Once we decided to just start living abroad several things
immediately became more relevant. We are
not rich and in any case, fifty is a relatively young age for complete
retirement. What if we were incorrect in
our budget expectations? What if our
savings did not last? What if the
economy continues to do things no one seems to expect?
To add to the issue is the fact that it is complicated at
best, almost impossible in other countries to obtain a work visa. General rule: start the visa process at the
embassy or consulate nearest you while in the US. Retirement residency is available many places
but generally requires an investment within a country or that you have a
certain amount of proven income, the calculation of which varies from country
to country and from bureaucrat to bureaucrat.
In some cases, this amount is expected to grow annually by a given
percentage. You can’t just go plop
yourself down in another country and do as you wish; well like everything else
that isn’t totally true either but it’s best to be legal.
It turns out that you can earn money while on any type of
visa in most countries; you just can’t hold a job in that country that could be
filled by a citizen. Confused? Don’t be.
One way to do this is to contract your services on the internet and be
paid into your account in the US. This
way you are not taking jobs from the local population which is the main concern
anyway. There are many ways to earn
money on the internet even if you aren’t an expert Ebay trader or specialize in
computer programming.
Another way to earn money abroad is to teach English. There is a seemingly endless market for
English teachers all over the world and teaching English is a skill that
travels well. We had already taken the
first steps towards having this internationally marketable skill set by
becoming certified TEFL teachers. A work
visa to teach English is fairly easy to obtain in many countries except in the
EU which is where we wish to spend quite a bit of time. EU regulations state that if an EU citizen
can perform the job, no work visa will be granted to a non-EU citizen and the
EU includes those damned Brits who speak a language tolerably close enough to
English that they can obtain employment as teachers. So we needed something else.
One day, while reading International Living, we came across an
article from a man who calls himself and his company “The Barefoot Consultant”
and who claims to be able to teach anybody how to find ways to earn money by
contracting services over the internet.
We were intrigued and signed one of us up. Winton Churchill (that is really his name)
really did provide a lot of information and recommendations, geared directly at people who have never operated in this type of environment before. If you stay with his program he will walk you
through the entire process although you can work at your own speed if you wish.
Through this process we became aware of the multitude of
internet based contract work websites beginning with the largest, multi-purpose
site; Elance. The work available is incredible
in volume if not in reimbursement but there is a trick to all of this. Once you are established, usually by working
cheaply, you will generate demand for your quality services and many times, the
employer will not wish to return to the Elance auction process and pay a
commission which will allow you to gradually raise your prices over time. The sheer volume and types of projects out
for bid astounded us and in addition, we discovered quite a number of
additional websites, some of which specialize in certain work categories like creative
writing, copy writing, computer programming and translation.
One word of caution, we found that when we started to look
at work that could be obtained and managed over the internet we got tons of
email advertising “Work from home and make $$$$ per hour on your
computer”. The vast majority of this is
scam stuff offering for you to take surveys for a penny a piece or solicit all
your friends and acquaintances for pyramid type schemes. Being new to the whole concept of working
on-line we actually read through a lot of it, and even tried a few things that
were offered. In every case it was
absolute garbage.
You can make money through a large number of legitimate
websites by writing articles, short stories or books, proofreading or editing
books and academic papers, selling your photographs, blogging, designing web
sites, providing artwork; you get the idea.
It’s endless. Better yet, for us,
we have a modest budget and any money we make simply makes our savings last
that much longer. We have watched our
daughter, in her spare time; take this concept to some of the more specialized
websites and starting with ghost writing work herself into an ebook deal. She now can support herself wherever she is
in the world as long as she has access to the internet periodically. Neat huh?
As for us, we are just beginning to fully explore the
processes so stay tuned. A short list of
sites that we have researched and are very reputable is provided below to get you started if you are
interested. The rest is up to you.
