Latest / bit of a Rambler / 007 Frugal Travel

Transcript

007 Frugal Travel · bit of a Rambler

• 1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,440 Hello, my name is Kai and I am a bit of a rambler. 2 00:00:05,440 --> 00:00:09,120 I like to travel, learn and tell stories. 3 00:00:09,120 --> 00:00:15,960 Today I want to talk about frugal travel, because yes you can do it, yes it doesn't cost 4 00:00:15,960 --> 00:00:23,120 much, and there are like a few very simple things that you can do to travel well within 5 00:00:23,120 --> 00:00:27,960 your means like I said the way to travel under 500 bucks a month. 6 00:00:27,960 --> 00:00:32,520 It's not some sort of trick or like loophole or whatever. 7 00:00:32,520 --> 00:00:37,960 I mean, it's a global loophole, no, because it's in every single country except the US 8 00:00:37,960 --> 00:00:40,120 all last. 9 00:00:40,120 --> 00:00:45,880 The cost of living is cheaper in other countries, especially if you are from the US, if you 10 00:00:45,880 --> 00:00:52,120 are from Western European countries, most of the world is also cheaper. 11 00:00:52,120 --> 00:00:58,280 But if you are from the US, almost every other country is much cheaper than your used 12 00:00:58,280 --> 00:00:59,280 to. 13 00:00:59,280 --> 00:01:04,520 And as American friends and travelers have told me, unbelievably cheaper. 14 00:01:04,520 --> 00:01:10,480 Like you can't believe that a hostile cost is a hundred dollars a month, but they do. 15 00:01:10,480 --> 00:01:15,920 And once you are living it, it's weird and it's sort of like, I don't know, travelers 16 00:01:15,920 --> 00:01:19,880 seem to relegate that to the part of their mind where it's like, oh, it only cost me 17 00:01:19,880 --> 00:01:26,920 a hundred dollars a month so it must not be as good as a regular dorm bed arrangement. 18 00:01:26,920 --> 00:01:28,680 But it's like, that's what it is. 19 00:01:28,680 --> 00:01:33,800 It's a dorm bed or a bed arrangement with hot shower and there's a restaurant right downstairs 20 00:01:33,800 --> 00:01:35,600 with a pool and bean bags. 21 00:01:35,600 --> 00:01:37,640 I'm like, it's great. 22 00:01:37,640 --> 00:01:42,680 It just happens to cost a hundred dollars a month because you're in a country with the 23 00:01:42,680 --> 00:01:45,120 lower cost of living. 24 00:01:45,120 --> 00:01:50,080 And you can access those costs of living immediately. 25 00:01:50,080 --> 00:01:52,840 All you have to do is buy the ticket and go there. 26 00:01:52,840 --> 00:01:57,680 If you go to Cambodia, you're paying a hundred to a hundred fifty for a month of staying 27 00:01:57,680 --> 00:02:03,700 in a hostile and three hundred roughly for a private room or a private room in a hotel 28 00:02:03,700 --> 00:02:04,700 or whatever. 29 00:02:04,700 --> 00:02:10,600 But yeah, one to three hundred will get you a very comfortable living arrangement and you 30 00:02:10,600 --> 00:02:13,400 know, you can spend one hundred if you want to live a little more cheaply and you'll 31 00:02:13,400 --> 00:02:15,880 be in a communal living situation. 32 00:02:15,880 --> 00:02:22,280 But there's still, there hostels have, like I said, pools, right downstairs, huge lounges, 33 00:02:22,280 --> 00:02:29,280 rooftop for and as to hang out on, like it's a good deal for a hundred bucks a month. 34 00:02:29,280 --> 00:02:33,800 And then yeah, like I said, three hundred bucks and you got a private room. 35 00:02:33,800 --> 00:02:35,120 So you can go do that. 36 00:02:35,120 --> 00:02:36,760 That's what I'm saying. 37 00:02:36,760 --> 00:02:39,160 That is accessible to you right now. 38 00:02:39,160 --> 00:02:46,000 For most people from a wealthier country, especially the US travel is inherently frugal because the 39 00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:50,560 cost of living is so much lower. 40 00:02:50,560 --> 00:02:56,080 It's not about how much money you make or how hard you work or anything like that. 41 00:02:56,080 --> 00:03:01,680 It's simply another choice, the option, the quality, the characteristics are the exact 42 00:03:01,680 --> 00:03:02,680 same. 43 00:03:02,680 --> 00:03:08,040 It's just the price is much lower if you are not living in one of the most expensive countries 44 00:03:08,040 --> 00:03:09,600 in the world. 45 00:03:09,600 --> 00:03:15,000 Now if you are already living in Cambodia or a very cheap country, learning English and 46 00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:20,760 becoming an English assistant in pretty much any of those countries or in any of East Asia, 47 00:03:20,760 --> 00:03:22,720 that's your ticket out of there. 48 00:03:22,720 --> 00:03:25,320 Free apps will teach you fluent English. 49 00:03:25,320 --> 00:03:26,640 English is the lingua franca. 50 00:03:26,640 --> 00:03:27,720 You learn that. 51 00:03:27,720 --> 00:03:34,160 You can help teach in an English school and those pay better than most jobs you'll get 52 00:03:34,160 --> 00:03:38,000 being a monolingual like a frickin American. 53 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:40,920 But every country has a different cost of living. 54 00:03:40,920 --> 00:03:46,880 And for most of you, you can move to a country with a lower cost of living. 55 00:03:46,880 --> 00:03:49,600 And the cost of living isn't just housing. 56 00:03:49,600 --> 00:03:54,360 The cost of living is the groceries, the utilities, which if you're traveling are almost always 57 00:03:54,360 --> 00:03:55,840 free. 58 00:03:55,840 --> 00:03:58,760 Access to experiences. 59 00:03:58,760 --> 00:04:02,800 In a lot of these countries, you can just take a bus somewhere for three dollars and have 60 00:04:02,800 --> 00:04:05,320 a literally unforgettable experience. 61 00:04:05,320 --> 00:04:10,120 You can go to a volcano, you can go to one of those 14 step waterfalls with tide pools 62 00:04:10,120 --> 00:04:15,820 that you can swim in and those Dr. fish, the goby fish or whatever will eat the dead skin 63 00:04:15,820 --> 00:04:22,080 off your feet like naturally in these tie step waterfall tide pools. 64 00:04:22,080 --> 00:04:25,120 How much would you pay to do that in your own home country? 65 00:04:25,120 --> 00:04:31,080 Anywhere in Thailand, one of those waterfalls is a $10 bus ride away, maximum. 66 00:04:31,080 --> 00:04:36,080 A lot of those pickup truck taxis they have will take you there for a, I don't know, 50 cents 67 00:04:36,080 --> 00:04:38,200 for very cheap. 68 00:04:38,200 --> 00:04:42,840 Every service in almost every country, your equivalent service that you're receiving 69 00:04:42,840 --> 00:04:47,520 now and paying out the bud for in one of these wealthier countries, the equivalent service 70 00:04:47,520 --> 00:04:51,480 is cheaper and often the exact same or better. 71 00:04:51,480 --> 00:04:55,760 Service workers are better in almost every country because they aren't as desperate as 72 00:04:55,760 --> 00:05:00,960 Americans and better toward their job in angry at the customers because they're, they 73 00:05:00,960 --> 00:05:06,600 have to do great this shift or their screwed because they can't afford their rent. 74 00:05:06,600 --> 00:05:09,680 So you're going to get better service in all these other countries and you don't pay 75 00:05:09,680 --> 00:05:16,600 tips because that is a crazy system that Americans invented to make their richest richer. 76 00:05:16,600 --> 00:05:24,720 So just by traveling, if you do go to a restaurant, you're saving 20% on a food dish that is already 77 00:05:24,720 --> 00:05:28,480 90% cheaper than what you're used to paying for. 78 00:05:28,480 --> 00:05:35,240 That $25 plate of spaghetti is now 250 and you're not paying any tips to the service people 79 00:05:35,240 --> 00:05:39,360 but their wages are fair compensation for the work they do in the cost of living in that 80 00:05:39,360 --> 00:05:43,440 country as is the case in most countries and service workers. 81 00:05:43,440 --> 00:05:50,280 So you are paying for the meal and the service, a fair price according to the cost of living 82 00:05:50,280 --> 00:05:54,680 that that restaurant and its workers have determined. 83 00:05:54,680 --> 00:05:57,840 It just costs less than other countries. 84 00:05:57,840 --> 00:06:01,160 And dental work, medical care, I have terrible teeth. 85 00:06:01,160 --> 00:06:08,360 I'll go more into detail but you can go to hospitals with the exact same technology. 86 00:06:08,360 --> 00:06:13,520 These doctors have the exact same training that American doctors have because Thailand 87 00:06:13,520 --> 00:06:23,240 heavily invested into the dental field 20 years ago and get great root canals, teeth whitening, 88 00:06:23,240 --> 00:06:28,520 crowns, they have in-house labs where they can print the crowns for you in a day or two instead 89 00:06:28,520 --> 00:06:31,920 of waiting three weeks in the states. 90 00:06:31,920 --> 00:06:36,560 And all of this will be at least 50% less even without insurance. 91 00:06:36,560 --> 00:06:41,720 And that's for the most prestigious hospitals in the biggest cities. 92 00:06:41,720 --> 00:06:45,560 If you go to the smaller clinics, which still have all the same tools and expertise, you're 93 00:06:45,560 --> 00:06:51,280 paying 30% easily for the exact same procedure or less. 94 00:06:51,280 --> 00:06:55,760 So the thing to bear in mind here is that when you travel to a country that is cheaper, 95 00:06:55,760 --> 00:07:00,160 you're not taking a step down in quality in any way. 96 00:07:00,160 --> 00:07:06,840 You still have the same level of technology, the same level of building material, the same 97 00:07:06,840 --> 00:07:12,200 quality of everything, it's just that things cost less than other places. 98 00:07:12,200 --> 00:07:16,640 That's the most salient fact you have to keep in mind. 99 00:07:16,640 --> 00:07:21,760 You have the same quality, but it costs less. 100 00:07:21,760 --> 00:07:23,600 Do you like drinking all day? 101 00:07:23,600 --> 00:07:24,600 Bottles of booze are less. 102 00:07:24,600 --> 00:07:27,000 You want to buy a new phone every month? 103 00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:28,200 Fones are less. 104 00:07:28,200 --> 00:07:35,880 You want to take transportation all around a country the size of Texas for $2. 105 00:07:35,880 --> 00:07:40,200 Transportation costs way less in every single country except the US. 106 00:07:40,200 --> 00:07:46,400 And the longer you travel, the more you're going to get used to everything being cheaper. 107 00:07:46,400 --> 00:07:50,920 And it'll just make sense so you'll see these opportunities. 108 00:07:50,920 --> 00:07:59,680 You won't see a bus for $5 and be like, "I better buy the $25 Ultra Elite bus ticket." 109 00:07:59,680 --> 00:08:04,440 So that I get to that town, like that bus is definitely better. 110 00:08:04,440 --> 00:08:05,680 No. 111 00:08:05,680 --> 00:08:10,960 That bus company has figured out that tourists have anxiety and are willing to pay $25 to 112 00:08:10,960 --> 00:08:12,560 not have that anxiety. 113 00:08:12,560 --> 00:08:19,400 And if it's your first time traveling, sure, go ahead, like pay $25 for 10 miles or whatever. 114 00:08:19,400 --> 00:08:21,960 But there is a bus with the exact same quality. 115 00:08:21,960 --> 00:08:27,440 They have USB plug-ins, reclining seats, I don't know, air conditioning. 116 00:08:27,440 --> 00:08:34,040 It's all there, but the normal cost will be what the locals pay, $5, something like that. 117 00:08:34,040 --> 00:08:38,000 A sleeper bus for, you know, 300 miles or something? 118 00:08:38,000 --> 00:08:40,880 Yeah, that's going to be closer to $25. 119 00:08:40,880 --> 00:08:46,360 But there'll be the Elite Diamond status for $125 and you don't have to pay that because 120 00:08:46,360 --> 00:08:52,560 look at the two bus companies, you get the exact same bus with the exact same services. 121 00:08:52,560 --> 00:08:55,600 And it just costs $25 instead of $125. 122 00:08:55,600 --> 00:09:00,160 You can pay more if you want to, but you don't have to. 123 00:09:00,160 --> 00:09:05,400 So when a lot of my American friends or people from wealthier countries tell me that they 124 00:09:05,400 --> 00:09:10,200 wish they could travel and it's just not that easy because they have so many bills to 125 00:09:10,200 --> 00:09:12,560 pay so they can't save any money. 126 00:09:12,560 --> 00:09:16,480 Immediately, the answer is move. 127 00:09:16,480 --> 00:09:17,800 Vote with your feet. 128 00:09:17,800 --> 00:09:20,920 Don't pay into a system that you cannot survive in. 129 00:09:20,920 --> 00:09:26,680 Especially one is corrupt and unfair as the American corporate system, where you're only 130 00:09:26,680 --> 00:09:33,600 allowed to choose a couple of pathways to eventually not be starving or desperate. 131 00:09:33,600 --> 00:09:40,080 No, there's 200 other countries where the cost of living is much closer to what you're 132 00:09:40,080 --> 00:09:43,360 aware it should be, what makes sense. 133 00:09:43,360 --> 00:09:52,440 Houses are some concrete pieces of wood and drywall on them with a few doors and windows. 134 00:09:52,440 --> 00:10:00,720 Why do they cost half a million dollars or 340,000 whatever the average is right now? 135 00:10:00,720 --> 00:10:09,040 In the States, when the exact same thing can be made in other countries for $80,000, U.S. 136 00:10:09,040 --> 00:10:15,360 Why does construction on a road in the U.S. take literally 4 years? 137 00:10:15,360 --> 00:10:19,720 I just saw the intersection I used to live at and the construction is going on. 138 00:10:19,720 --> 00:10:20,720 Nothing has changed. 139 00:10:20,720 --> 00:10:22,120 Just crazy. 140 00:10:22,120 --> 00:10:31,640 But in India, Thailand, China, Japan, they can fix a road in days to maybe a couple weeks, 141 00:10:31,640 --> 00:10:33,240 but never more than that. 142 00:10:33,240 --> 00:10:35,200 It's because the systems are better. 143 00:10:35,200 --> 00:10:38,600 Now does that mean that every single thing in the country is better? 144 00:10:38,600 --> 00:10:44,800 No, I would argue yes in some countries, but that's totally personal value judgment. 145 00:10:44,800 --> 00:10:50,160 But of course, no, everything isn't going to be great in a country because one thing is 146 00:10:50,160 --> 00:10:53,040 better than what you're used to. 147 00:10:53,040 --> 00:10:57,120 But their infrastructure system is better. 148 00:10:57,120 --> 00:11:04,480 That's why they can repair roads faster and better that lasts longer than U.S. roads. 149 00:11:04,480 --> 00:11:13,040 The point of this is to illustrate that travel is frugal because the costs are so much lower. 150 00:11:13,040 --> 00:11:17,880 You are not making more money, although I was when I started teaching English than I was 151 00:11:17,880 --> 00:11:24,920 in the States, but you're generally not making more money and you don't have to, you just 152 00:11:24,920 --> 00:11:30,640 have to make enough money to live within this much lower cost of living. 153 00:11:30,640 --> 00:11:38,200 You can be making $5,000 a month in the U.S. but the amount of money you have to spend to 154 00:11:38,200 --> 00:11:45,260 live an uncomfortable life where a sprained ankle can suddenly take away any savings you 155 00:11:45,260 --> 00:11:49,560 had where you could barely afford groceries for years. 156 00:11:49,560 --> 00:11:51,920 I could barely afford groceries for years. 157 00:11:51,920 --> 00:11:56,000 I mean, I was budgeting all the time when I was living in the U.S. I was like, "Okay, 158 00:11:56,000 --> 00:11:57,000 cool. 159 00:11:57,000 --> 00:12:00,440 I can buy steaks this week or like ground meat more likely." 160 00:12:00,440 --> 00:12:04,600 And then I had nothing left because I had just budgeted enough that I was getting enough 161 00:12:04,600 --> 00:12:11,880 calories so that I could work 40 plus hours a week at a job I didn't care about so that 162 00:12:11,880 --> 00:12:17,080 I could continue existing and make money for the guy above me. 163 00:12:17,080 --> 00:12:22,960 And there are plenty of judicial, legislative, and political policies that have led to 164 00:12:22,960 --> 00:12:26,920 a bunch of terrible exploitative practices in the U.S. 165 00:12:26,920 --> 00:12:34,000 in many places, but the fact on the ground is that the cost of living is too high for regular 166 00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:36,600 American citizens. 167 00:12:36,600 --> 00:12:42,380 You can just step out of that rat race and head on over to someplace with a lower cost 168 00:12:42,380 --> 00:12:44,040 of living. 169 00:12:44,040 --> 00:12:45,040 Everything else is immaterial. 170 00:12:45,040 --> 00:12:48,600 I've repeated it a hundred times because I really think it's the most important thing you're 171 00:12:48,600 --> 00:12:51,520 going to get from this episode. 172 00:12:51,520 --> 00:12:58,960 The quality is the same, but the cost of living, the price of everything in general is lower. 173 00:12:58,960 --> 00:13:05,120 So you can imagine you're looking at two identical boxes of blackberries in the supermarket. 174 00:13:05,120 --> 00:13:08,680 One of them is $10, one of them is $1. 175 00:13:08,680 --> 00:13:17,040 The one that's $10, it's organic, they're pre-washed for you, no pesticides. 176 00:13:17,040 --> 00:13:21,240 And the one dollar one is organic pre-washed for you and no pesticides. 177 00:13:21,240 --> 00:13:27,360 The only difference is that the $10 one says flavor, and the one dollar one has a sticker 178 00:13:27,360 --> 00:13:32,160 that says sabur, which means flavor in Spanish. 179 00:13:32,160 --> 00:13:36,840 I would buy the one dollar one every time because it's the exact same product, exact same 180 00:13:36,840 --> 00:13:43,680 freshness, same date, of packaging, same everything, it just costs 90% less. 181 00:13:43,680 --> 00:13:47,760 That's what traveling, that's what frugal traveling is to me. 182 00:13:47,760 --> 00:13:55,180 There's a bunch of countries, some of them you choose to pay $3 for a one minute bus 183 00:13:55,180 --> 00:14:04,720 ride to the supermarket, and in some of them you pay $3 to go 100 miles between two cities. 184 00:14:04,720 --> 00:14:07,840 And I started to say this, but I had a wee bit distracted. 185 00:14:07,840 --> 00:14:10,600 The longer you travel, the better you'll get at this. 186 00:14:10,600 --> 00:14:16,600 The more you will save just from everything being cheaper and then you recognizing, right, 187 00:14:16,600 --> 00:14:18,320 that is the same thing. 188 00:14:18,320 --> 00:14:19,320 It's not a trick. 189 00:14:19,320 --> 00:14:24,920 There are two identical buses going to the identical destination with identical services 190 00:14:24,920 --> 00:14:31,080 and identical times, but this one costs 80% more than the other one. 191 00:14:31,080 --> 00:14:32,800 Choose the cheaper one. 192 00:14:32,800 --> 00:14:39,520 Those opportunities are all around, which brings me to the next point, learn. 193 00:14:39,520 --> 00:14:41,760 Whatever country you're in, learn the language. 194 00:14:41,760 --> 00:14:46,400 Even if you're terrible at it, if you try to speak it, people will help you way more. 195 00:14:46,400 --> 00:14:51,480 And they'll tell you about the local deals a lot of the time in English or in French or 196 00:14:51,480 --> 00:14:53,600 whatever language you actually speak. 197 00:14:53,600 --> 00:14:58,240 If you try to speak in their language, half the time they're going to speak back in your 198 00:14:58,240 --> 00:15:03,640 language once they realize how slowly you're learning their language, as is the case for 199 00:15:03,640 --> 00:15:05,440 me. 200 00:15:05,440 --> 00:15:07,600 And they'll be like, you know, you don't have to do this. 201 00:15:07,600 --> 00:15:12,800 You can just go here and they'll recommend you a supermarket or a transportation center 202 00:15:12,800 --> 00:15:20,440 or whatever you're looking for, but the local cheaper option at the same quality. 203 00:15:20,440 --> 00:15:27,640 So yeah, learning about the culture you're going into gives you so much more leeway and 204 00:15:27,640 --> 00:15:31,920 opportunity to lower your costs even further. 205 00:15:31,920 --> 00:15:33,680 Oh, and everywhere, haggles. 206 00:15:33,680 --> 00:15:40,360 All any outdoor local market, you can almost always haggle. 207 00:15:40,360 --> 00:15:45,600 Not in the US that works at garden markets, but it's like frowned upon in the US, you know? 208 00:15:45,600 --> 00:15:47,520 But in other countries, it's normal. 209 00:15:47,520 --> 00:15:53,240 So if you know you're going to buy a lot of tomatoes that day, you can get a cheaper price 210 00:15:53,240 --> 00:15:58,000 on the tomatoes or avocados or sushi or whatever. 211 00:15:58,000 --> 00:16:03,320 If it's an outdoor market and there's a guy in a stall, you can almost always take a little 212 00:16:03,320 --> 00:16:07,280 money off the top of the sticker price or what they tell you. 213 00:16:07,280 --> 00:16:12,640 I don't usually do that because the prices are so good anyway, but if I feel like they're 214 00:16:12,640 --> 00:16:16,720 not, I'll definitely haggle or I'll go on to the next person because there's a thousand 215 00:16:16,720 --> 00:16:19,080 people selling tomatoes. 216 00:16:19,080 --> 00:16:21,780 And most of them are going to offer you the fair price. 217 00:16:21,780 --> 00:16:27,760 One guy is going to be like eight when everybody knows the price is four. 218 00:16:27,760 --> 00:16:31,520 And if you're like, it's four and he doesn't give you it for four if he says like seven 219 00:16:31,520 --> 00:16:34,280 and you don't want to deal with that, just go to the next person. 220 00:16:34,280 --> 00:16:38,400 Or tomatoes are four or three or whatever. 221 00:16:38,400 --> 00:16:44,120 But you have so much more free time when you are traveling because you don't have to work 222 00:16:44,120 --> 00:16:48,600 as much to maintain your existence. 223 00:16:48,600 --> 00:16:53,400 You can spend that time walking to four different people selling tomatoes, learn the normal 224 00:16:53,400 --> 00:16:58,200 price by the price from the cheap person with the better tomatoes. 225 00:16:58,200 --> 00:17:01,360 I keep talking about this because this is literally how I do my shopping. 226 00:17:01,360 --> 00:17:04,080 I always look for an outdoor market. 227 00:17:04,080 --> 00:17:10,120 There's hundreds of people in a line with stalls and you walk around, figure out what the 228 00:17:10,120 --> 00:17:16,040 price is supposed to be by the cheapest food that looks the best. 229 00:17:16,040 --> 00:17:22,120 It's a straightforward process, but going to those live markets with actual people like 230 00:17:22,120 --> 00:17:27,200 the local markets, instead of going to a supermarket, even a local supermarket, that's going 231 00:17:27,200 --> 00:17:30,920 to save you like half the price most of the time. 232 00:17:30,920 --> 00:17:38,520 I remember a bag of limes was ten ketsoles and then I went to the market and the same bag, 233 00:17:38,520 --> 00:17:42,800 but maybe even more, I don't know, was five ketsoles. 234 00:17:42,800 --> 00:17:47,360 It's, yeah, it looked like the same size bag to me of limes. 235 00:17:47,360 --> 00:17:53,160 I still have the same one bag of limes I bought for five ketsoles, which is like 60 cents 236 00:17:53,160 --> 00:17:54,920 or 70 cents, whatever. 237 00:17:54,920 --> 00:18:00,800 Okay, so traveling saves you money if you're from a wealthier country. 238 00:18:00,800 --> 00:18:07,040 All stop buying local groceries, the more local the better saves you money. 239 00:18:07,040 --> 00:18:09,800 Very easy way to be frugal. 240 00:18:09,800 --> 00:18:16,080 Cooking for yourself saves you an insane amount of money. 241 00:18:16,080 --> 00:18:18,080 It's just so cheap. 242 00:18:18,080 --> 00:18:20,200 Again, I'm going to throw this out there. 243 00:18:20,200 --> 00:18:26,480 I almost never cooked for myself for years while I was traveling in the beginning because 244 00:18:26,480 --> 00:18:33,520 food is so cheap anyway that that fits into the less than $500 a month. 245 00:18:33,520 --> 00:18:39,280 Budget I was talking about, but if you do cook for yourself, you're easily, easily living 246 00:18:39,280 --> 00:18:43,520 on less than $3 a day for full meals. 247 00:18:43,520 --> 00:18:47,200 Chorizo's here are one ketsol. 248 00:18:47,200 --> 00:18:53,080 So you'd have to buy about eight chorizo's for one dollar. 249 00:18:53,080 --> 00:18:59,600 Then you can buy a bag of onions and a bag of tomatoes for another $1.20. 250 00:18:59,600 --> 00:19:10,600 So for $2.20, you have eight chorizo's and an over a pound of onions and tomatoes each. 251 00:19:10,600 --> 00:19:13,080 Same for potatoes. 252 00:19:13,080 --> 00:19:20,680 So on $3 a day, you can have a full fridge after a few days and make as many different 253 00:19:20,680 --> 00:19:22,480 dishes as you want. 254 00:19:22,480 --> 00:19:29,240 Your food budget to buy all the foods you want can very easily be $20 a week and you can 255 00:19:29,240 --> 00:19:37,640 buy marinated pork, any vegetables you want, any fruit you want, steaks, bacon, everything 256 00:19:37,640 --> 00:19:40,720 is there and local prices are cheap. 257 00:19:40,720 --> 00:19:45,520 So if you can cook for yourself, even if you can't cook for yourself, go learn to make 258 00:19:45,520 --> 00:19:48,120 anything, any basic cooking. 259 00:19:48,120 --> 00:19:50,600 Just learn how to fry a steak on both sides. 260 00:19:50,600 --> 00:19:55,640 What you have to do is put the steak in a hot pan and make sure it gets hot on both sides. 261 00:19:55,640 --> 00:19:56,640 Like that's it. 262 00:19:56,640 --> 00:20:00,640 Beef is much safer than pork so you don't have to worry about under-cooking it too much. 263 00:20:00,640 --> 00:20:02,640 That's why you can get a rare steak in restaurants. 264 00:20:02,640 --> 00:20:07,040 So if you learn to cook at all, it turns out that cooking is just making things hot in 265 00:20:07,040 --> 00:20:11,920 a pan, at least, you know, the fundamental part of cooking. 266 00:20:11,920 --> 00:20:18,080 And yeah, $20 a week, you can eat anything you want and just cook it for yourself. 267 00:20:18,080 --> 00:20:23,960 Just hostels have a communal kitchen that you can use every day if you want to. 268 00:20:23,960 --> 00:20:26,320 And this is just frugal travel. 269 00:20:26,320 --> 00:20:27,840 That's why we're going down this road. 270 00:20:27,840 --> 00:20:33,600 If you have whatever $7 a day, then yeah, well, just have other people cook your food for 271 00:20:33,600 --> 00:20:34,600 you. 272 00:20:34,600 --> 00:20:35,600 Fine. 273 00:20:35,600 --> 00:20:39,600 But it's pretty nice that you can get exactly what you want and spend $20 a week on all 274 00:20:39,600 --> 00:20:43,520 the foods you want and cook yourself at home. 275 00:20:43,520 --> 00:20:46,600 Cooking for yourself is a pretty good one. 276 00:20:46,600 --> 00:20:49,080 Backpacking, huge. 277 00:20:49,080 --> 00:20:55,240 Many countries, you can camp wherever as long as you're not in the way of something. 278 00:20:55,240 --> 00:21:02,840 So for a long time in Thailand, I was living in the city and at sunset, I just went out 279 00:21:02,840 --> 00:21:09,400 of town, set up my hammock, which has a, like, built on custom-made bugnet and a custom-made 280 00:21:09,400 --> 00:21:12,400 rain tarp that I added onto the hammock. 281 00:21:12,400 --> 00:21:16,480 I would set that up, takes me five minutes, go to sleep, 282 00:21:16,480 --> 00:21:17,480 right? 283 00:21:17,480 --> 00:21:18,480 No bugs. 284 00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:23,440 If it rained, it was just awesome because I had a clear rain tarp like getting the water off 285 00:21:23,440 --> 00:21:24,440 of me. 286 00:21:24,440 --> 00:21:27,040 I really want to make another setup like that. 287 00:21:27,040 --> 00:21:34,200 And then in the morning, I would wake up, pack everything in, go into town, and yeah, 288 00:21:34,200 --> 00:21:37,960 get food, go to the next temple I was walking to the other day. 289 00:21:37,960 --> 00:21:45,440 It's pretty easy to just find in Thailand and Vietnam in most, I mean, a lot of places. 290 00:21:45,440 --> 00:21:49,960 In Japan, you can just camp anywhere, even in city public parks. 291 00:21:49,960 --> 00:21:53,680 Just don't be there all day or, you know, make, don't be an idiot when you're traveling, 292 00:21:53,680 --> 00:21:56,280 like, don't cause trouble for others. 293 00:21:56,280 --> 00:22:00,120 But in Japan, it's okay if you camp in public places. 294 00:22:00,120 --> 00:22:06,800 There's a few countries like that, but even like in Thailand, you can't camp in public parks 295 00:22:06,800 --> 00:22:11,360 or Vietnam, but there are jungles and forests around every single town. 296 00:22:11,360 --> 00:22:16,520 So you walk into the jungle, put a camp down, totally fine, pack it up, go back into town 297 00:22:16,520 --> 00:22:22,200 the next day, spend a few weeks in the town that way, go to the next one, or do that for 298 00:22:22,200 --> 00:22:27,640 a week, you've saved enough money to pay for a week in a hostel. 299 00:22:27,640 --> 00:22:33,240 So yeah, shoestring budget, if you have a backpack and a collapsible tent or better yet, 300 00:22:33,240 --> 00:22:38,120 I think, a collapsible hammock with a bug net that you put over, okay, I'm definitely 301 00:22:38,120 --> 00:22:40,960 gonna do a hammock story with this setup. 302 00:22:40,960 --> 00:22:45,480 I have to do a whole episode on that because I loved hammock camping. 303 00:22:45,480 --> 00:22:51,360 But backpacking and camping outside of towns and cities and sometimes in cities if the 304 00:22:51,360 --> 00:22:54,120 country allows it is great. 305 00:22:54,120 --> 00:23:01,560 It's free, it's culturally accepted, and you're right there visiting and learning like 306 00:23:01,560 --> 00:23:03,840 you want to, but you don't have to pay any money. 307 00:23:03,840 --> 00:23:06,840 You can just live there also. 308 00:23:06,840 --> 00:23:14,120 Another big one is get into fixing things, DIY in general saves a ton of money. 309 00:23:14,120 --> 00:23:18,200 You have a lot more time traveling because everything costs less. 310 00:23:18,200 --> 00:23:19,760 So you don't have to work as much. 311 00:23:19,760 --> 00:23:24,360 With all that extra time, start fixing things yourself because the more things you fix, 312 00:23:24,360 --> 00:23:28,760 the less money you're gonna have to fix when that same thing breaks the next time because 313 00:23:28,760 --> 00:23:31,520 the same thing is always break. 314 00:23:31,520 --> 00:23:34,280 Your toilet is gonna break in some way. 315 00:23:34,280 --> 00:23:42,960 If you learn the three things on a toilet that you can just take out and then replace, 80% 316 00:23:42,960 --> 00:23:45,840 of your repair costs for toilets are gone. 317 00:23:45,840 --> 00:23:48,160 It's basically, I guess it's kind of the same thing with a car. 318 00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:53,120 If you're not a replace or oil, swap out the air filter, swap out the cabin filter for 319 00:23:53,120 --> 00:24:00,000 a better smelling car and change the battery, 80% of your car maintenance costs are taken 320 00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:01,480 care of. 321 00:24:01,480 --> 00:24:03,920 And that's for everything. 322 00:24:03,920 --> 00:24:10,040 Most things, whenever you get a plumber in, or an electrician, and they ask what it is, 323 00:24:10,040 --> 00:24:13,560 they're like, "It's always that thing. 324 00:24:13,560 --> 00:24:15,360 It's always the battery. 325 00:24:15,360 --> 00:24:17,440 It's always the whatever it is." 326 00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:24,000 It's because a lot of these systems have a few parts that fail much more often than other 327 00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:25,440 parts because they're used more. 328 00:24:25,440 --> 00:24:27,560 That's just how the system works. 329 00:24:27,560 --> 00:24:34,800 But if you learn to fix those things, you don't have to pay for repairs and you can customize 330 00:24:34,800 --> 00:24:36,320 your area. 331 00:24:36,320 --> 00:24:40,160 So is the shower not spraying out enough water? 332 00:24:40,160 --> 00:24:42,880 That is almost certainly calcium build up. 333 00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:46,680 If it's spraying in different directions or not enough water, so you get a thing of white 334 00:24:46,680 --> 00:24:52,720 vinegar poured into a plastic bag, tie the plastic bag so that the vinegar goes over the nozzle 335 00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:53,960 of the shower. 336 00:24:53,960 --> 00:24:59,200 Leave it there overnight in the morning, the shower is going to be no build up blocking 337 00:24:59,200 --> 00:25:00,200 the water. 338 00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:03,440 Water is going to come out straight and it's going to come out more powerful. 339 00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:04,680 Did your favorite shirt rip? 340 00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:05,680 You can sew it. 341 00:25:05,680 --> 00:25:06,760 You know what talking about that? 342 00:25:06,760 --> 00:25:12,080 You can buy oversized clothes and take the hour listening to a podcast. 343 00:25:12,080 --> 00:25:17,320 All you do is cut along the seams, cut an inch off of each side seam on a t-shirt straight 344 00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:19,600 up into the sleeves. 345 00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:25,400 And then you flip the shirt inside out, re-sow those seams you just cut one inch inside 346 00:25:25,400 --> 00:25:28,160 and now that shirt is your size. 347 00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:32,000 And the local markets, you can buy a new shirt for like two or three dollars in so many 348 00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:34,600 countries anyway, so it's not a huge deal. 349 00:25:34,600 --> 00:25:41,440 I'm just saying in general, the more you learn to repair things yourself and DIY things 350 00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:46,600 you want fixed, the cheaper things are going to be in general. 351 00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:50,840 Oh, and let's talk about housing again, money for money, sake. 352 00:25:50,840 --> 00:25:56,360 So I stay at a place for a month first and see how I like it because if I like it more, 353 00:25:56,360 --> 00:25:58,240 I'll rent it for a second month. 354 00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:00,080 Monthly rates are almost always cheaper. 355 00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:03,520 Sometimes the weekly rates are the same as the monthly rates and then I might try a week 356 00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:06,240 first if I'm not sure. 357 00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:08,160 But I always only get one month. 358 00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:12,240 I used to get three months or two months, however long I stayed. 359 00:26:12,240 --> 00:26:16,560 But now I'll get one month and then I'll ask them, hey, if I stay one more month, I'll 360 00:26:16,560 --> 00:26:17,560 get four months. 361 00:26:17,560 --> 00:26:20,640 Do you think you can give me a discount on the second month? 362 00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:27,000 And that works almost every time because the not hassle of having to clean your room and 363 00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:31,760 you know, get it ready for the next gas, just have making sure they still have a tenant 364 00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:32,760 in there. 365 00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:35,000 They're happy to be like, yeah, sure. 366 00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:41,720 Here's it's nine dollars instead of $10 and you just saved $30, 10% of your price and 367 00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:44,000 sometimes it'll be cheaper. 368 00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:46,480 It's usually cheaper than that actually. 369 00:26:46,480 --> 00:26:48,880 I would say you'll probably get knocked two dollars off. 370 00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:55,000 So like 20% of your cost is pretty common for a second or third month. 371 00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:59,240 Again, none of these you have to do if you feel like you have the money and all that kind 372 00:26:59,240 --> 00:27:00,240 of stuff. 373 00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:02,240 This is just for frugal traveling. 374 00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:07,640 And for that one, I think that's pretty fair because if you're staying in extra month, 375 00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:08,640 they don't have to do anything. 376 00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:13,720 They're just going to keep collecting that money and nothing changes. 377 00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:18,840 So yeah, they should it should be cheaper to stay the longer you stay at a place. 378 00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:19,840 Frugal travel. 379 00:27:19,840 --> 00:27:25,040 If you like the backpacking thing, then oh boy, because backpacking, you're housing, no 380 00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:26,040 cost anymore. 381 00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:29,160 $100 a month is not very expensive anyway. 382 00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:34,120 But when you have no housing costs, it's amazing how little you can live on. 383 00:27:34,120 --> 00:27:38,440 I think I mentioned before I was on like 170 a month. 384 00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:41,280 I wasn't living in that wasn't Taiwan. 385 00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:48,440 I wasn't living in a house because Taiwan is so nice anyway and it's perfectly acceptable 386 00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:50,600 to camp on the beaches there. 387 00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:59,280 So I would camp on the beach, walk around, answer phone calls, teach a little English each 388 00:27:59,280 --> 00:28:07,320 day, make $10 a day maybe like not much, just talking a little bit when someone called up. 389 00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:13,160 But I was still making money because $10 a day, $300 a month, the only money I spent was 390 00:28:13,160 --> 00:28:14,840 on food. 391 00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:20,120 There was a beach shower I used, stay clean, there are public restrooms everywhere. 392 00:28:20,120 --> 00:28:26,120 The food is only a dollar or two for great food in a lot of places and I spoiled myself 393 00:28:26,120 --> 00:28:33,280 by going to the buffet, the vegetarian Buddhist monk buffet they do. 394 00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:39,360 Not really all you can eat but it's very cheap for extremely good healthy food. 395 00:28:39,360 --> 00:28:43,440 So you can make a little money just on your phone and then you can camp the rest of the time 396 00:28:43,440 --> 00:28:47,040 and walk around to different parts of the country and see whatever you want to see. 397 00:28:47,040 --> 00:28:51,520 Your phone is always traveling with you, that's your source of income, your backpack, your 398 00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:57,080 houses on your back, you can fix anything you want to because you have all day, you have 399 00:28:57,080 --> 00:29:02,040 probably what most Americans especially are going to think of as too much time because 400 00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:05,160 they're not throwing their time away making money for somebody else. 401 00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:11,200 Oh, I guess the set of cost is like a SIM card, but a data only SIM card in most countries 402 00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:15,880 is $10 a month for unlimited data, it's cheap. 403 00:29:15,880 --> 00:29:22,000 Okay, I'll always talk about the FEIE because it doesn't get more frugal than not paying 404 00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:25,320 taxes, which is very fair since you are not living in that country. 405 00:29:25,320 --> 00:29:31,920 But if you are outside of the US for more than 330 days out of a 365 day period, then 406 00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:38,760 you don't pay taxes on the first $125,000 of your income earned income. 407 00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:43,680 So you still pay money on investments, but you don't pay any money on those phone calls 408 00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:49,000 where you teach English online or if you're teaching English at a school or if you're 409 00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:54,800 working a service job in a foreign country or a seasonal field worker, whatever you're 410 00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:55,800 working on. 411 00:29:55,800 --> 00:30:02,400 If you're outside of the country for more than 11 months of the year of a 12 month period, 412 00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:09,960 not the calendar year of any 12 month period, then you don't pay taxes on the first $126,500 413 00:30:09,960 --> 00:30:12,160 of your earned income. 414 00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:13,680 Always good to know about that. 415 00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:17,280 Fill out form 25555, that's it. 416 00:30:17,280 --> 00:30:19,440 Takes an extra 10 minutes. 417 00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:24,640 Don't feel like you have to do anything. 418 00:30:24,640 --> 00:30:29,320 You don't have to join in the activities that everybody else is doing. 419 00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:35,600 Would you rather sleep literally all day for the first two weeks that you're traveling? 420 00:30:35,600 --> 00:30:36,880 Do that. 421 00:30:36,880 --> 00:30:41,440 Because you have infinite, you have as much time as your life gives you. 422 00:30:41,440 --> 00:30:43,500 And you only have that much time. 423 00:30:43,500 --> 00:30:48,160 So you shouldn't do things that you don't want to do and you should do the things that 424 00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:50,200 you do want to do. 425 00:30:50,200 --> 00:30:53,880 Don't spend money doing anything you don't want to do. 426 00:30:53,880 --> 00:30:56,240 If you're trying to travel frugally. 427 00:30:56,240 --> 00:31:03,440 So read a book all day, binge watch all of the good place in three days like I have done 428 00:31:03,440 --> 00:31:05,000 in the past three days. 429 00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:08,240 I just don't want anyone to spoil it for me. 430 00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:09,400 Whatever it is. 431 00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:14,120 There's all these YouTube videos that say Eleanor keeps figuring it out. 432 00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:19,920 And I'm like, okay, I have to watch that before someone spoils it for me because it's pretty 433 00:31:19,920 --> 00:31:20,920 good. 434 00:31:20,920 --> 00:31:22,160 Feel like I guessed it. 435 00:31:22,160 --> 00:31:26,920 I took a little note about something, but I still have a few episodes left. 436 00:31:26,920 --> 00:31:28,840 So we'll see if I was wrong. 437 00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:33,720 So that is to say you can do that or every day you can go to the beach and play volleyball 438 00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:36,800 or go to the mountains and hike a new mountain. 439 00:31:36,800 --> 00:31:40,520 Just do what you want to do and don't do what you don't want to do. 440 00:31:40,520 --> 00:31:43,000 Don't spend money on things that you don't want to do. 441 00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:44,640 Oh, we should totally go to the bar. 442 00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:46,520 It'll be so much fun. 443 00:31:46,520 --> 00:31:49,280 If you're a bar guy, yeah, that'll be a lot of fun. 444 00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:54,080 But if you're not into the bar and you're like, oh, that's a lot of loud noises and I have 445 00:31:54,080 --> 00:32:03,240 to pay $6 for a drink, where a drink, you know, at a restaurant, like a dollar there normally. 446 00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:04,240 And you want to save money? 447 00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:06,000 Just don't do it. 448 00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:07,320 Do what you want to do. 449 00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:11,200 Don't be a dick, you know, and just be like, oh, no, I'm good. 450 00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:12,200 Thanks. 451 00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:13,800 Just do what you want to do. 452 00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:19,600 And if your thing is saving money right now, then don't do very expensive things. 453 00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:24,400 In Thailand, you can go to the police station and pay like 30 bucks to shoot at a firing 454 00:32:24,400 --> 00:32:25,400 range. 455 00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:29,360 And it's kind of crazy that I haven't done it yet. 456 00:32:29,360 --> 00:32:36,920 I don't really like guns, especially in the US for obvious shooty children reasons. 457 00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:41,360 But I think I'd have a good time shooting a pistol at a firing range in Thailand. 458 00:32:41,360 --> 00:32:44,000 So next time I'm in Thailand, I'm going to do that. 459 00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:45,960 But that costs $30. 460 00:32:45,960 --> 00:32:50,040 If I didn't have the $30 to spare, I wouldn't. 461 00:32:50,040 --> 00:32:54,440 On the flip side, I have definitely done things that I wouldn't have been able to afford 462 00:32:54,440 --> 00:32:59,400 when I was teaching on my phone making $300 a month. 463 00:32:59,400 --> 00:33:07,640 By camping outside, I had an extra $150 a month and that meant every week I could do something 464 00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:12,240 as expensive as firing at a gun range or going to the go cart course. 465 00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:14,960 I don't know why I'm naming things I haven't done. 466 00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:17,400 Go to the all-you-can-eat-buffet twice a week. 467 00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:23,520 That is one that I've definitely done by saving that $150 a month. 468 00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:26,040 The buffets are like seven bucks each. 469 00:33:26,040 --> 00:33:30,400 So actually, yeah, like three times a week, I could go to the all-you-can-eat-buffet. 470 00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:37,440 Or I traveled between cities also in like the luxury $25 buses I was talking about 471 00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:40,920 with electricity in the seats fold all the way back. 472 00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:47,120 So you can do what you want to do. 473 00:33:47,120 --> 00:33:53,680 You just have to make sure you understand your priorities and what your money is worth. 474 00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:55,720 Yeah, so don't do what you want to do. 475 00:33:55,720 --> 00:33:58,360 Live within your means, do what you want to do. 476 00:33:58,360 --> 00:34:03,200 And if you want more means, then yeah, that's what you should do. 477 00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:04,440 Expand that. 478 00:34:04,440 --> 00:34:10,320 Like I wanted to make the same amount of money and do less work. 479 00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:14,960 So I saved all the money that I made, or that's not true at all. 480 00:34:14,960 --> 00:34:24,720 I saved as much money as I wanted to after eating the best food and drinking and traveling 481 00:34:24,720 --> 00:34:26,080 and hiking mountains. 482 00:34:26,080 --> 00:34:31,120 But I saved all the other rest of that money and invested it every single month. 483 00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:34,400 And that slowly gave me enough interest payments where now I don't have to. 484 00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:36,560 I don't want to. 485 00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:37,560 And I don't want to. 486 00:34:37,560 --> 00:34:39,600 I mostly don't. 487 00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:44,320 If you don't want to travel outside of the US or outside of your country right away, 488 00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:47,880 there are plenty of places to travel within your country. 489 00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:55,960 And that is still possible to frugal travel RVs in the US, especially there like three 490 00:34:55,960 --> 00:34:58,440 grand in the right states. 491 00:34:58,440 --> 00:35:02,960 Just go to a different state or go out of the cities. 492 00:35:02,960 --> 00:35:09,720 A few grand, let's say five grand for five grand, you will get a working RV with a full kitchen, 493 00:35:09,720 --> 00:35:14,000 all the utilities it might have solar panels on top, but everything is going to be working 494 00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:16,200 in a $5,000 RV. 495 00:35:16,200 --> 00:35:24,320 You just look and there are $5,000 RVs and a lot of them are literally $1,000 in the US. 496 00:35:24,320 --> 00:35:29,800 And they're $1,000 because one of the windows is missing or like, oh, there's no windshield. 497 00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:34,960 And the engine works great, there's only 10,000 miles, but no windshield, so we can't use 498 00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:35,960 it. 499 00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:38,000 The tires are new, but no windshield. 500 00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:41,960 Just get it and then get a new windshield for it. 501 00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:47,040 Some of these, it's crazy the deals that you can get on RVs in the states because we're 502 00:35:47,040 --> 00:35:49,760 such a, you know, RV, e country. 503 00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:53,360 We're so independent and all that. 504 00:35:53,360 --> 00:35:59,200 So you can get one and that $5,000, I don't know what your rent is, but I took here 505 00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:06,400 a, that cost in a couple, like three months, maximum at any of my apartments in the US paid 506 00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:07,760 for the RV. 507 00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:12,080 You live in the RV for a year and you're saving at least $10,000. 508 00:36:12,080 --> 00:36:18,000 You are saving a lot if you live in an RV and you can drive anywhere you want to go. 509 00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:23,880 You can get insurance and you can get very, very cheap roadway assistance plans. 510 00:36:23,880 --> 00:36:30,400 So if anything, basic goes wrong, progressive will get a local company to drive out to you 511 00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:37,760 and pour in coolant in your radiator, swap out the battery, tow you to the next town. 512 00:36:37,760 --> 00:36:43,840 If that happens, if you take care of your RV, that shouldn't really happen. 513 00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:47,560 But if you don't know anything about cars, yeah, get roadside assistance. 514 00:36:47,560 --> 00:36:53,680 It's like an extra $20 a year for the plan and you get so much great value from that. 515 00:36:53,680 --> 00:36:58,360 Oh, the other great thing about RV is that the insurance is so cheap. 516 00:36:58,360 --> 00:37:00,880 It's like $200 a year. 517 00:37:00,880 --> 00:37:02,120 It's crazy. 518 00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:11,320 Mine was less, mine was like $120 a year for Winnebago Brave, 24 feet, I think, something 519 00:37:11,320 --> 00:37:12,320 like that. 520 00:37:12,320 --> 00:37:13,320 I couldn't believe it. 521 00:37:13,320 --> 00:37:15,240 I still don't understand it. 522 00:37:15,240 --> 00:37:19,320 Maybe it's because they're so popular, the brand has more parts available, so they're 523 00:37:19,320 --> 00:37:20,320 not gonna break. 524 00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:21,320 I don't know. 525 00:37:21,320 --> 00:37:26,880 Anyway, you'll probably get a lower cost on your insurance than you think. 526 00:37:26,880 --> 00:37:31,960 Whatever your insurance is, it doesn't really matter because after that initial cost, 527 00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:41,640 and even if you have to swap out a part, unless it's the alternator and the engine, you're 528 00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:43,400 saving money almost immediately. 529 00:37:43,400 --> 00:37:51,200 It's crazy living in an RV with a full-sized queen bed, hot shower, clean water, and 530 00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:56,760 electricity on the walls, so much storage space. 531 00:37:56,760 --> 00:38:01,320 You have a very nice studio apartment that you can move around and you don't have to move 532 00:38:01,320 --> 00:38:03,080 it all day if you don't want to. 533 00:38:03,080 --> 00:38:07,480 There are lots of places to stealth camp and just comfortably camp. 534 00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:12,120 A lot of towns don't mind if you're outside of the town or they have specific places. 535 00:38:12,120 --> 00:38:13,680 RVs are allowed to park. 536 00:38:13,680 --> 00:38:17,880 You can always sleep in Walmart parking lots nationwide. 537 00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:20,980 You don't have rent all of a sudden and you don't have any utilities. 538 00:38:20,980 --> 00:38:22,320 All of a sudden. 539 00:38:22,320 --> 00:38:29,200 You can travel all over the US as far as you want, saving money. 540 00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:31,160 It's great. 541 00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:34,560 You can go to all of the national parks get the annual national park pass. 542 00:38:34,560 --> 00:38:41,140 It's like a hundred bucks for every single national park unlimited visits in the United States. 543 00:38:41,140 --> 00:38:45,940 State parks are different, but all the national parks, which are amazing, you can just drive 544 00:38:45,940 --> 00:38:50,540 to a different one each month and you can set up a camping fee in them or you can just 545 00:38:50,540 --> 00:38:54,660 park on the public land or like I did in Walmart's a lot of the time. 546 00:38:54,660 --> 00:39:01,940 I just go to the corner of an empty Walmart parking lot silent until the next morning at 10am 547 00:39:01,940 --> 00:39:06,920 or whatever and then you can stay there or you can drive to the next place. 548 00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:13,320 I don't think you can stay in Walmart parking lots more than three days at a time, but that's 549 00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:17,920 not bad for free rent for free space basically. 550 00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:24,500 Yeah, the initial cost of the RV looks like a lot, but if you can scrape together really 551 00:39:24,500 --> 00:39:30,200 one to five thousand, well, like three three thousand is a pretty safe average for a running 552 00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:31,680 RV. 553 00:39:31,680 --> 00:39:36,660 After two months, you are just saving money because of the exorbitant cost of living in the 554 00:39:36,660 --> 00:39:37,660 US. 555 00:39:37,660 --> 00:39:42,000 And if you're inside an RV, you can do pretty much any remote job from there because you 556 00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:44,120 have free electricity. 557 00:39:44,120 --> 00:39:48,000 You can charge your laptop. 558 00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:51,780 You can, I set up like a little office in the back on my queen sized bed and I can cook 559 00:39:51,780 --> 00:39:53,680 every day so I'm not spending. 560 00:39:53,680 --> 00:39:56,340 Okay, yeah, you know, go to the RV episode. 561 00:39:56,340 --> 00:39:58,440 I talk about all of this and it's fantastic. 562 00:39:58,440 --> 00:39:59,440 I love RVs. 563 00:39:59,440 --> 00:40:01,720 I love the time I had an RV. 564 00:40:01,720 --> 00:40:06,020 You can travel around and save money by living in an RV and you're going to learn a ton 565 00:40:06,020 --> 00:40:08,520 of valuable skills and people are going to want to talk to you. 566 00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:09,760 It's great. 567 00:40:09,760 --> 00:40:14,520 People travel also is comes with planning. 568 00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:15,680 You can plan ahead. 569 00:40:15,680 --> 00:40:18,480 If you research stuff, you're going to be like, wait, what? 570 00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:22,840 And you probably won't recognize these cheap opportunities in the beginning because they 571 00:40:22,840 --> 00:40:24,440 just don't seem real. 572 00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:31,120 Like in Japan, it's perfectly legal and culturally acceptable to camp in public spaces. 573 00:40:31,120 --> 00:40:33,400 So public parks, they're good. 574 00:40:33,400 --> 00:40:34,680 Courtyard's they're good. 575 00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:40,640 I lived in the courtyard of Edo Castle. 576 00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:48,000 There's a huge castle there and I am it camped out there for, I don't know, about a week 577 00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:55,040 or something because it was a cool, you know, imperial Japanese castle with a beautiful courtyard 578 00:40:55,040 --> 00:40:59,120 and it's legal and culturally accepted to camp in Japan. 579 00:40:59,120 --> 00:41:05,720 So if you read these travel guides but you've never publicly camped before, you can be like, 580 00:41:05,720 --> 00:41:06,720 well, I can't do that. 581 00:41:06,720 --> 00:41:07,720 That's weird. 582 00:41:07,720 --> 00:41:08,720 I don't know how to do that. 583 00:41:08,720 --> 00:41:10,280 But it just means public camp. 584 00:41:10,280 --> 00:41:11,840 It means you can camp anywhere. 585 00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:14,520 And Japan is one of the countries you can do that in. 586 00:41:14,520 --> 00:41:20,360 Ireland used to be super friendly with that but it's such a small country that so much of 587 00:41:20,360 --> 00:41:25,160 the land isn't public that it's difficult to do that as much as you want. 588 00:41:25,160 --> 00:41:26,840 I still did it every day in Ireland. 589 00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:31,320 I urban camped all across Ireland. 590 00:41:31,320 --> 00:41:33,160 But there are Vietnam. 591 00:41:33,160 --> 00:41:35,160 Yeah, it's fine. 592 00:41:35,160 --> 00:41:36,560 New Zealand. 593 00:41:36,560 --> 00:41:39,120 Pretty cool with camping everywhere. 594 00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:41,280 Just not on private property obviously. 595 00:41:41,280 --> 00:41:45,000 But if you just read about the different countries, they tell you like a lot of the guides 596 00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:47,480 are like, and if you want, you can just camp here. 597 00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:52,320 It's legal and if they say that you look it up in a couple of other places, make sure 598 00:41:52,320 --> 00:41:54,800 that that's true and then do it. 599 00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:59,540 Make safe some money, camp around the cities you want to live in but you don't have the 600 00:41:59,540 --> 00:42:03,440 money to live in yet. 601 00:42:03,440 --> 00:42:06,440 And it's free then for you to camp there. 602 00:42:06,440 --> 00:42:09,600 You get the transportation over there. 603 00:42:09,600 --> 00:42:16,040 And if you live in that country for three months, like I did in Japan, it's magical. 604 00:42:16,040 --> 00:42:18,800 Like Japan, I walked across Japan for three months. 605 00:42:18,800 --> 00:42:21,720 So I paid zero rent the whole time I was in Japan. 606 00:42:21,720 --> 00:42:28,160 I bought the half off supermarket sushi which in Japan starts being half off at like 3pm 607 00:42:28,160 --> 00:42:32,040 and it was always made that day because they're a foodie nation. 608 00:42:32,040 --> 00:42:37,480 I guess you can say like they're so strict on fresh food that after sushi is even if 609 00:42:37,480 --> 00:42:42,600 it's on ice after it's been out for a few hours, it's old trash. 610 00:42:42,600 --> 00:42:49,240 So for three months, I'd walk from, you know, walk a marathon a day, roughly 20 miles a 611 00:42:49,240 --> 00:42:50,480 day. 612 00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:56,720 Please to West or North, I actually I went north and south a lot going to different towns. 613 00:42:56,720 --> 00:43:03,160 I'd stop into a supermarket, grab a huge tray of sushi, devour it, feel great, set up my 614 00:43:03,160 --> 00:43:10,880 hammock, go to bed, take a public bath for $3 all day, get totally clean and keep going 615 00:43:10,880 --> 00:43:12,800 on my walk. 616 00:43:12,800 --> 00:43:20,680 So I stayed in Japan for three months and I probably spent $700 in total. 617 00:43:20,680 --> 00:43:23,440 I would guess about $700? 618 00:43:23,440 --> 00:43:24,560 Certainly no more than a thousand. 619 00:43:24,560 --> 00:43:30,200 I can't imagine spending more than $300 a month in Japan because a lot of the times I also 620 00:43:30,200 --> 00:43:35,440 just cooked my own meals when there wasn't a supermarket right next to me. 621 00:43:35,440 --> 00:43:40,480 I had curry blocks in my back and I bought local mushrooms for a dollar and then made a 622 00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:45,680 curry and noodles or curry and rice in a little cookware kit. 623 00:43:45,680 --> 00:43:49,400 Ooh, I got to talk about my camping in Japan trip too. 624 00:43:49,400 --> 00:43:51,440 That was a cool trip. 625 00:43:51,440 --> 00:43:52,440 Okay. 626 00:43:52,440 --> 00:43:56,080 Yeah, Japan has those public baths like I mentioned too. 627 00:43:56,080 --> 00:44:04,420 So different countries just offer different opportunities to travel cheaply and truck stop 628 00:44:04,420 --> 00:44:10,040 bathrooms in the US despite every comedic joke you've heard about them are generally 629 00:44:10,040 --> 00:44:17,000 very clean and five to seven dollars for a shower, which is expensive compared to Japan, 630 00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:23,840 but very cheap compared to any other service in the US and you can take a full hot shower, 631 00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:26,840 plug in your shaver, clean everything as much as you want. 632 00:44:26,840 --> 00:44:33,960 So even if you're car camping, you could spend $200 extra dollars and shower and shave every 633 00:44:33,960 --> 00:44:37,480 day like and just keep clean. 634 00:44:37,480 --> 00:44:43,280 Even if you're car camping use the facilities there if you want to of course it's these 635 00:44:43,280 --> 00:44:50,960 opportunities are everywhere and frugal travel is certainly possible in whatever situation 636 00:44:50,960 --> 00:44:51,960 you are in. 637 00:44:51,960 --> 00:44:54,840 Oh, exercise parks real quick. 638 00:44:54,840 --> 00:44:57,680 Tons of countries have exercise parks too. 639 00:44:57,680 --> 00:45:02,680 Now exercise parks and you know the truck stops in the States. 640 00:45:02,680 --> 00:45:08,740 It's probably better if you just sign up for a gym membership and do that, but that is 641 00:45:08,740 --> 00:45:09,740 up to you. 642 00:45:09,740 --> 00:45:11,240 How are you want to swing it? 643 00:45:11,240 --> 00:45:13,560 Just have a great time. 644 00:45:13,560 --> 00:45:16,600 It's it's very doable. 645 00:45:16,600 --> 00:45:23,040 If you're not sure about your specific situation, write to me a bit of a rambler at gmail.com. 646 00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:25,120 I will see your message. 647 00:45:25,120 --> 00:45:30,240 If I haven't answered your question in this podcast, I will get back to you and I might 648 00:45:30,240 --> 00:45:35,080 even get back to you anyway because I travel all the time and I don't have to work anymore 649 00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:37,960 and I'm just chilling most of the time. 650 00:45:37,960 --> 00:45:41,560 I'm hiking or sitting around reading or just doing whatever. 651 00:45:41,560 --> 00:45:44,800 Oh, I'm binging the good place in three days. 652 00:45:44,800 --> 00:45:51,680 Okay, as a final note, I'll just let you know the hostile I stayed at is called the CM 653 00:45:51,680 --> 00:45:59,160 Reep Chilled Backpacker Hostel and it is available for $3 a day right now. 654 00:45:59,160 --> 00:46:00,840 $90 a month. 655 00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:09,080 It has a pool, a restaurant, a bar, a pool table actually, a hardwood paneling, beanbags 656 00:46:09,080 --> 00:46:10,800 around the pool. 657 00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:15,360 There's I mean, it's great and it's $90 a month. 658 00:46:15,360 --> 00:46:17,000 Your rent will be $90 a month. 659 00:46:17,000 --> 00:46:22,480 All utilities included if you travel in Cambodia starting tomorrow. 660 00:46:22,480 --> 00:46:24,800 Cambodia is Veson arrival, by the way, so that's possible. 661 00:46:24,800 --> 00:46:29,140 Oh, and the longer you travel in one place, the cheaper it is because of your initial 662 00:46:29,140 --> 00:46:30,600 travel cost. 663 00:46:30,600 --> 00:46:36,760 So if it's an expensive flight, $250 from L.A. to Japan, or let's say you don't plan at all 664 00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:40,880 and you just buy the most expensive ticket, you don't even look at the prices and you end 665 00:46:40,880 --> 00:46:44,080 up paying $400 for that flight. 666 00:46:44,080 --> 00:46:47,740 That's pretty pricey from L.A. to Japan. 667 00:46:47,740 --> 00:46:52,220 But if you do pay that and you stay for one month, then you have to add $400 to the cost 668 00:46:52,220 --> 00:46:53,540 of staying in Japan. 669 00:46:53,540 --> 00:46:57,220 If you stay for two months, you're only adding $200 per month. 670 00:46:57,220 --> 00:47:02,040 And if you stay for three, then you're only adding $130 per month. 671 00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:08,740 And it's a Veson free travel to stay three months in Japan and Japan's amazing and huge and 672 00:47:08,740 --> 00:47:11,420 beautiful and so comfortable to live in. 673 00:47:11,420 --> 00:47:12,900 So you might as well stay there. 674 00:47:12,900 --> 00:47:16,860 You should stay in Japan for three months. 675 00:47:16,860 --> 00:47:18,020 It's obviously cheaper. 676 00:47:18,020 --> 00:47:21,580 The longer you stay in one country each time you travel. 677 00:47:21,580 --> 00:47:25,660 If the extra couple hundred isn't a big deal to you, great. 678 00:47:25,660 --> 00:47:31,300 If it is, just stay in the country in extra month and you don't have any travel costs that 679 00:47:31,300 --> 00:47:32,300 month. 680 00:47:32,300 --> 00:47:35,180 Okay, that really is the end of this. 681 00:47:35,180 --> 00:47:41,160 I'll probably do another one at some point because I'm sure I've forgotten most of everything 682 00:47:41,160 --> 00:47:44,140 there is to know about frugal travel. 683 00:47:44,140 --> 00:47:46,960 But that's a good start. 684 00:47:46,960 --> 00:47:53,940 Go ahead and write to me if you have any questions and I will catch you on the flip side.