Andy Hough

Living in a Foreign Country

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I’ve mentioned before that living in a foreign country is something I’m considering as part of my plan to retire at 50. Based on my past experience of living for three months on $450 in Guatemala I know that living in a foreign country can be substantially cheaper than living in the United States.

I am also considering living in a foreign country before retirement. This is not just to save money but because I like living in a different culture. This could be done as a geoarbitrage type situation. I currently make $300-$400 a month online. Not enough to live on here in the U.S. but it would be enough to live modestly in Guatemala and a few other countries. If I did this the most likely scenario would be that I would work in the U.S for a few months to build up savings and then live in Guatemala or elsewhere the rest of the year. I wouldn’t build up savings during that part of the year but I wouldn’t be depleting my savings either.

Another thing I’m considering is joining the Peace Corps. Financially, it doesn’t make much sense but that wouldn’t be my motivation for joining. That would be 27 months that I most likely wouldn’t be saving any money. On the plus side I would be totally immersed in a foreign culture and get to help people. They do have programs that would allow me to put my student loans on hold while serving and the time would count towards the 10 years of public service for loan forgiveness also. This is something I have to study more in the future.

Living in a foreign country is more practical than many people think. If you live in Mexico or Central America a plane ride back to the U.S. is about the same as flying from one coast to another. I most likely won’t be living within driving distance of most of my family if I continue to live in the U.S. so I’d be taking a plane trip either way. As far as friends I’ve found that I meet more people and am far more social when living in a foreign country. There are other things to consider when living abroad but it isn’t nearly as difficult as many people think.

Had Court Hearing Yesterday

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I had my first court hearing yesterday for one of the cases from my law school clinic.   Things didn’t go real smoothly but that was due to unanticipated events which I’m guessing happens often.  We were able to get at least part of what our client needed done.  I think I did fine and my supervising attorney was pleased with my performance. I was much more nervous anticipating this hearing than actually doing it.

Now that I have this hearing done I get to have another one next Friday and then I will probably be done for the semester.  I feel more confident about this one.  I’m still not sure that I’ll sit for the bar but now I can truthfully say I was a practicing attorney with court experience.

My Online Empire

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When I post my monthly income usually about $300-$400 of it is online income.  This isn’t much but apparently many people see it as somewhat of an achievement because I get lots of questions asking how I do it. I usually reply I make money from Adsense, text links, direct ads, and affiliate sales.  I’m sure many people would like a more detailed answer so I am going to give details on all my online sites.

BankBonuses.info– This is my oldest site. I started it in December 2005 on Blogger.  I made my first Adsense payment in the summer of 2006 but it wasn’t until last year that it really started making money.  This site used to bring in the large majority of my earnings.  It still makes up the majority of my earnings but my other sites combined make almost as much money as this blog.

BankBonuses.com– This is a static site. It doesn’t make a lot of money but considering I only update it about once a month my return per hour is very high.

TightFistedMiser.com– This is my second highest earning site. I resisted putting ads on here for a long time. Unlike Bank Bonuses, my primary purpose here isn’t to make money. Since I’ve added them though my readership has gone way up so maybe I should have placed ads here earlier.

CreditCardBonuses.info- This site doesn’t make much money. It might break even. I started this as a blog but I think I’ll convert it to a static site. I haven’t updated it in a while and writing more than two blogs takes up more time than I want to spend. I had a couple more credit card sites planned but credit card sign-ups are way down this year so I’m putting those plans on hold.

FrugalBlogNetwork.com- This site doesn’t make any money but that is not its purpose.  It has made me money indirectly since it brings more readers here.  I haven’t done as much with it as I should.

Those are all the active sites I have right now.  I have some more planned but those will not debut until after I have finished my hike.  I also make a little money online from places other than my web sites such as eHow.  That isn’t a significant source of income now though.

Read Christian PF’s detailed post on how to make money with a blog for much more information.

Reader Questions #2

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Here are some more answers to your questions. If you want further clarification of any of my answers or you have a different question to ask just leave a comment. I will post more answers next week.

What do you do with your free time?
Me and my GF are both big movie fans. We watch DVDs two or three nights a week in addition to attending the movies once a week. I spend a lot of time on the Internet. I need to cut back on the mindless surfing and increase the productive time spent online. I also read a lot. My non-fiction reads are usually money related and my fiction reads are usually mysteries but I like to read on lots of topics and genres. I plan to start running on a regular basis to get back in shape but that hasn’t happened yet.

When did you become a Tight-Fisted Miser?, When did you decide you wanted to retire early?

I have always been very frugal.  My mother was always very careful with her money and I’ve taken that a little bit farther.   I’ve always had a vague idea of wanting to retire early.  It is just in the last couple of years that I have had a plan on how to achieve that and early retirement seems feasible.

How do you make money online?

I make about half my money from Adsense and the other half from paid links and affiliate sales.  This didn’t happen overnight, I started blogging in December 2005.   My online income is from several sites not just this one.

March Investment Income- $58.12

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My March investment income had a nice rise to $58.12 from $51.69 the month before.  This was due to my stock portfolio rebounding nicely and allocating a little more of my savings to my emergency fund.  The total would have been even better if the mutual fund in my Roth IRA would have participated in the March market rebound.  Somehow this mutual fund managed to barely go up in value despite the rise in the stock market.  I guess I should be happy it didn’t lose money like it has mostly been doing the past few months.

Disclaimer:This is not my actual investment income. To get this figure I first add up my retirement accounts, emergency fund, and any other money I consider permanent savings. What the total of my savings would earn at 6% interest for a month is my monthly investment income