A little different video today. Most of you know that I run my Knack database consulting practice often working outside of the country. I do these 3 month trips mostly to Latin America, starting over three years ago ... Usually two trips a year. I've been asked a lot, what it costs to do this? So instead of a video on Knack app functionality, today's video is a breakdown of my costs (and saving) doing these trips. Please check it out.
Here's an other post that you might like: https://www.knackbuilders.com/post/remote-working-in-medellin-colombia
Interested in my Knack database app services? ... Book a call with me here: https://calendly.com/daveparrish/callwithdave
Full Transcript
0:01 Hey folks, Dave Parrish here, coming at you with another video, like this if you could. Today's topic is going to be a little different. 0:11 Here's what it is. Working abroad and what it actually cost me. Most of you folks who watch this channel know that often I'm doing these videos from some other country. 0:22 Uhm, quick story during the pandemic everyone felt sort of trapped. It was January of 2001. I felt the same way. 0:38 My consulting practice was very stable and I realized hey I can work from any place. So I started taking advantage of it. 0:45 I started doing these trips about just under three months. One reason under three months, that's usually the visa a tourist visa you can get. 0:54 Sometimes you can extend it, but it's sort of a pain or it can be. And I have this thing where I like to, when I do one of these trips or visit another country, I like to stay for a long period where I'm not really thinking about going home. 1:12 And I'll tell you what, even a month for me isn't long enough. You get there, it takes a week or so to get acclimatized. 1:19 That could be because of the diet or altitude and just getting to know. And then you're two weeks away from your last week there. 1:26 You think about going home. Two months is pretty good, almost three is even better if you can pull it off. 1:33 That's sort of my deal and I'm going to be right back. And I'm going to go through the actual cost of what it takes to do this. 1:41 Thanks folks.
0:00 Okay, I'm back. Point two. All these trips are similar. They're eleven weeks. My daily routine, I have a structure. Usually I'm doing two hours of Spanish at a school in the morning. 0:14 Then I get an office space. I have-working space and I work the rest of the day. I have lunch someplace, do whatever. 0:20 Then I'm usually, I don't cook in very often. I'm usually going to different restaurants because they're cheap. And they're good. 0:26 And you can get to meet people, potentially. Uhm. I'm beat by that. It's 8, 9 o'clock. Full day. And then every weekend I'm doing tours of whatever they have to offer. 0:38 It's either on my own or an actual tour. Historical stuff. Markets. Hiking a volcano. Whatever. But I'm going to take you through the deal here. 0:48 Let me set this up. First of all, where I've been. This is an order. Since January 2001. Cuenca, Ecuador. I'm not going to get into details on any of this. 1:02 Mexico City. Medellin, Colombia. Antigua, Guatemala. Merida, Mexico. Really cool city. Lima, Peru. And I just got back from Bogota. December. 1:21 And in about two, a little more than two weeks, I'm going to Nicaragua. Not necessarily one city that I think I'll bounce around. 1:29 But I'm going to go through the costs first of what this Nicaragua thing is going to be. Nicaragua, by the way, is pretty darn cheap. 1:37 And I'm going to show you what the actual average cost is. Some are more than others, so I did an average. 1:43 But here's the deal. Let's jump into it. Nicaragua for 11 weeks. I already got my flight, apartment, everything. The cost. 1:52 Flight cost me $4.31. I've been very lucky using Spirit mostly. They're good in Latin America for having very reasonable priced flights. 2:02 Airbnb is going to be about $1,200 for 11 weeks. I get travel and medical insurance. For various reasons. Trip gets canceled, luggage lost, or some medical thing happens. 2:15 It's a very good idea and it's not very expensive. Coworking space and office. Uhm. It's. I can't stay in my Airbnb all the time. 2:24 You can work from coffee shops. I do that a lot too. Just break up the day. But when you need to have meetings, you need a private booth, can't be loud, blah blah. 2:33 . Tours cost whatever.. They're not very expensive. House watching. I pay my nephew. 200 bucks a month. They come over twice a week. 2:44 And. Start my car. Get the mail. Turn on the water. Check everything. Make sure everything is cool around here. Spanish classes. 2:53 Those can vary a lot.. That's again. 2 hours a day. 5 days a week. So I got a total of this. 2:59 I'm outlaying. Almost 3500 bucks. But there's a flip side to this too. When you're down there. I'm actually saving money. 3:07 Uhm. Things I would do here cost a lot less. I don't have some expenses. This I would incur here. And I'm going to go through those. 3:15 Savings. First of all. This is an estimate. But when I'm here I spend about 50 bucks a day. Go out to breakfast. 3:23 Go out to eat a lot. Uhm. Groceries. Things you need. Right? Down there it's about half that. I'm gonna say 25 bucks. 3:32 Could be less. So that's a daily savings of 25 bucks a day. I'm gonna move this over here. 80 days. 3:41 Approximately 11 weeks. That's 2,000 bucks. I'm saving. That's real money. What else we got? Car wash. This is a small one. 3:49 I have one of those monthly. I pay monthly and have unlimited car washes. I just put that on hold. I go to a boot, specially boot camp gym here. 3:58 Where they make you do all these crazy exercises. I like it and it's good. That costs about 80 bucks a month. 4:04 So I just put that on hold. Tax savings. A bunch of this stuff is legitimately tax deductible. I just give all the costs to my accountant and she figures it out. 4:15 Not all of it. Some might be proportionally, some just isn't. But it's a big chunk. And I can deduct that. 4:23 And that's $700 that would have went to the government. That now stays in my bank account. Gas. I'm estimating 30 bucks. 4:32 A week. This I times by 10, it's actually times by 11. There's a little bit of money. This all totals up to $3300. 4:41 And you see where I'm getting at. This Nicaraguan trip right here. The net cost to me it's gonna be $154. 4:51 And I could be off, I don't know, 10% in either direction for any of these. It's still the same deal. 4:57 It's costing me hardly anything effectively. That's a good deal. You guys should consider it. You can pull it off. Now I'm gonna show you some normal stuff. 5:07 This'll be quick. Here's just another fly, my spreadsheet, where I did this stuff. This is average. I'm gonna go back one. 5:15 For example, Airbnb in Bogota is a lot more. Tours would be a little bit more, housewatching the same. Spanish is about double. 5:28 Now Bogota's probably been the most expensive country I've been to. But they all come in somewhere. Uhm, so I did average. 5:37 So you do all these same calculations, you do the math. The typical thing over time, $1,500. That's 11 weeks doing some really cool adventurous stuff. 5:50 Getting to learn another culture. Improving my Spanish, which I still have a long way to go. Hell, this is less than what it costs to go to Cancun for a week without nearly the experience that you're going to have. 6:02 So that's the deal. I'll report back soon. Appreciate it, folks. Thanks.
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