Vomit, $7K Whoppers & The Adult Nomad

Or, making a baller income abroad 💰

With Ash Ambirge

Recently, I found out I was a complete asshat.

I know.

Seems like I would have known, right?

I DID NOT KNOW.

I walked into the bedroom with literally no blood in my body to make C guess what we’d spent $7,182.34 on last year as nomads.

He guessed wine. I laughed in his face (and then vomited - that’s probably more 😂).

Because, NOPE. You know what we spent $7,182.34 on last year????

International. Transaction. Fees. 😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱

Every time I was swiping my TD Bank card while abroad, which is almost always, I was getting charged $15, $8, $4, $2, $0.70.

LOOK. AT. THIS. HORRIFIC. IMAGE.

(I’ve been using YNAB to track my personal spending, and Bench to track my business spending—both of which I highly, highly recommend…and you can see why. 😂 Time to make some changes!)

Cue: mad moves to finally get a Revolut card. While I haven’t tested it yet, it DOES seem very cool and they advertise 100% free ATM withdrawals across their global network, and let you switch into the local currency to pay without all the nauseating transaction fees—which is kinda wild.

I also opened a Wise account. They bill themselves as “the most international debit card in the world,” and say they’re 8x cheaper than a standard bank for travelers, nomads, and people working from anywhere.

This math on their website looks promising! ⬇️

I’ll be testing both out this year, because $7,182.34 is a SIN. And I don’t even believe in sins.

The good news, however, is that I’m proud of this life I’ve built—the ability to live and work from anywhere, and not have to subsist on cottage cheese or count my pennies to the T. The truth is, I admittedly didn’t notice that $7K had slipped through my creepy little fingers (and surely has been the case every year for the past 13 years of nomading, which is $91,000 🥴), and while that is absolutely irresponsible as hell, it does speak to my ability to earn a responsible adult living from anywhere in the world.

More than responsible: solid.

The term “digital nomad” implies that I’m a broke backpacker roaming around in a pair of fungus-filled sandals, but that’s not the reality I’ve engineered. (Usually. 😂 Sandals + humidity is tricky!)

I’m a 38-year-old writer who travels extensively for long periods of time and still has retirement accounts, wealth-building accounts, property investments, $700/month top-of-the-line health insurance (I’m American, that’s unfortunately a thing), a penchant for boutique hotels, income to donate to worthy causes, income to donate to Sephora (GAHHHHH), and a life & online business that’s entirely remote.

I’m on a plane more than I’m not, I enjoy fine wine with dinner, and yes, I DO think I'll try to squeeze my ass into that silk skirt from Selfridge's.

AND IT IS A JOY.

Joy being the operative word here. At this stage in humanity, we should ALL have the ability to travel freely without sacrificing our income. In fact, thanks to technology, we should actually be able to do so and increase ⬆️ our earning power.

The internet has given us so much opportunity, but you don’t pursue what you don’t know about, right???

Most people don’t know what they can do yet.

Most people have no idea what the options actually are. (And no, you don’t have to be an Instagram star. I am faaaar from it. 😂)

This is my fight. I want to fight for the advancement of a nomadic lifestyle among all ages as part of helping the human population find their awe again. WE HAVE LOST OUR AWE. How many days do you wake up, kinda dreading it? How many days are you just like, “ugh, this shitwheel again.”

There is so much more for us to do, see, experience, and marvel at besides the screen. Research consistently shows that frequent travel has a massive positive effect on life satisfaction. New & diverse experiences can expand thinking. A sense of awe can help reconnect us to what matters. An all-new world invites questions, ideas, and engagement. And travel not only helps us explore our outer landscape, but our inner landscape, too.

It’s a necessary part of the modern human experience.

And yet, if you’re in an open-office floor plan in Minneapolis, you are not entering a cathedral in France to gasp.

Outdated career models—including current “remote work” models—have made it impossible to have any real control over your time, your work, or your life.

• The 9-5 is dreadfully broken (we’ve known this for a long time)
  
• Remote jobs still expect you to stay seated for 8 hours a day—sometimes with your camera on or Slack active—during standard business hours…or more
  
• Most "remote" jobs don’t actually permit travel because doing so sets up out-of-state and out-of-country tax obligations, which in reality makes them "work from your house" jobs <–This is a major problem, essentially stripping professionals of one of the most significant benefits of remote work in the first place
  
• And, for those who have already traded the traditional work model for a freelance model, the realization quickly occurs that, unless you know how to properly engineer your business and sell your ideas, you’ll be trading time for dollars from a dark room all day instead of hiking a trail in the sunshine in Portugal.

I’m on a mission to dismantle outdated work models that no longer work for modern living & introduce you to a new one: one in which your work and professional contributions are decentralized from a central authority—in this case, an employer; one in which you’re able to earn independently no matter where you are in the world; one in which your time is detached from your value; one in which you have leverage and control over what you earn, where you earn it, and how you spend your days.

Because now, there’s a new way of earning.

Most people rule it out, though, because most people are under the impression that in order to earn a “real” living, you need to be in one place.

But, that’s hangover thinking from the 1900s. 👵🏻

If you do it right, you shouldn’t have to be in any one place. Not with the tools we have today. Not with the options that are actually on the table, if only you know where to look.

This is a column about that.

Teaching you where to look.

(And hopefully preventing you from making $7,000 asshat mistakes like me.)

Until next time, which will probably be as soon as I get back on the computer, excitable little jezabel that I am,

Asshhhhhhhh