If you're joining us from Matador, Aloha! This is a group where Location-Independent professionals share ideas and network. Could a Location-Independent career be in your future? We want to help you figure that out!
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Location Independent Professionals live & work anywhere they choose.
They are untethered from a cubicle and work from home, the coffee shop down the road or a beach halfway round the world. Check out Location Independent for more information and resources on how to do this.
I didn't but read Penelope Trunk's blog entry on Tim Ferris. Hilarious and informative as always, but also has good insight into his workstyle. http://ow.ly/15fE7
Along with Penelope's blog, there is also a great review over at www.TheSimpleDollar.com (http://bit.ly/43s7) that cleared some things up for me. Ferris uses the beginning and end of the book to cushion the middle-man business concept. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but I'm excited for the web conference to see what others have to say.
Hey everybody! Next Wednesday, 9PM EST, Penelope Trunk and I are hosting a webcast for Location Independents, and wanna-be Location Independents.
You'll learn how to: make a seamless transition from your desk job, build and maintain a network to keep making money and leverage social media to make it all possible.
Click on the link below to register:
Spread the word to fellow travel enthusiasts and Location Independents on Twitter, Facebook, blogs and beyond!
Hi Ryan,
I'm glad to see you've hooked up with Matador for this as I'm fairly active over there. As this is my first "webinar" I was just wondering what to expect and whether it is interactive or not? I only ask because I may 'attend' at a place often work at (meaning a public space where I can't use a microphone).
Thanks,
Marie
I'm considering setting up online English courses, done through Skype. Anyone have any tips about how to set up payment online? I was thinking about PayPal. Any other options that work for you?
Karen, PayPal is pretty good, but you can get quite a bit of fees adding up if you use it a lot. Also, I'd be sure to use some automated invoicing systems like Freshbooks or something as well just to keep everything organized. Great business ideas though!
Hm.. the automated invoicing is definitely something to keep in mind, for sure. Thanks for the tip! Have you worked with any other online payment system that works better than PayPal? I'm hesitant to use it specifically because fees pile up on that.
Unfortunately, my freelancing biz never got big enough to warrant looking into some other paypal system. I think if you're cautious about how you handle your money transfers, you should avoid most fees though. I'm def. curious to see if anyone else has used anything for payment though.
I've been using Paypal for a few years now, and yes they have fees - but any system you use will have those, there's no way to get it for free. Its good for starting out though, as you don't have to commit to a contract with them, and its easy to make your payments integrate with your own site. Plus your customers don't need a paypal account themselves in order to pay, unlike Google checkout where they need to sign up first.
I have tremendous respect for those of you who live on a nomadic lifestyle, as I personally would be entering such lifestyle myself fairly soon. Do you have any tips in general for looking for jobs remotely (assuming local options are not going to work out one way or the other)?
I've recently entered the job market again after 3 years. I'm looking at craigslist.org for jobs. It seems that many of the jobs listed in the software category say that telecommuting is okay.
The only downside is that you have to look at each city to find jobs matching that criteria.
I'm also interested in hearing what others have found to work in terms of remote jobs. I'm in a fairly good situation right now (more than half my time is spent being location independent.. only have to report to an "office" 2 - 3 days per week) but am looking for options for being 100% location independent and hopefully having the ability to work while traveling the world. Any particular areas of the world that are friendliest to location independent careers?
One thing you'll have to consider are the visa requirements around the world. Most countries will require you to get a work visa if you plan to work within their country. If you're looking to apply for online jobs in other countries while living somewhere else, you may not need a visa but it's always worth checking.
If you have the skills, many of the freelance job boards are worth looking at e.g. the Freelance Switch one. Many of those jobs are location independent/work from anywhere ones.
Generally speaking, when you're location independent, does having a coworking space available make things much easier? Or, do you still prefer the coffee shop or public library?
I love Co-Working spaces, especially when you are sharing space with business types like yourself. Having the ability to build ideas while bouncing them off others simplifies the process. For me, public places are too distracting. I am all about cross building/promoting ideas.
As someone who plans on co-working for the next few months (years?) I don't know that there's a yes-or-no answer to this. I love my local coffee shops. It's convenient to grab lunch, caffeine and surf the web simultaneously. However, co-working spaces offer networking opportunities and often provide a business address, which makes things seem more legit on a website or if you list your business on Google, etc... Just have to find a place that has the right price & right co-working office mates.
Would love to have co-working spaces wherever we travel but sometimes the cost outweighs the benefit, especially when you can get free wi-fi in a comfy coffee shop and pastries on tap :)
Thailand definitely needs more co-working spaces - especially given the number of location independent people out here.
My roommate and I are both moving towards location-independent lifestyles, and we've found it extremely helpful to reduce our number of belongings and be less materialistic. However, that doesn't mean living a nomadic life. While that may work for some, I need a certain amount of my own belongings in a place to call it "home." I think it definitely makes it easier to move & travel when you have less physical items to carry around with you though! And selling belongings helps pay for the move.
Less "stuff" is just better, imho. You can rest easier in your environment. There's less to clean and distract you from a purposeful life. Good luck with your lifestyle switches!
Brittany, I agree with you here. Although I can't afford to travel as much as I'd like, I'd consider the fact that I've moved so much since I turned 20 that I'm basically living location independently. That being said, every time I move, I see the value of minimalistic behavior more and more. Nothing feels better than traveling (or moving) light.
Do you think a certain level of minimalism is required to be a successful location independent professional?
Honestly, I wonder the same thing. Does being a Location-Independent mean that you have to live a nomadic lifestyle? Does it mean that you have to be a minimalist because you are constantly on the go?
I think that the desire to roam is stereotypical for Location Independents, but does that mean that we're always on the road? What do you guys think?
There's no time limit that says "if you stay in a place longer than a year, you're no longer location independent". Those that prefer more nomadic lifestyles on a weekly, or even daily, basis are free to do so. Those that prefer to live a few years or more in a new place and then start over to gain experiences from a different environment can also be location independent and not necessarily "nomadic". As with anything, if you try to pigeon-hole the definition, you lose the big beautiful picture.
I agree. I think because so many Location-Independent professional bloggers are living a nomadic lifestyle, it's easy to pigeon-hole. I feel like I should write about that ... Thanks Brianne.
@Ryan - IMO location independence doesn't mean you *have* to be nomadic, just that you can be if you want to be. And the same on the minimalism aspect - I'd never class myself as a "minimalist", I just hate clutter which is a handy mindset for being nomadic and location independent!
Lea, thanks for sharing your opinion. I'm totally fascinated by your lifestyle.
Can you share some tips? How do you avoid accumulating so much cool stuff when you travel as much as you do?
Hey Ryan - we've learned by experience! We started off travelling with so many things "just in case" we might need them. Paying a small fortune to send stuff from Panama to the UK made us think twice about taking some of that stuff again!
We've learned what we really do & don't need for each climate but the best tip goes back to the Pareto Principle± - you'll usually wear 20% of your clothes 80% of the time, so figure out what those clothes are for each climate & take no more!
And the other thing that helps us, is that every place we go we figure out a weekly budget that we want to stick to.
Not only does this help us avoid currency mistakes & easily compare costs of living in each place, it also makes us conscious of what we spend our money on. This helps prevent buying things we really don't need!
And when you know you'll have to pay excess luggage charges, it's another incentive *not* to pick up stuff wherever we are :)
Lea's post made me remember something that I read, although I couldn't cite it now if you paid me. It's "Just in Case" vs. "Just in Time."
Just in case = hoarding, building up stock, fear of the future and being left in the lurch.
Just in time = minimalism, realizing that in our society we are rarely without what we need, paring down and purchasing things when you need them and only when you need them.
Love it.
Here's a question! Does anyone have any tips or suggestions about dealing with student loans when you're working remotely... especially when traveling abroad? I'd love to hear some stories about how people cope with paying their bills.
I managed to call and reduce the payments temporarily. It doesn't eliminate them, but changing a $180 payment to a $25 payment, even for a few months is really, really helpful. If you're up front with the representatives and explain your [income/relocation] situation, they're pretty flexible and willing to work with you. I did just this with three separate loans when I moved from MN to CO last month. MAJOR help.
This is not a direct reply to your question but might be helpful to some people - I chose a school that allows per semester payment scheme (msptc.njit.edu) so that as a part-time + remote student I take one course per semester, earn money and make payment on the road. That keeps me on the learning track while I avoid bankrupting myself.
Hi JR - I'm not sure of your exact context here, but take my advice: Pay them off as fast as you can at almost any cost. Live as inexpensively as you can, etc. The compound interest working against you is stronger than almost any investment you can find. You can do forbearances and deferments, but seriously, live on the most modest means practical and get them out of the way or at least get a year ahead as rapidly as possible.
@Tony, that's a really good point as well. I've found that the payments have been a significant hindrance to some of my travel goals. I wish the amount I owed was closer to the cost of a car rather than the cost of a house so that I could pay them off within a few years. However, I get your point and it's a good one.
I'm having issues with this currently. I have CC debt to get rid of before I move to the loans but for one of the loans (they are consolidated but I have public and private which can't be consolidated together), out of a $125 monthly payment, $11 is going to principal. How do you even begin to wrap your head around something like that??
@Brianne, I've given that a lot of thought.. the principal thing... basically I'm gonna just write a blog post about what I think some people's best options are... and an experiment I'm going to try for myself.
What do you think about the loans? Any big, sneaky ideas?
By big, sneaky ideas...do you mean the fact that they are milking us for everything we're worth by making it impossible to even make a dent in the principal while we pay a crapton of interest? :oD
I'm currently living by Ramit Sethi's book, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, as much as I can. I'm only halfway through the book, but I'm already automating more and using more of my credit card's user benefits. I'm open to ideas and looking forward to reading your blog post.
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Xuxi Wang joined Location Independent
Has anyone read the book The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris? I found it interesting and the concept is along the same lines as this network...