in the $5,000 a month range if not even more because they were willing to
work more than 40 hours a week I mean they're there to make money they're not
there to socialize and just hang out on the beach all day long they got the days
off for that anyway but if she could get in a ten-hour shift or a 12-hour shift
she took it she was young she was strong she was energetic she was motivated
and for every hour they were working they were making some good coin
remember you live down there you're not paying income tax it's a tax free
environment so the gross money coming in you got it and they were taking
advantage of this of this opportunity to make the money and pay off bills and I
said well what about getting home sick coming here from Canada your thousands
of miles from home oh don't you miss the folks and she said are you kidding me
she said I've been down here for six months I've had three different visitors
come down here already my mom and dad came down they spend a week down here
that I've had other friends come down and other relatives were hardly lonely
matter of fact our calendar is constantly being filled in with other
people who want to come down here we're not lonely at all you don't feel
abandoned or we don't feel that we are in a remote area it's easily accessible and the
other thought that they had was that they have already taken the opportunity
to take a quick weekend getaway to Miami when we used to live on the island
we had an expression called island fever so after a few
months of being on the island all the time you kind of miss you missed the
taste of cheap Chinese food in a shopping mall so we would call that
island fever we'd grab a plane ride to Miami an hour and 15 minutes each direction
and spend a couple of nights and hit a shopping mall do some shopping and come
back with a bunch of stuff duty-free back to the island that was a great cure
for Island fever just a quick 36-hour 48 hour getaway all you needed and these
gals were already doing that the other thing they also noticed too was that
there were a number of other students down there from around the world doing exactly the same thing
and they were meeting them they you start to form these expat groups and
tribes and parties all the time and get-togethers on the beach get together
for a cookout get together for beach volleyball this kind of thing so they
were constantly being invited to different outings and what have you and
they were hardly lonely so for those of you out there who worked your tail off
and have got your degree or you've gone to college for two
or three or four years you're taking a bit of a break or you're in between
regular school and graduate school want to make some money pay down some debts
build up some cash this is something to look into
it's not the perfect solution for everyone out there but there are a lot
of youngsters out there a lot of young people between say 21 the 30 years of
age who taken it upon themselves to become expatriates and live and work
offshore and these islands of the Caribbean and other places I would
recommend you want to be on an island like this a resort island like this
where the demographics are higher you don't want to be working ending up in a
country where the demographics are low you want to be in an area where the
labor is needed and where the tourists are relatively well-off and the Caymans
fit the bill the Cayman Islands is not an island where you will get
a one-week all-inclusive holiday for rock bottom prices they can't compete with
Cuba not even close it's a very expensive place to visit
but it's a beautiful place to be and a great place to work as an ex-patriot
especially if you're willing to work hard and generally speaking the
work ethic of a twenty two-year-old recent university graduate out does the
work ethic of almost anyone out there employers on the island would kill for
twenty two twenty three twenty four year old guys and girls who are going to come
down there and work as bartenders doorman concierge waitresses Beach servers there
are jobs down in the Cayman Islands for scuba diving lessons just
all kinds of opportunities and the way you do it is you scour the internet for
job openings for the Cayman Islands that's one way to do it another way to
do it is take a quick vacation down there yourself stay at the Holiday Inn
or at the Best Western there's a couple of cheaper hotels go down there with a
friend and share a hotel room and share a car rental and look around town and
start asking the locals about the different venues that hire
people from offshore to come down and work and if you have any kind of
waitressing experience or bartending experience like that already you're
a shoe-in for for the application if you're healthy and you're strong and
you're ready to work you'll find work and believe me if you put in the hours
you can make some good coin and getting paid in Cayman Island dollars which is a
$1.20 to the American dollar so it's twenty percent more valuable than
the American dollar and working tax free without income tax you can direct all
that extra cash towards your student loans or any other debts you have and
build up some cash reserves and within short period of time it'll make a
huge difference to your financial outlook and you may find that Hey it's
time for a bit of a holiday or or get right back at your studies and
back to the mainland or wherever you're from and go back to
school and continue your education the possibilities are endless and
there's just no end to the possibilities it's fantastic. Anyway that's a quick
little video from me as I say my wife and I were delighted to meet this young
gal and and we talked to her for 15 minutes and she really had her act
together and she was focused and it was working for her really well and that can
for you too so there you go there's a way to pay off your student loans a
lot quicker than working for minimum wage back in Canada of the USA and if
you enjoyed this video give me a thumbs up and if you like my channel
as a whole why don't you subscribe and we'll just keep the videos coming
take care we'll talk to you next time on Travelling with Bruce