How to Be Independent in the 2010′s
Source: Giorgio Montersino at flickr
There is a confluence (big word) between being a world traveller and being financially independent that is hard to ignore. In some ways it’s the elephant in the room – you can’t dream about visiting every country on planet Earth, or living 6 months a year in a sunny warm country, or being a photojournalist in war-torn or naturally beautiful locations without thinking about how you’re going to pay for it all.
So how ARE you going to pay for it all?
I have a friend who spent 9 months in India and China one year. It was the trip of a lifetime. I asked him how he did it, and his answer was “once my wife and I decided we were going to do this, we became so focused on it that we were able to save the money in about a year.” So simply by having a goal and cutting their lifestyle in North America way back, they were able to save the money ($20,000?) to do this trip. So the first option has to be “save for it”.
But more and more these days, we are seeing people who live this as a lifestyle. If travel feeds your soul, one trip of a lifetime is not going to do it. You need to spend a lot more time feeding that soul, and saving in advance becomes a bit less practical. I once met a person who would spend as much time as they could afford in Thailand. They would work their butt off for 6 months, scrimping and saving every penny they could get their hands on. They made a decent living as a contractor, but lived a poor lifestyle. And then they could afford to go to Thailand for 6 to 9 months before running out of money. Back here for 6 more months of saving, and back there for 6 to 9 months of “living”.
Certainly that’s part of my own plan. To spend 6 months somewhere nice, and spend 6 months somewhere I can make a decent living. That seems to be the trade-off. There are no good jobs anywhere nice I guess. There is the term “sunshine pay” which implies that a job in a desirable destination (ie: Hawaii) pays less than the same job in less desirable spot (ie: Alaska). And no, that’s not a dig at Alaska. Just that less people want to work there than Hawaii.
Alternately, you can get a job that pays for your travel. I have a friend who is a fairly specialized consultant, and his company sends him all around Canada and the United States. Now he may spend a few months deep in New Jersey, and then a few months in the heart of downtown Boston. He doesn’t always go where he wants to go, but he gets to experience “living” in various cities in North America at someone else’s expense. That’s an interesting lifestyle.
Or you can get a regular job in a place you would like to go. Certainly countries like Taiwan bring English teachers from overseas and you could be one of them. Offshore software development takes place in Bermuda or Bahamas, and you could go live there for 6 or 9 months living the island lifestyle while working. Plenty of opportunities exist for you to go somewhere and work. Heck, you can become a tour guide or a waitress, and if it pays your bills and gives you a lot of free time to enjoy living in your new location, then that’s great.
Finally, there seems to be a new category of worker, although it might not be all that new. There is the individual who can work from anywhere – what Lea Woodward calls Location Independent Professionals or LIPs. These are generally knowledge workers (writers, creative professionals, programmers) who can make their living from anywhere. They are not constrained by location. One attribute that is essential to successful location independent work, I feel, is the idea of having multiple sources of income. Lea and her husband certainly live this in their books, courses, and web sites. But lots of other people do too such as ProBlogger or Chris Guillebeau or Ittybiz.
The idea is you have a website that brings you advertising. You earn money through affiliate programs (selling other people’s products). You create your own products and sell those (eBooks). You may earn a bit of money as a speaker – again travelling the country or the world on someone else’s expense account. You may also be sponsored to travel somewhere (especially in the travel blogging space), whether it is Princess Cruises doing a Bloggers at Sea event, or a country’s tourist board sponsoring you to come visit and paying for your trip. There are lots of opportunities for income, and you have to go after ALL of them, not just one.
Some couples do both. They might have one partner who has a stable income stream from a regular job, while the other works on their growing business. So you have the stability and can live off one income, but you have the potential for greatness when the business takes off. I recently heard ProBlogger say he makes six-figures (approaching seven-figures) income from his online activities. And Leo Laporte is famous for saying he makes about $1.5 million a year (and now claims that its actually higher than that) from doing online podcasts, which is a location independent business.
So what is the best option for you? For many, its the save-save-save and then go on that dream trip every year or two. For others, it’s trying to get their income into being more location independent – whether it’s working at a job in different locations, or earning revenue almost entirely online. Everybody is going to be different. The important thing is finding something that works.
Note: Purchasing Chris’ book through that link earns sabbatical.me a bit of revenue, to help fund my next sabbatical. Thank you in advance.
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