Home
cover of episode Making Six Figures While Living Abroad (NO W2!) to FI Even Faster

Making Six Figures While Living Abroad (NO W2!) to FI Even Faster

2024/11/19
logo of podcast BiggerPockets Money Podcast

BiggerPockets Money Podcast

Chapters

Brooklin Nash discusses his journey from growing up in a financially unstable household to breaking the cycle through geo arbitrage and starting a profitable writing business.
  • Brooklin grew up in a household with risky financial practices like pyramid schemes and gambling.
  • He and his wife paid off $80,000 in student debt in five years.
  • They discovered financial independence early in their marriage and focused on increasing their income.

Shownotes Transcript

Translations:
中文

We are very excited to have bricklin dashed on the show with us today. Bricklin grew up in a household with unstable finances, but he was able to break the generational cycle with a few creative booth, namely je arba, and starting a small but very profitable writing business. These are gonna set humites kids up for a very different financial future.

With your current circumstances, you may be a long way from fire, but what is locating was the only thing that I took for you to richer financial dependence number. And should you do IT? Hello, hello, hello.

And welcome to the bigger pockets money podcast. My name is men die Jenny. And with me, as always, is my not arbitrary ing his geolocation .

great yet cold scarred, trading out new introductions for me alright, bigger pocket as a goal of creating one million millionaire. You're in the right place if you want to get your financial house in order because we truly believe financial freedom is staining for everyone, no matter when or where your starting .

bricklin net. Welcome to the bigger packets of money podcast.

I have so excited to talk to you today.

Me, thank you. So bricklin, let's jump right into IT. We understand that your family had a sort of unstable or risky relationship with money growing up. Can you share a little .

bit about what that look like? IT was risky. The word, all the financial advice that has become so prevailed over the last decade with rad city and even on all other fundamentals weren't they are necessarily, I do give them a little benefit of the doubt, but there are a lot of pyritic schemes.

There are a lot of rich quick schemes. They were A Y 2k peppers um we had pampered red chef in the house like those shows excel phone lines。 They did the essential oil thing pyramid scheme like anything to make a buck.

And then on the flip side, they're also very, very frugal. So they were good at being frugal with their money. But then on the bigger investments, on the flip side of that equation, um they are not they didn't like stay the program, so just turned into twenty years of financial upheaval every few years.

So can you give this a couple of example? Like like, are you saying basically that your parents would accumulate, they would try these get rich quick screams, they would blow in their face, and despite their regality, they would lose everything, and there would be a bankrupcy or there would be a forced lifestyle reduction.

Is that how I understand that? Yeah, there are the big ones in the small ones here. Me schemes, I don't think ever took a huge toll, but my dad would do the risky bedding.

And wall street, like street bet type stuff, penny stocks. When I don't pretend to understand that, I just stick IT in an index fund. So there's a lot of cycles of losing money that way. And then similarly for housing decisions and just kind of buying more than we could afford. Um and those were the bigger the bigger impact stuff.

So what lessons did you learn from watching your parents go through this? Because I, after you know, five hundred plus episodes of the show, I find that people either are exactly like their parents or the polar opposite of their parents, based on what they were parents were doing, either right or wrong.

I think the biggest thing that I had a tangle was these two parts of the equation where you can is to reach financial independence. You can focus on any more or saving more with what you're earning. And my parents really over emphasize that second part, and under emphasize the first part, I took a while for me to untangle that.

The first fight that my wife and I both remember was over this SHE. We were out, needed to get clothes at a mall, and we were coming back. He was ungry wanted food at the food court.

I group, really frugal, going out wasn't a thing. And like, can we go home or half an hour from home and make lunch? And I turned into a big fight because we had very different upbringing and expectation.

And or not, IT wasn't the next day. I was probably over a year to slowly realizing that frugality can only take you so far, and there's a lot you can do, especially now, to increase your income. So we started focusing after a first and second year of marriage, away from let's spend as little as possible and deny ourselves all these things. And instead, let's turn our attention towards an abundance mindset and seeing what we can do in commies and what that can mean for a family and forgiving for everything we wanted to do together.

Could you maybe give us a little bit of the syn opposite of the story here? How how did your your money journey go? I think we we know that you met your wife and college. Can you give us how your personal financial story went in college following college in the next last couple years?

And I both went to private university in southern california. Probably not a great start financial wise but thankfully we both got really solid financial aid for the four years. The debt that we did accumulate was more IT was housing and all these other factors um which add up when you don't have parents that can help out with college.

Very very grateful for the financially but graduated between the both of us with eighty thousand and student debt. So our first year marriage was okay. This is that is an emergency.

Let's treat this as emergency. Back then I was dave ramsey stuff because we were at that level. Um so we just focused on paying off the student debt first.

We did very little investing um very little savings for I think two years we had the very minimum like thousand dol emergency fund just because we wanted as much as possible at the student loans. I don't mean to give us advice because we very much over were very debt averse. So we very much over emphasize, let's get this thing paid off as quickly as possible. So we paid IT off in about five years when really looking back, we could have taken a more baLanced approach and maybe should have been investing a third of that and over ten years of probably what to serve as Better. But I did feel really good about five years, and I just have a completely wipe and start with A A net worth of zero.

And what year was this .

late twenty seventeen and or early .

twenty eighteen? okay. And where were you working? Where you self employed or were you working for another company?

IT was a bit tall, so we moved write out of college. We moved to israel for my master s program. And then we moved to guta all for to work with a nonprofit on profit, didn't pay anything.

We are essentially volunteers out of college, you know, bright, I purpose driven and all of that. And we were vaLanced on the side to start paying off the student debt and savings and all of that. So for a while, as a whole mix of of income. And those first five years was essentially all freeLance income.

freely and income. And you had a thousand dollars safety. I'm not familiar with the economic conditions in israel. Is that a high cost of living or a low cost of living area?

Super high cost of lev. Super expensive.

Yes, that's what I thought. All three little income, thousand dollars, safety net in a high cost of living area. Don't do that. Listener.

what was one year? five? So IT bounds out because then we moved to waterloo, which is super low cost living, right?

So that was there for a year. You had that a lot of risk. Did you feel like I was risk y or did you feel like, you know what, i'm OK with this because I wanna a get this .

debt gone so fast? I don't get felt risky to us at the time, although you're right behind sight. Same thing. We should least saved up figure emergency fund with some of what we are using to pay off for loans. But I didn't feel risk y at the time.

And I know this isn't what this podcasts about, but in general, I don't think Frances income as as risky as most people think IT is. I give your francy and you have six clients. What are the chances that in a matter of three months, all six of those clients onna turn compared to there's a downturn, you have one employer.

What are the chances that, that large employer that has very little runway is not gona go through a layoff and that you won't be impacted by a single event? So IT sound a little bit like I got on my sop box, but like freeing has been really great for us in terms of just sure, there's a ceiling, but there's, I think, of much high ceiling. You can use your time in your skills. And as you build up your kind base, I think I can be not a risk e option. And right now.

a quick break when we're back, brooklin will tell us how he was able to break out of bad financial circumstances and make his own path.

Have a feel like your vacation rental since M. T, too often missing out on potential income look and not alone, many property owner struggle with under performing bookings and the complexities of property management. But here's some good news of cost outperforms other property managers in ninety two percent of the markets they Operate.

They've held towners like you increase their bookings by an average of twenty four, then turning those empty days into profitable opportunities. Want to see what your earnings could look like with for a visit. Bigger pockets dock cos lash va spelt V A C A S A and get a free personalized income emit today that bigger pockets dcom lash va at native .

federal credit union every day is veterans day name. Federal credit union is proud to serve the military community for over ninety years. In fact, native federal service more than two million veterans every day.

By providing the support they need to succeed financially, they offer members exclusive rates, discounts and parks. Forty five percent of their employees are directly tied to the military, so navy federal understand the needs of the veterans they serve. Navy federal is focused on helping veterans every day and is dedicated to being a foundation in their transition billion life and supports not for profits.

Focus on veterans like the mission continues at navy federal credit union. Our members are the mission. If your active duty of veteran or their families learn about becoming a navy federal member today, visit navy federal dot orgues flash veterans. Navy federal is insured by N, C, U, A.

Wondering where the bigger pockets community gets the best. Rental property insurance start at steadily dot com. Steadily landlord insurance protects against property damage, loss of rental income and liability claims of lightning ing fast quotes, superior coverage and a team that understands real state investors unique needs. They've got you covered. Good to add that com for an instinct quote now is a bigger pockets that com slash insurance and protect your renters with steadily insurance, steadily insurance bound by landlords, four landlords.

Welcome back to the show. okay. That's actually really good to know because I don't have freeLances experience. So I have just always assumed that it's kind of risky, but that makes that's a really good point.

Like if you have six sources of income and one goes away, now you have five sources of income. If you have one source of income and one goes away, now you have zero sources of ah so that does make sense. I like the way that you look at that.

especially of the already financially minded and you are saving thirty, forty, fifty percent of your income you could lose, have your clients and still cover your expenses without touching your emergency fund.

Yeah it's also hard to pick up A A second client when you work a full time job. Um probably relation uh and uh on the um on the fillings, I is ably not too hard to pick up seventh or eight times there to ten you twenty thirty percent reaser income. So I I think the brilliancy world that I think that's right.

Um I also want to talk about uh there's a side tangent or just mentioned really briefly here where people talk about unemployment are in this country, well, somethings brewing in this freezes and gig economy because I think there is something forty od million americans who participated in the gig economy last year and that was up lake three hundred percent from before the great recession, for example. And so what happens when a france, like surely a lot of those spooks, found fewer clients, hard to get rides for uber drivers, whatever in there. That doesn't happen.

The unofficial unemployment statistics, right? Because as people don't go on unemployment, they are not losing their job, they're just getting less income. So something growing there at that, I don't think people have good data on.

And I think that, that's impacting the economy in ways that are not fully appreciated yet. And I will take out of the next couple years. But just just something I have observed and thought about a lot recently, honey.

So let's let's bring back to your story, however, so we have our freelancing in israel. We're doing that. We pay off the student loans in five years. When does the the journey become less about paying off the student loans and more about financial independence?

Pretty early actually. So even a hint. Year two, we discovered financial independence through the substance that was the origination. And then from there, mister money must ash and the and bigger pockets and just really dove into everything like twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen. And paying off student loans was for us that first step.

We didn't do the more baLance approach that is probably a lot smarter and that you all recommend and much smarter people than us recommend. But to ask the debt represented A A fresh start. So from year two, paying off that debt became the first school. And then once we paid IT off, then were like, okay, what is the next call that increase our income to X, Y, Z, and hit one hundred thousand investments? And then we started hard charging towards that.

And how long did that take you to get to one hundred thousand .

and investments within a couple of years because that around that time is about when we stopped working as the nonprofit started working full time in marketing and writing work. Um so we pretty I dramatically increased star income around that time.

Is that part of the journey? How long were you in israel and when did your situation begin to change? I believe in a neck peak is still international on to this day. But can you walk us through the journey in the steps?

yeah. So we were only in israel for a year for my masters program. And then we move to the oma, which that's the biggest context here because this wouldn't literally wouldn't have been possible if we were living in the united states because for a few years they were able to live off of ten to twelve thousand dollars a year, which helped us achieve our goal.

So the four years, four of the five years were here a pay off student that working with non profit. And then the last five years have been out of the non profit, really focused on what can we do to maximize our income and meet our next goals. So and we're still we're still hearing auto ama.

Okay, you guys are earning. You guys are. Can you can you give us a little bit guidance on are you able earn like six figure salaries doing this from auto ma? How how does this career growth happen from international perspective to provide opportunities that um you couldn't have access to otherwise? Er how did you get into this and decide to go to automated a stay in automobile .

and build your career there? Yeah he was a very indirect path. So we came not for any career moves or the money sense IT was just to work with a nonprofit.

We both graduated with sociology degrees in international development and social work and really wanted to dive into that world. Um we kind of discovered financial independence along the way, and I worked out that we were working in low cost of the limit. Then I was just a matter .

in the puzzle pieces together and piece there tell us about how career, how did you how did you get a job, you know uh, in marketing that peace and after to stay in financial dependence from guana? Oo this is like, like, like is this another repeatable path for folks? Like, like can you may be may be take a quick edit and like that would be really helpful. Think about this in the projective of someone listening who's like i'm started in my career and you know thinking about doing something similar. What are the takeaway that um I can get from brooklin and think about as in terms of opportunities for me if I want to live international .

button career another so year one about five years ago, going full time into freeLance writing and marketing, my goal was to make forty thousand dollars in that calendar year. I think that first year we hit like sixty five thousand and then I grew from there. So I do think it's repeatable.

Now a and be IT was just a matter of discovery. So yeah, getting a full time job, especially remote job at that time, probably would have been close to impossible. Free Lance opportunities were abundant.

I had started on up work and then grew out from there once we started building works and just kind of slowly started realizing which types of work a were more interesting and sustainable for us and be which giggs paid more. H so over a couple of years we home in on be tech as our main client base. Um so nearing in on that part of the finance world really helped increase our income and sell let a fire network from there.

I also took a full time job for two years while we maintained our freeLance business. This old time is my wife and I working together on IT. Those two years were game changing in a couple different ways.

Number one, financially, the full time income and the freeLance income really just kind of skyrocketed what we were able to do. I don't recommend IT for more than the course of a couple of years, but I was the first two years of COVID. We won't couldn't do anything anyway.

So I was just two years of like sixty to eighty hour weeks to kind of jump start what we are trying to do. Then once we once our freeLance income out paste my full time income, we decided to jump back out of full time and go all in on the business. So we around that time, turn the fillings business into an agency.

So some numbers got year one goal was forty thousand, and first year we hit more like sixty five thousand by the time we launched the agency, just the freeLance income between my wife and I was around three hundred thousand, split IT right down the middle. It's solid six figures for each of us. But that was about the limit of what we could do ourselves, which is why we turn to an agency model to keep learning and growing and what we can do.

awesome. So tells about that. So we turn to you, turn in jobs, money for time. And now you just use, use the word agency.

Can you tell us about this? This is a business that you have you've now built. When did that start?

And how's echo so far? So good. We started IT launched in about two and a half years. And yeah, it's it's kind of flow.

The switch is less trading our own time for money and more kay, we've got something unique here that there is a demand for how can we build a team around IT so that this thing can be a machine of its own and run without us down the line. Um that doesn't mean necessarily something and doesn't necessarily mean completely stepping back. But IT gives us an if we look at that as an asset that we can use how we want. So the last two and five years have been about building the business. We have a full time team of five um and about twenty contractors that we work with around the us.

Okay, so you are creating jobs and then you make money off of when they do work. You build them out at x and you pay them. why? And then the same with the contractors.

So you're making money. I am not crashing IT, right? But you, like you are connecting these people who are doing a job with people who need a job and that's that's your agency now A A bit .

like that yeah I mean, yes, you're put in the financial model bodily, but that's essentially IT as a type of arbitrage. But it's less of a marketplace or, or recruitment of just connecting people and more we have our full time team focused on strategy for clients.

So it's very much long term partnership like some of our clients we've been working with the whole even before we launched the agency on a freeLance spaces and then they transitioned with us. So that's a long term relationship on one side with the client and then on the freezers side. We were both free answers for almost ten years, eight years before we launched as so we want to provide a really good experience for free answer.

So yeah, we do we charge one thing to clients and we're able to pay out to our contractors another. Um but the ideas that in the middle, we're taking off their plate all the time sucking stuff like a client communication and hand holding the strategy work the briefs. And we're just letting our writers be be s and our designers be .

designers and you're running this for american clients. But from guma.

that's so all over the U S. Sam in europe, but are mostly u faced.

So this geographic arbitrage that you have been able to take huge the energy of is the difference between a you know ten plus year five journey and like you consider yourself .

financially .

dependent right now? No, no. But it's the difference between much longer because amErica has. By your cost of living than guatamo a doesn't mean you're were living on ten or twelve thousand dollars a year in guadala. That doesn't really get to a lavage .

h lifestyle in the united states. Yeah that it's been the biggest difference honestly the last ten years. I mean, now that was a few years in a row before kids we were able to live off of that now were a lot closer and even a little bit above, I think, average american households income. But we've also been able to increase our income at the same time and that sixty to eighty thousand dollars goes a lot further here than than I would in sand ago. Where were from?

Let's a couple of of facts out here where where in goa o deal with?

We are just outside to gua gama, which is just outside the capital city, is the main the experts pot. The first, the first five years we were way up in a mountain town called way wait to mango, which has even within a mali, has a much lower cost of living, like living in a kansas city versus L A O.

awesome. And do you plan to live in a more for many more years like this is your home now for the first stable future?

IT is yeah both her daughters were born here. Um we bout a house here. Um sorry, here at least the next decade as they move through high school and into what comes thanks for them.

And then you know could you give us an idea of how close you are to financial independence and what that target looks like for you?

Our goal is definitely shifted like a we started the early income is forty thousand. Five goal is like eight hundred thousand, something like very much the lean five side of things. And then as we you know, grew up and realized things and had kids and were like, okay, that's not realistic.

Let's go back to the drawing board. So we don't actually have a hard five number, to be honest. We've got shifted our thinking so insane. We but that's just because my wife and I talk about this a lot. So I feel grateful that we're very much on the same page.

But now for us, it's much less about, okay, we're gna hit one point eight million by thirty six so that we can never work again. And it's much more about, okay, we like work. We like this creative stuff.

We like working with people. We don't, anna, do IT for forty or fifty hours a week, and we don't, anna, do IT for thirty or forty years, but we like IT. So what can we do now to reduce the time that we're spending, working, but not eliminated altogether. So right now is more about adJusting our schedules, adJusting the level of involvement in the business so that we can not five not retired early, but um be able to work twenty or thirty hours a week, can be able to do school activities. So right now, much more about adJusting to what our current goals are rather than our goals for a decade from now.

One more quick break and will be right back with berkley's.

I'm curious, have you been struggling to keep your vacation rental book? I totally get IT. It's tough to manage and keep filled, but we found something that really works.

It's called va. They've seriously changed the game for a lot of the B. P.

Audience in almost every market there in casa manages to fill up the calendar more than anyone else and get this the average vaca user sees about twenty four percent more bookings than with other managers. It's a lot of extra income to see what you could be earning. You get a personalized income investment right there. I think you will be pleasantly surprised that what vasa can do for you check out bigger pockets dot com lash spelt V A C A S A bigger pockets 点 com flash .

at navy federal credit union every day is veterans day。 Maybe federal credit union is proud to serve the military community for over ninety years. In fact, native federal serves more than two million veterans every day.

By providing the support they need to succeed financially. They offer members exclusive rates, discounts and parks. Forty five percent of their employees are directly tied to the military, so navy federal understand the needs of the veterans they serve.

Navy federal is focused on the helping veterans every day and is dedicated to being a foundation in their transition to civilian life and supports not for profits focused on veterans like the mission continues at navy federal credit union. Our members are the mission. If you're active duty of veteran or their families learnt about becoming a navy federal member today, visit navy federal dot org e slash veterans. Navy federal is insured by N, C, U, A.

running at a gas, that's a problem that's avoidable. Owning a rental property without proper landlord insurance, that's a problem that's equally avoidable. Steadily, landlord insurance can help steadily offers fast quote on property and liability coverage that are tailor for the real state of vesta community, and they can even compare pricing from multiple Carriers for landlords looking to weather different options. You can rest easy knowing your investments are secure with steadily the available online twenty four seven, and they can start coverage as fast as the next day bigger pocket star comes lashed. Landlord insurance to secure your investments with steadily insurance, steadily insurance founded by landlords or landor's.

Let's jump back in.

Okay, so you like what you're doing, but you don't want to do IT forty, fifty hours a week for twenty or thirty years. I totally understand that. Um have you SAT down and like made a list of the things that you want to do or what's the process for figuring out your your baLance between how much you want to be working verses how much .

you want to be making a think those two years of working sixty at out eighty hours really showed me A I don't want to do this forever and be okay. Let's walk this back. And instead of we hit over those two years, I think that's when we broke three fifty years, around four hundred thousand.

And so we laid that really solid foundation. We were coasting fire essentially right now rather than fight. Going back to your question, Scott, like we were not put another penny in savings, we would be beyond our fine number quotes at fifty five.

So we're like, okay, coast fire is taking care of now. What do we want to do? So mindy, it's more talking through, okay? We have that taking care of.

All we have to really worry about is our current expenses, which we have covered and then just keep talking about what the next three to ten years look like. So over the next few years, we both envision ourselves stay and involved in the business. We don't want to step back completely. We're good taking our salary, working in the business thirty four hours a week. And then over the next couple years, the next golf for both of us, how do we get down from thirty to forty hours to maybe twenty to thirty hours?

And is that your goal twenty to thirty hours a week? Or is that just the current goal than you step? Because I mean, I think it's really valid.

There's this this idea that you know, i'm going to reach financial dependence. I'm going to retire early and never going to do anything again. And I live in ong, my colorado.

I hear from a lot of people. I have a huge community around me of people who have reached financial independence and they've quit their day job, but they don't stop working. And the reason that they put their daydreams is kind of the reason that they started pursuing financial dependence in the first place.

They weren't happy there, but that sounds like you are happy where you're at. You've like created this job that you love. So stepping away from IT is, I don't want to say silly or foolish because if you don't want to work anymore than that's like that's what you wanted do.

But when you've got this, what is that stupid phrase? If you love what to do, you'll work a day in your life. Like it's also kind of true though it's it's silly, but it's true. I mean, i'm i'm a realised and I get to talk about money and realised on a podcast why would I not work yeah we .

feel very lucky in that because we have that realization of, okay, most of the people in these forums and on the subway and have full time jobs. And there's not a lot of flexibility. We were able, because we are self employed, to navigate to something that we find interesting and creative and we get to do fresh things with our clients over last few years.

And so that, that helped time. That said, I have higher priorities in my life. I want to go to my daughter dancer title. I want to pick them up from school. I want to go camping N.

I want to take surfing lessons with them um I want to be able to take when anytime they're off of school, I want to be off of work. Those are my priorities even if I find work interesting. Um so yeah going back to your question right now, the goal is to reduce about twenty to thirty hours by the time we hit in june will be the your anniversary of our launch. So that's current goal is very much more time days than at this income base.

I love the frame of that goal of any time they are after school. I want to be off work that's like an offer some in between state for financial and felt time work, but I think will resonate with a lot of people I want I want to ask a couple of mechanical questions here um that relate to you investing in building wealth and building a business out of the united states. Is there particularly special things about guta, ala.

That make this easier, attractive? Or was IT do you think that? Uh, K, K, yeah, I think that's that's one pass out here. He tell. How easy is that for an next pat to start a business in and found IT and incorporate IT in an in a place .

like automobile? Yeah, I should have back in here because she's my wife. He is our head of Operations and knows the mechanics much Better than I do.

But in short, gama doesn't have any special advantages financially. What the biggest advantage is, no matter what you do, whether full time or self employed, is the foreign earned income exclusion. So up to I forget what IT is this year, but it's getting higher, higher every year, just like for in case and tax credits.

It's in the six figures of the income that you earn while physically out of the united states and not a cps to check this and other exceptions. And there's other rules but is not tax at the federal level. So beyond just the cost of living savings, we've paid a lot less tax than if we have been living in the united states. The only requirement there is that you're out of the united states for three hundred and thirty days. Out of a three hundred and sixty five day.

you pay income tax .

to the us. Exclusion is we don't pay federal tax on up to when we started IT was like a hundred twenty thousand thousand and I just .

has gone up from there o got us government. And how about .

the taxes for, uh, certain taxes for a being residents and only in property? There's some property tax um but there's no because our income isn't from a good mom company, we don't pay income taxi either. So tax burden here is then I think a couple le grand a year.

awesome. okay. And do you have to be a citizen in order to incorporate a business? But I had quarter in automobile or how does that work?

Mechanics were actually a us. business. So we don't have a gotten all in presence.

So even our businesses registered in the us. We live physically outside of the U. S.

So we're able to a attract U. S. Clients because we're U. S. Business and paperwork connecting payments on of that is seamless. But we're also able to claim the foreign income exclusion because we're physically out of the us. For eleven out of tok months.

This is super facility and that I don't know anything about. You know, i'd be interested to hear comment or perspectives on the intractable of this and broken. And I suspect that as your business grows, some of these things that you're saying will not actually be able to scale into larger revenue items like, for example, california, and could let you get away with that for very long once you get past a couple hundred thousand revenue from that state.

That's the staking money. California, we don't at all. We've paid very little in federal tax, and I don't even know how much in california tax the last ten years, even though we haven't in california for ten years.

Let's talk about so so you're not a citizen of guta moa, A U. S. Citizen living in guta moa for many years.

That's right. We have residency here, which just we don't have to leave every three months, every ninety days we can stay put. Both their daughters were born here, but yeah we're not citizens for U S tiz ens. Daughters are a us zen's which is a whole can arms for down the .

line what you do for um benefits and those types of things, health insurance all like all those goodies.

We have an administrator in the U S. That benefits for our employees. We technically could take advance of that if we were in the us. But because we're not, we just pay out of pocket for international global health west signal um what's a called high deductable? There's a chronic for IT but is a high deductable one and that worked well. We just pay out of pocket because the doctors visit dentists are so low here IT doesn't make sense for us to pay premium when we could just pay out of pocket.

How about the mechanics of investing? What do you invest in? And i've heard that some folks have no issue investing in things like in index on a stock U.

S. Stock market and index on international. And some folks have to go to great links to get creative to try to reapplication that because it's not offered to their countries.

He talks about your your experience with them yeah because we are from the U S. Able to participate in the stock market. So we have bogle head to be happy like we have a language account where in vt, x and bond, whatever, B, L, T, X, and that's about IT. So ross, the first one k and or broke rid um it's pretty much just index ones with the ninety ten split. Very boring.

Now you up to can warm here if you don't pay any federal income tax and you don't pay any tax and go on a ball. What is the advantage of contributing to a one k only .

up to a certain amount. T so we're earning before married filed jointly. We're earning well above what the limit is. So contribute into A N K reduces reduces what were pain on half of the exclusion.

okay. So you do contribute to U S national um uh debt reduction i'm ongoing basis yeah .

we're I sound like such a jerk over here. Yeah paid taxes. You I don't you don't particular the system and .

you contribute, right? Thank you. Yeah that's that's wonderful of you.

Yeah we think of is fair because we don't live there so we pay whatever is above, but the eleven and a half one side of the year were not there. So that's what we're at. But yeah, we do pay into the into federal taxes and figures still a thing, especially a business federal income, the exclusion chunk that's more than half of w two thousand OK.

So bricklin this geographic arbitrage angle that you have uh invented ha ha h so like a really amazing way to game the system. So you're making high income. You're living in a low cost of living area and you still have citizenship in america. So should something happen in whatever country you're living in and you could move back, how did you decide to take this, this jump, like, was IT was IT hard to say goodyer to your family and like, leave all your friends and you can, with the internet, you can talk to anybody. You can send gifts with fedex, and they get there and like, a day and a half, but is IT hard to walk away.

IT wasn't a eleven years ago, but so this is probably a mood point. But at twenty one, like, yeah, words are always there. Let's get out there.

And sure, parents like what you doing are like, yeah, are doing. So we the same reason we just went how hugon paying off student dead. We just didn't know what we were doing.

We just jumping in the thing. So IT was hard the first few years. But then once we like we started garmon started to grow on us and we realized the financial impact, and we started growing these financial goals.

You know, we stayed in the middle part, was a little hard in the now will last few years with our girls growing up in a solid school in community here. This is just home, like we can't imagine leaving IT now. yeah.

So I don't know how relevant that is for a thirty six years looking at making a change. But I will say I might I spend all our time talking to folks in the space in and twitter and won't call IT the other thing. And a lot more people have started to do this even as an experiment.

So there's people who will go let let's go here for three months and they see how IT feels and then will come back and then access what their relationship to money is and their house and work and the baLance with their kids. And a lot more people are just starting to talk about and think about this, which has been really fun the last couple of years. So it's not like you have to jump in me like i'm going to watch moo for ten years. We came here and we are gonna for one year, and here we are eleven years later and we're still ten years later and we're still here. So just I think you can take IT in chunks and go for a few months and see if you like IT and then try a year and see what impact IT makes.

I know I am obvious ly very happy with my job. I don't have to not looking around these things, but I know like if I would like if I wanted to work remote the digital and I would want to go to new zealand like that's A A country that's in my mind for time one one of these years.

I'll spent a year in new new zealand, five, ten years from now and that is a place where you cannot work like it's very clear you're not allowed to work a job uh, even remotely from new zealand with a visitor without without a like a VISA from their immigration center. So that that's why I was kind of going with with that question. That sounds like that issue that does not exist for you and guatel and in some countries is easier than others.

But do you have any commentary or thoughts on that for focus looking at your arber, right? Like there's two. What a more so easy. New zealand. Don't don't move in new zealand, then figure out our situation later because .

you're not going to be allowed to do IT are not going to be I totally because I was not rather than disadventure ges elsewhere, but you're totally right. Do you research ahead of like what is required? What of my if you're not a resident, you have to leave every ninety days.

So you've got a plan for that and that's an additional expense. And a lot of countries like new zealand, israel, our first year, you can't technically earn an income there. You you got to work around things, right?

Um so I was like working at the student writing center at the university and that was like one way around and then I was like, that's why we started on freely ant income because I like the only way we're going to make money is by going back to us. Companies are clients and seeing if we can make money there because we can't earn money in israel. So I really depends on the country, you right, scot, I think a that just went right over my head the first time.

I was impressed with what seems to be a very favorable environment for you guys in auto mla. That encouragers are allows this and that makes sense right? What ma um IT is not is is plays a different view on immigration then new zealand right um for various reasons. And I think that that's just something you taken into account if you're looking to you know take the lessons, learn from brookland story and apply them in your own life for feeling this.

I will say this is very in the weeds of the mechanics that you're asking about. But the time zone makes a big difference as central time and time. We were in spain in and portugal last summer, and the seven hour time, different user, we were there three months.

And like, this is not gonna sustainable. So we are explaining, like, what would you look to move to porto? nope.

gotta. Alas, home. This makes IT easy. We get to work with U. S. Companies and work and Normal nine to five yeah .

I think got a big deal, right? That was also probably a big game for my new sealand dream there because that's that's a wild of different times yes.

I don't even know what time here.

I like you've ve a client, right? Like and there in mountain time, like you need to be available during mountain time. I assume I see these folks are interesting.

You with big part the strategy around that you got to be available for those those types of things um and like your employer, you're working remote is probably going to make your work on their time zone redo a bigger pockets. So that's gonna you know that that's something to consider as you. As you think about this jr arbitrary .

h component.

yeah broken working people .

find out more about you on linton berlin with an eye inside of A Y nash. And our companies being content, been content, that code. If you want to find out more about the team and what we do.

But yeah, I always love talking about this stuff. So if you're thinking about the gerber tage stuff or digital, no mad or moving with your family, i've gotten none a few calls the last six months with folks, and i'll always find a chat through. So feel free to reach out.

brickland. Thank you so much for your time today. This was a lot of fun. I enjoyed meeting you in real life. We have been online friends for a long time, so thank you so much for your type today.

Alright.

thank you for listening that rips up this episode of the bigger pockets money podcast. He is got tr unch and I am Johnson saying until next time key line.