Living the Location Independent Life
The American Dream is no longer what it used to be. In the current economic crisis (as of 2012) it is estimated that around 60% of the American population is living in poverty or beyond their means. In other words, they are making less money than what they need to pay their basic cost of living, which means they are either skimping in some areas (such as choosing to pay the utility bill late this month, then the phone bill late the next month), or they are living on credit.
Moving out of the nightmare is easier than you might think, and more and more Americans are doing so every day. While companies are outsourcing their work to foreign workers who can do your job for pennies in other countries, you can use the same method to your advantage, heading to those foreign countries so that you can enjoy the same cost of living the locals do. In essence, your dollars are going three to four times further than they would at home, which means you are making three to four times what you would be making had you stayed back in the United States.
As a digital nomad following the location independent lifestyle, you can work anywhere on the planet as long as you have access to the Internet, which means you can enjoy a reduced cost of living in places such as Mexico or Japan where your money goes three to four times farther than it did back home. This allows you to continue working your job at the same salary you have now, but instead of needing to pay off a ridiculous cost of living you can enjoy a debt-free lifestyle through some simple, basic, common sense steps.
This is the main reason so many people choose to become location independent. When you can live anywhere in the world so long as you have an Internet connection, you can go where you want, and while $1,000 a month might seem like pennies back in the United States, in a country like Bulgaria, Italy or Colombia that money is worth the equivalent of around $3,000 to $4,000, which means you are essentially three to four times beyond what your actual salary is. This is the allure of the digital nomad lifestyle, because any social media manager, writer, artist, pensioner or individual with some type of digital income coming in can pursue the lifestyle.
Following the location independent lifestyle isn’t as hard as you might think. Most countries around the world will give you a visa within a couple of weeks of application time once you prove your income, either through pension or freelance means. Once you establish that you make at least the minimum required by your chosen country, you can move ahead with your plans of living the digital nomad dream, enjoying a lifestyle where your money goes far beyond what it would at home, enabling you to completely bypass the debt-and-mortgage nightmare so many others have come to accept as reality.
You can find more information on the digital nomad lifestyle by reading articles by location independent expert T.W. Anderson, founder and CEO of Marginal Boundaries.