RPF0279-Sara_Miner_Interview
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00:00:30.000 | A lot of people have this dream as regards their financial independence. The dream is
00:00:34.800 | this. I'm going to work hard, save money. I'm going to build up enough money to where
00:00:39.600 | I'm financially independent. And then I'm going to take off and I'm going to travel
00:00:42.560 | the world. I'm going to spend time going to places in the world that I want to go and
00:00:46.620 | doing adventurous things. And that's cool. I support that. I've got to some degree that
00:00:53.340 | dream myself. But what if you just skipped all that hard work of saving up a bunch of
00:00:59.380 | money and becoming financially independent and you just got a job that paid you to travel
00:01:04.060 | the world? Today, we talk with a listener who's done exactly that.
00:01:24.460 | Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast. My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host.
00:01:28.620 | Thank you for being with me today. Today, we talk with listener of the show, Sarah Minor,
00:01:33.060 | who reached out to me and she basically said this, "Hey, Joshua, I like the show, but frankly,
00:01:37.340 | it's gotten a little boring lately. It's not very radical." Tell you what, to spice up
00:01:42.780 | the show, Joshua, I'll share my story with you if you like. It's pretty cool. And I said,
00:01:50.620 | "Hey, Joshua, I'm getting kind of bored. Where's the radical stuff?" And I'll say, "Well, what
00:02:06.140 | do you propose?" And you'll respond back with something and who knows, I may have you on.
00:02:09.660 | No, I'm thrilled to have Sarah on for today's show. It's very cool, very exciting, and this
00:02:16.260 | is a cool story that she's going to share with you about how she and her husband have
00:02:20.380 | built a life of adventure that allows them to work, do work they care about, do well
00:02:27.660 | financially, save money, and yet still enjoy traveling the world and living in a lifestyle
00:02:33.820 | that they have decided is right for them. And I think it should be an inspirational
00:02:37.020 | story. I'm all about helping you speed up your results. I've searched personally, searched
00:02:42.620 | and searched for what is the theme of radical personal finance. I didn't know the theme
00:02:46.820 | when I started. And some themes have emerged, however, that I feel strongly about. And one
00:02:51.740 | of those themes is speeding up the results, skipping some of the unnecessary steps in
00:02:58.300 | order to get where you really want to go. And I think this is a great example of that.
00:03:01.740 | I'm not saying skip hard work. Hard work is generally important. I'm not saying skip having
00:03:07.100 | a plan. I'm not saying that you can have instant gratification. But I am saying that you can
00:03:11.060 | design a much more efficient plan than what is often presented as the standard plan and
00:03:15.900 | the standard approach in our society around. So in today's show, we're going to do exactly
00:03:21.340 | that.
00:03:23.620 | Before I play the interview, though, I want to hook up our sponsor. Sponsor of the day
00:03:25.780 | number one is Jay Fleischman from The Student Loan Show. Jay is an awesome guy. Twice he
00:03:30.340 | has been a guest on Radical Personal Finance. He hosts a podcast called The Student Loan
00:03:34.420 | Show and he is a bankruptcy and student loan attorney. What you need to know about Jay
00:03:40.340 | is this. Number one, if you have student loans, you need to call him. Go to studentloanshow.com/radical.
00:03:49.100 | Sign up for a free – excuse me. Sign up for his basic level email consultation, 50
00:03:55.300 | bucks for him to do a review of your student loans. Situations, you're going to hear
00:03:59.900 | Sarah and me in today's show talk briefly about working for organizations like the Peace
00:04:04.420 | Corps, other federal organizations that will help in student loan forgiveness. That's
00:04:08.540 | the type of strategy Jay can talk to you about and in many situations can make a big difference.
00:04:14.060 | But there are so many options with student loan shows. Jay is a real expert and you should
00:04:17.700 | talk to him. If I had student loans, the first thing I would do would be to have a consultation
00:04:22.040 | with Jay and make sure I'm paying them off in the most intelligent way.
00:04:25.580 | Number two, if you are in any kind of confrontational situation with a creditor, especially a student
00:04:30.180 | loan creditor, reach out to Jay for advice. Number three, listen to his show. It's well
00:04:34.620 | worth it.
00:04:36.460 | Advice of the day number two today is Paladin Registry. Paladin is my recommendation to
00:04:41.380 | you for where to start your search for a financial advisor. Finding a financial advisor can be
00:04:46.460 | tough. Finding a good financial advisor is even tougher. I can't promise that you're
00:04:53.020 | definitely going to be able to find that great financial advisor through Paladin Registry.
00:04:57.820 | But I can promise that it's a better place to start than just randomly walking around
00:05:01.620 | and seeing what's nearby you. Paladin Registry is a financial advisor registry service where
00:05:06.300 | they go through and they carefully vet and research the advisors that join their organization.
00:05:12.340 | The advisors pay to be listed in their organization. But it's the most ethical way that the founder,
00:05:19.780 | possibly Jack Wehmeyer, was actually able to come up with and I fully agree with him.
00:05:23.740 | It's the best starting place that we have.
00:05:26.740 | So if 2016 is the year that you've decided to get a handle on your finances, start by
00:05:31.660 | reaching out and interviewing some local financial advisors. Start your search at RadicalPersonalFinance.com/financialadvisor.
00:05:36.260 | You'll find a link to their website, their website is at RadicalPersonalFinance.com/paladin.
00:05:39.660 | That will forward you through to their webpage. You'll put in your contact information. You
00:05:42.860 | know how this thing works. You put in your name, your email address, your phone number,
00:05:47.180 | your zip code, where you're located. You put in the amount of assets that you have that
00:05:51.500 | you'd like the financial advisor's input and advice on and kind of what you're looking
00:05:55.020 | for. Put that form in. That form will go into Paladin. They will take it. They will connect
00:06:00.980 | you with some advisors in your area who fit your criteria and they will pass those advisors'
00:06:06.820 | information on to you. You can expect to receive a couple of calls from those advisors.
00:06:10.320 | Then from there, it's up to you. You can interview them. Start on the phone. They will invite
00:06:14.020 | you into their office for a meeting. Go in and meet with them and see if any of them
00:06:18.540 | click with you and then let me know about your feedback. So far, the feedback has been
00:06:22.700 | pretty good. I've been impressed. A couple of questions, people said, "Hey, I talked
00:06:26.940 | to a couple of people and they were good, but they just weren't right for me." Totally
00:06:30.900 | fine. That's what is expected. You got to find someone who's the right personality
00:06:34.180 | fit, but it's a great place to start. So go to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/Paladin.
00:06:38.180 | And now it's time to play the interview with Sarah.
00:06:41.180 | Sarah, welcome to Radical Personal Finance.
00:06:43.180 | Sarah Riegel (00:01:30): Thanks for having me.
00:06:45.060 | Tyler Reilly (00:01:31): I am so glad that you are on the show today.
00:06:47.500 | You're a long-time listener and I love being able to profile stories like yours as we'll
00:06:52.660 | do through the course of this interview. And I'm excited because you wrote me a note and
00:06:57.100 | you said, "Joshua, the content has not been very radical lately. How about we get some
00:07:00.820 | more radical content on the show?" And I wrote you back and I said, "Put up or shut up. Let's
00:07:04.820 | hear your story and we're going to bring your story." So you've got a test today. Let's
00:07:10.460 | find out how radical you really are.
00:07:12.340 | Sarah Riegel (00:02:05): I'll do my best.
00:07:14.300 | Tyler Reilly (00:02:07): So you and your husband have built a really
00:07:16.420 | interesting lifestyle that has allowed you to live and adventure, but also do well financially.
00:07:23.580 | And I'd love for you to share a little bit of that story. Let's start with where you're
00:07:26.980 | living now and how you wound up there.
00:07:29.380 | Sarah Riegel (00:02:25): Sure. So my husband and I are living in Madagascar
00:07:34.940 | off the East Coast of Africa. And we've been here a very short time, actually. We moved
00:07:39.540 | here about four months ago. And prior to that, we lived in a country in West Africa called
00:07:45.180 | Burkina Faso for three years. And we got here. Well, do you want the long version or the
00:07:53.380 | short version?
00:07:54.380 | Tyler Reilly (00:02:49): Let's go with the medium long version.
00:07:55.860 | Sarah Riegel (00:02:51): Okay. I met my husband in the Peace Corps.
00:08:01.340 | We were Peace Corps volunteers in Benin in West Africa and always knew that we wanted
00:08:07.340 | to live overseas and pursue international careers. And so after the Peace Corps, we
00:08:13.620 | came back to the States and we lived on the East Coast for almost five years. I got my
00:08:18.020 | master's degree and he worked for Peace Corps, actually. And then after five years and once
00:08:25.980 | I finished my degree, we moved back to West Africa. He worked for Peace Corps for several
00:08:30.540 | years and eventually joined the Foreign Service.
00:08:32.980 | Tyler Reilly (00:03:17): So are you at all working with the Peace
00:08:36.220 | Corps now? Who are you actually working with now?
00:08:39.060 | Sarah Riegel (00:03:23): I work for NGOs, international NGOs in the
00:08:45.300 | field of global health. And my husband works for State Department.
00:08:47.900 | Tyler Reilly (00:03:29): How interesting. And the cool thing about
00:08:50.620 | this is you guys have been able to travel the world and be able to make money, right?
00:08:56.460 | Sarah Riegel (00:03:36): Yeah. Well, so far. Yes.
00:09:01.020 | Tyler Reilly (00:03:40): Was this originally the long-term plan? So
00:09:05.540 | you both were involved with the Peace Corps. Did you always just know that the expatriate
00:09:10.260 | lifestyle was something that was appropriate to you? Or did you just bumble into the opportunity?
00:09:15.100 | Sarah Riegel (00:03:56): I think it was much more kind of always in
00:09:19.580 | my future than it was for my husband. Since I was a kid, I traveled with my parents. I
00:09:25.980 | studied different foreign languages. I studied abroad in college. This was always something
00:09:31.580 | that I wanted to do. And I always wanted to be in a field of public service. So living
00:09:37.780 | overseas and working with NGOs was very much something that I knew from the time I was
00:09:42.860 | in college I wanted to do. My husband, on the other hand, maybe stumbled into it a little
00:09:48.380 | bit. And he joined Peace Corps on a bit of a whim and met me. And I guess, I suppose
00:09:57.020 | I would say I kind of turned his life upside down. I don't know that he would have chosen
00:10:01.460 | on his own to live in developing countries for the next 15 years, but here we are. So
00:10:11.380 | it's a little of both.
00:10:12.380 | What is your lifestyle like?
00:10:15.540 | Sarah Riegel (00:04:33): Oh, that's a great question. So I think what's
00:10:23.940 | interesting that people probably don't realize is that our life is not that exotic. We still
00:10:35.460 | get up at six in the morning and shower, breakfast, go to work, work eight to 10 to 12 hour days
00:10:44.540 | and come home and dinner. It's really not that different the day to day from what we
00:10:50.220 | did in the States. But what's different is that we do it in very interesting places.
00:10:57.380 | And we get to work with people from different cultures and different backgrounds who speak
00:11:03.060 | different languages and who kind of help us broaden our perspective.
00:11:07.060 | There's probably something to do with the individual personality of different people
00:11:14.100 | where they either like it or they hate it. Some people dealing with foreign customs,
00:11:19.740 | foreign traditions, it's very difficult for them. For some people, it's easier. I like
00:11:24.380 | it because a lot of times it just allows me to simply take people as they are more and
00:11:29.540 | just say, "Oh, that's their culture." I get frustrated much more easily with my US American
00:11:34.980 | compatriots than I do when I'm traveling abroad at the weird customs.
00:11:38.780 | Lauren Ruffin (00:05:17): Yeah, it's very funny. One of the examples
00:11:42.420 | that we always talk about is when we were Peace Corps volunteers and in general Peace
00:11:47.380 | Corps volunteers, many of them get put in very small villages, kind of in the middle
00:11:51.020 | of nowhere where people tend to have certain ideas. And as a Peace Corps volunteer, you
00:11:59.300 | spend a lot of time trying to integrate into that community and accept these ideas no matter
00:12:04.340 | how different they are from your own. You say, "I don't know best here because this
00:12:10.340 | isn't my community. And so I need to be very accepting of these things." Whereas in the
00:12:15.660 | United States, in very similar situations, I find myself being much more judgmental of
00:12:22.220 | ideas that I don't agree with. Even though the situation is really the same, I might
00:12:26.060 | not know where that person's from. I might not know their background. And I'm still not
00:12:30.180 | an expert, but I think I'm a lot more, and I think many people are a lot more laid back
00:12:38.740 | and accepting of differences like that when they're in foreign countries.
00:12:42.860 | I'd like to cover some information on the actual market opportunity as far as Peace
00:12:49.660 | Corps and international NGO work, that type of thing. But before we do that, I want to
00:12:53.940 | actually just ask about some of the tactical boots on the ground aspects of your lifestyle.
00:13:00.460 | You just moved to Madagascar. Did you guys have to figure out all of the logistics and
00:13:07.140 | figure out where you're going to live, how you're going to get there, all that stuff?
00:13:09.540 | Or did you just show up and move into the apartment that somebody had chosen for you?
00:13:13.620 | What are the actual logistics of this lifestyle like?
00:13:16.060 | Well, it varies a little bit from person to person, and I'll tell you about us and then
00:13:22.780 | kind of about how it works for some other folks. So we're very lucky in that my husband
00:13:27.340 | has worked with the United States Foreign Service, and the U.S. Embassy here has been
00:13:34.500 | absolutely fantastic in helping us get settled in. There is embassy housing, so an apartment
00:13:41.180 | was already identified. They helped us ship our things. It makes settling in much, much
00:13:48.460 | easier. You don't have to find your own apartment. You don't have to figure out how
00:13:56.060 | you're going to get your phone line installed. A lot of those little things are taken care
00:14:00.540 | of by my husband's employer, which is great. And there are some employers that do that,
00:14:09.740 | not just the U.S. government. But then there are also, for a lot of folks who work for
00:14:14.540 | NGOs, they have to handle all of that themselves. So they arrive, and they might live in a hotel
00:14:21.700 | for the first 30 to 60 days while they're looking for an apartment. They have to buy
00:14:26.220 | a car. They have to buy furniture to set up their house. So it varies quite a bit.
00:14:34.140 | What is the U.S. Foreign Service?
00:14:38.780 | It is the ambassadors of the United States government to the rest of the world. So my
00:14:46.540 | husband, he's not a diplomat. He works in management and administration at the U.S.
00:14:52.140 | Embassy here.
00:14:55.300 | And if someone is interested in getting started in that world, what's the best, in the world
00:15:02.980 | of an international expatriate lifestyle, what are some of the different paths that
00:15:09.740 | you guys have gone through or that other people have gone through and good ways to test it
00:15:13.180 | out, see if you like it, and then move into kind of, I guess, the cushier side of things?
00:15:19.180 | So I would say that there are, for people who are interested and willing to live in
00:15:25.020 | developing countries, there are two main paths, maybe three. And the first is, of course,
00:15:32.620 | NGO work and humanitarian work. And to start on that path, it helps to speak at least one
00:15:39.700 | foreign language. French, Spanish, Portuguese are very popular. Russian, if you want to
00:15:46.420 | go to the former Soviet Union. And also, you know, have studied NGO management or public
00:15:53.660 | health or economic development or something like that. But there are lots of entry level
00:15:59.300 | jobs in these fields in the United States. And you have to, you know, gain some amount
00:16:04.380 | of experience in order to end up overseas.
00:16:08.700 | The second field is government. So there are lots of agencies of the United States government,
00:16:18.020 | if somebody's American, and many other nations also have diplomatic presence all over the
00:16:24.020 | world. In the United States, the best way to do that is to go to state.gov, the website
00:16:32.500 | of the State Department, and check out if you're interested in becoming a foreign service
00:16:38.700 | officer or a foreign service specialist, who are the folks who keep our embassies running
00:16:43.700 | and who handle diplomatic relations overseas. And then finally, you know, there are small,
00:16:51.140 | it depends very much on the country. I've lived in countries that are much less developed.
00:16:58.260 | And so there's not a lot of international business. But in some countries, Nigeria,
00:17:04.020 | South Africa, throughout Asia, there are a lot of business people who work for international
00:17:11.300 | businesses who are interested in growing their presence in developing countries, especially
00:17:16.820 | the larger countries, you know, Indonesia and Asia, that sort of thing. So I would say
00:17:22.420 | those are the three kind of different strategies that you could look at for people who are
00:17:27.740 | interested in this line of work.
00:17:30.060 | How's the money and how does it vary among those three strategies?
00:17:34.180 | Oh, that's a great question. So I would say the money for people who work in the nonprofit
00:17:43.260 | field is probably the least attractive of the three. But even among people who work
00:17:51.460 | for NGOs, the compensation for skilled positions overseas is, it's generous. I say that because
00:18:02.900 | a lot of the positions for our expatriate positions are designed to support a family
00:18:09.940 | on one income. And that's because in a lot of the countries, in developing countries
00:18:14.860 | around the world, it's very difficult for spouses to find employment. And so many of
00:18:23.660 | these types of jobs come with a competitive salary to what you'd be paid in the US. And
00:18:30.100 | then some sort of, you know, housing or housing stipend. In some cases, there are, you know,
00:18:37.020 | extra allowances to attract qualified people, especially in countries that are difficult
00:18:41.100 | to live in. You know, for people who are pursuing a career in government, it's also, you know,
00:18:52.700 | they make sure to cover your costs and to make sure you're earning something similar
00:18:56.620 | to what you would be in the United States. And the difficult part of the government positions
00:19:03.300 | is they move every two to three years, which is a hardship and is a hassle and very difficult.
00:19:09.620 | And so those types of things are compensated.
00:19:15.180 | But you and even though they are designed for one income, you and your husband have
00:19:20.180 | been able to, both of you be employed. How have you been able to arrange that?
00:19:27.060 | Yeah, so we were very strategic. When we decided that we wanted to come overseas, we had seen
00:19:34.940 | a lot of kind of dual career couples really struggle with the transition because it can
00:19:39.580 | be really difficult, small labor markets with expat positions for both spouses to find jobs.
00:19:46.220 | So we decided that between the two of us, the less employable person should find work
00:19:53.180 | first and then the more employable person would find something in that country once
00:19:58.500 | we arrived. So in our case, my husband works in a much more specialized field than I do.
00:20:04.900 | And there aren't a ton of opportunities overseas, whereas I work in global health.
00:20:09.380 | That's my specialty. So he found the job first and then the countries that we've moved
00:20:16.500 | to once we arrive or once we know where we're going to be moving, I look for a job and I
00:20:21.380 | find them. But it's difficult. You know, there aren't a lot of couples who have the necessary
00:20:28.060 | skill sets to do that, with the exception of couples who have portable jobs. So if one
00:20:36.140 | spouse wants to work overseas and they're able to find a job and the other spouse is
00:20:42.660 | not geographically bound, then they could live anywhere in the world and have the benefits
00:20:49.380 | of that dual income while, you know, enjoying a low cost of living.
00:20:56.020 | With regard to the cost, what countries have you lived in, you and your husband lived in,
00:21:00.980 | in this international career that you've been pursuing?
00:21:05.380 | We were Peace Corps volunteers in Benin in West Africa. My husband lived in Mali for
00:21:11.020 | a brief period for six months. We lived in Burkina Faso for almost three years, also
00:21:16.700 | in West Africa, and just moved to Madagascar not too long ago.
00:21:21.020 | Okay, so all of those there in various parts of Africa. My question was going to be about
00:21:26.460 | cost of living. I generally, my personal experience, I've not traveled in Africa with the exception
00:21:32.740 | of Egypt, which I'm not sure if that counts because it's so different than lower Africa.
00:21:38.420 | But when I've traveled, many of the countries that are developing economies do seem to have
00:21:45.020 | a lower cost of living. And yet, I got that theory completely blown up when I moved to
00:21:51.460 | Haiti – excuse me, when I traveled in Haiti. And I found that traveling in Haiti was actually
00:21:56.740 | – it was one of the most expensive places I'd ever traveled. And what I found was
00:22:01.300 | the reason it was because there wasn't a developed middle class economy that either
00:22:07.200 | I could travel around on the tap tap for, you know, a penny or two. But those conditions
00:22:13.580 | were – at that time, I was with my wife on our honeymoon, so those conditions weren't
00:22:16.780 | acceptable for what we were trying to do. Or I could travel with the rich people. And
00:22:22.220 | I was traveling around in a black Mercedes G-Wagon with tinted windows, and it's costing
00:22:27.500 | me $100 for a 20-minute ride to the bus station. And that lack of a middle class economy was
00:22:36.500 | the best theory I could come up with for why Haiti was a really expensive place to – at
00:22:42.660 | least to travel for me. And it made me wonder if I didn't have some blind spots about
00:22:48.620 | traveling in other parts of the world. So, living in those countries in Africa, what
00:22:53.220 | have you found as far as the cost of living? Is it dramatically cheaper than the United
00:22:57.700 | States? Have you found it to be equivalent because you're in the upper society? What's
00:23:04.900 | been your personal experience?
00:23:05.900 | So, I think there are two parts. One part is in – sometimes there's just not a lot
00:23:15.860 | to spend your money on. So, in some countries that kind of are smaller or sleepy – the
00:23:22.380 | capital cities are sleepy towns. There's not a lot to do. There's not a lot to spend
00:23:27.980 | money on. So, maybe people might buy some souvenirs. They may, you know, go out to dinner
00:23:33.420 | a couple times a week. But you're outside of kind of the consumerist culture of the
00:23:39.740 | United States. And so, I do think that people tend to spend less when they're in those
00:23:45.260 | types of environments where they're not being driven to spend money on all sorts of
00:23:49.860 | things.
00:23:51.380 | And then the second part is related to cost of living like you mentioned. I think if you
00:23:57.580 | expect to live an American lifestyle in developing countries, it can be very expensive. Especially,
00:24:06.540 | I mean, you know, Madagascar is an island. Everything either gets flown in or gets boated
00:24:10.380 | in. The last two countries we lived in were landlocked, which makes things extremely expensive.
00:24:18.700 | Anything that's imported, you know, comes in on the train and has those huge transport
00:24:24.900 | costs built in. So, if you expect to buy, you know, French cheese or French wine or
00:24:32.580 | whatever it may be, that's extremely expensive. But if you are willing to accept substitutes
00:24:41.380 | or if you're not expecting to live an American lifestyle, it can be very inexpensive because
00:24:52.420 | you can go to the market and you can get, you know, four pounds of strawberries for,
00:24:58.300 | you know, a dollar when they're in season or mangoes or whatever it may be.
00:25:05.420 | If you were going to compare cost of living and incomes for some friends of yours who
00:25:11.660 | are in similar situations, what would be the type of numbers that you would guess as far
00:25:16.300 | as how much they could earn in these types of job positions and how much their costs
00:25:21.700 | of living would be?
00:25:25.660 | So I would say that, you know, people that are in, you know, mid-level to senior positions
00:25:34.140 | would probably be earning in countries that I've lived in, which typically have kind
00:25:40.660 | of hardship allowances because it's very difficult to attract skilled people, might
00:25:48.980 | earn anywhere from, you know, $70,000 a year upwards. And the cost of living, usually housing
00:26:00.420 | would be covered by an employer or at least subsidized by an employer. So the cost of
00:26:05.100 | living would be at the very most, you know, 60% of what they would be spending in the
00:26:12.860 | States.
00:26:15.140 | And it could probably be done with focus maybe even less. I mean, the concepts of frugality
00:26:20.420 | could be extended. And to me, this is one of the opportunities that I see. If for people
00:26:25.020 | who are pursuing financial independence, you don't necessarily have to plan on working
00:26:30.240 | in this kind of lifestyle for a 40-year career, but with some focus and preparation and perhaps
00:26:35.340 | five or 10 years of work in a career like this and diligent savings on the side, that
00:26:44.100 | can make a huge difference for your financial independence plan. And then if you wanted
00:26:48.660 | to continue traveling in various parts of the world, you could do that on your own investment
00:26:53.060 | income or if you wanted to move back to the States, you could potentially do that. And
00:26:58.220 | I see this as a really viable lifestyle for somebody to be able to build financial independence
00:27:06.460 | in a shorter period of time while still enjoying an out-of-the-norm adventure.
00:27:11.860 | Exactly. Even people who aren't particularly disciplined about their finances, you'll frequently
00:27:19.740 | hear stories about folks who come back from a two- or three-year tour overseas, either
00:27:25.020 | in a danger post like Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan or a developing country, a hardship
00:27:30.380 | post, and they're able to put a down payment down on a house or they have finished paying
00:27:35.620 | off their student debt or their credit cards. So even for people who don't really concentrate
00:27:43.060 | on it, they're able to make real progress on their finances.
00:27:47.820 | How in your experience does the tax situation work? So you guys are living out of the country,
00:27:54.300 | I would guess, for a majority of the year. What's been your experience with regard to
00:27:58.380 | your personal tax planning?
00:28:02.300 | So our situation is kind of a mixed bag since my husband works for the federal government
00:28:09.180 | and I work for NGOs. He's required to pay federal taxes. All federal employees are required
00:28:14.460 | to pay federal taxes, even if they don't live in the United States. And my income is subject
00:28:20.500 | to the foreign earned income exclusion. So my income up to, I think it's around $95,000,
00:28:28.620 | is not subject to federal tax, which is very nice.
00:28:32.940 | Are you then paying the local tax on that income?
00:28:36.980 | Yeah. So typically, this varies from country to country. In some countries, if you're not
00:28:44.220 | paying US tax and you're being paid locally, then you're required to pay whatever the local
00:28:50.940 | income tax is. In other places, if for example, you're being, you know, your bank account is
00:28:57.580 | in the United States, then the tax issues are more complicated. So it varies a great
00:29:03.300 | deal from country to country. Developing countries tend to have less sophisticated
00:29:08.460 | taxation systems. It's not like if you're living in Germany, then there's very clear
00:29:15.380 | guidelines on how these things work. It's a lot less clear and you really have to do
00:29:21.300 | your best to follow all of the local regulations when you're living in developing countries.
00:29:27.460 | Do you, how big of a factor are expenses to get back and forth to the United States for
00:29:32.420 | vacation or furlough in your budget?
00:29:36.940 | It's probably our biggest single line item. A lot of employers will provide, you know,
00:29:46.660 | maybe one trip home a year or something like that, which makes a really big difference
00:29:50.660 | depending on where you're living. But even, you know, aside from that, you know, we've
00:29:55.780 | had some family events in the last four years, some deaths in the family, some weddings,
00:30:03.780 | that sort of thing. And so for a while, we were actually back in the States every six
00:30:08.060 | months and, you know, we were spending easily, you know, $10,000 on plane tickets every year
00:30:15.660 | just to get back and forth.
00:30:17.260 | Wow. Yeah, definitely can add up and it's got to be factored in because it's not easy
00:30:23.420 | to live on the other side of the world from all those that you know. It's probably easier
00:30:27.700 | now than it once was with the fact that we can connect more easily. Here we are talking
00:30:33.980 | in real time on opposite sides of the world for a very low cost, but it's still not easy
00:30:38.940 | to be away.
00:30:40.300 | Yeah. And I think it's, you know, it's one of those things that we kind of joke about
00:30:47.020 | as just being the tax that we pay, not an actual tax, but kind of a metaphorical tax
00:30:52.940 | for living overseas and having a low cost of living is that, you know, in return, we
00:31:01.460 | have a very large line item in our budget that is set aside for us to go home and spend
00:31:06.260 | time with our families.
00:31:08.140 | Do you guys intend to do this long term?
00:31:12.140 | We do. Yeah, we we plan to, you know, for probably the next 15 or 20 years to to to
00:31:21.540 | be hopefully in Africa. This is where we're we're most at home, but really anywhere in
00:31:27.180 | the world.
00:31:30.700 | I'd like to ask you a couple more questions about the Peace Corps. I seriously considered
00:31:36.140 | and looked at the Peace Corps when I was in college, and I just came to the perspective
00:31:42.300 | that I was like, I don't want to be an indentured servant for I don't remember what the stipend
00:31:47.460 | was, but it was it was minimal.
00:31:50.900 | And I figured if I'm just going to volunteer, then I'd rather volunteer in some other way.
00:31:57.060 | But you've come through the path of the Peace Corps, and it would seem like that's probably
00:32:01.700 | a common path through. Do you have any advice, insight into the path of who should consider
00:32:07.780 | the Peace Corps and why?
00:32:10.300 | Yeah, absolutely. So it's not for everybody. The people who are very flexible and patient
00:32:21.380 | and you know, into trying new things, I think are great candidates. The advantage of the
00:32:25.820 | Peace Corps is compared to a lot of other long term volunteer opportunities is that
00:32:33.020 | to be a Peace Corps volunteer, you don't have to pay money. And so many of the other volunteer
00:32:38.700 | opportunities, even the year long, you know, there's World Teach, there's a variety of
00:32:42.700 | different things, many of them, you know, you have to pay money in order to spend your
00:32:50.260 | time to do something.
00:32:53.460 | With the Peace Corps, you do earn very, very little. It's true. I think after two years
00:32:57.380 | when I got back, I think I had a check for $6,000. And during the two years that I was
00:33:02.980 | living in Benin, I earned about $6 a day, which is, you know, local kind of local living
00:33:10.100 | living expenses. But at the end, you know, I came back and a lot of my friends from college
00:33:19.500 | still hadn't managed to save $6,000. And I had a check, you know, to cover my first
00:33:26.220 | month's rent when I got home. So there are pluses and minuses. Two years is a very long
00:33:31.140 | commitment for some people. But you know, it's a really interesting experience. There's
00:33:36.140 | really nothing like it in the world. There's no other country that has a volunteer service
00:33:43.140 | where, you know, you're the people, you have diplomats all over the world that live at
00:33:49.700 | the level of the community and represent your country to people who have probably never
00:33:56.060 | met an American before in their life.
00:33:59.220 | It is pretty cool. And I like all of my friends that went into the Peace Corps. And I'm happy
00:34:02.660 | that a lot of I guess the US American representation around the world I'm not so proud of. But
00:34:07.900 | most of the Peace Corps people, I am proud of that. And so it's nice to have that, that
00:34:11.540 | positive influence.
00:34:13.380 | I could see some ways that somebody could put together a unique strategy for their personal
00:34:21.060 | financial situation. For example, taking advantage of if somebody had a lot of student loan debt,
00:34:26.860 | I could see the opportunity to take advantage of the Peace Corps as a way to have low living
00:34:32.180 | expenses. And yes, there's going to be low income. But by entering into some income-based
00:34:36.740 | repayment program, that could potentially lead to a substantial amount of that student
00:34:42.700 | loans forgiven for them.
00:34:46.340 | And if that were put together with working for a nonprofit organization, if the NGO were
00:34:51.860 | structured in a nonprofit way, they could continue that process and they could live
00:34:56.600 | the adventure while having, yes, their salary, but also some of the back-end benefits accrue
00:35:02.660 | in their financial situation. Obviously, it would depend on the individual person.
00:35:06.540 | But then also, those benefits could be used to put together the educational track, the
00:35:11.660 | experience track, perhaps the foreign language skill that could set somebody up for a very
00:35:17.980 | interesting and potentially long-term lucrative international career.
00:35:22.700 | Yeah, exactly. And the nice thing about starting in Peace Corps is that Peace Corps, if you
00:35:29.540 | have, I believe it's federal student loans, they're deferrable while you're in Peace Corps.
00:35:34.100 | So folks who are volunteering in developing countries don't necessarily have to worry
00:35:38.100 | during those two years about making those payments, and they can start to handle that
00:35:41.380 | when they get back, which gives them some breathing room while they're volunteering.
00:35:46.940 | But it is a great way. And in general, volunteering overseas and learning a foreign language is
00:35:51.140 | a great way to kind of get started in the field.
00:35:55.140 | Ultimately, most people, at least in international development and humanitarian work, have master's
00:36:00.900 | degrees. And so there is that question of student loans and getting your master's degree
00:36:06.220 | that also has to be managed. But if you manage it well, some employers will provide tuition
00:36:14.820 | reimbursement, that sort of thing. It's certainly doable.
00:36:17.300 | That was going to be my very next question, is how to make yourself attractive in this
00:36:23.260 | environment. And my guess was going to be foreign language skills and academic degrees.
00:36:28.620 | It would seem that academic degrees would be an important factor in that type of work
00:36:34.540 | environment. Do you have any other advice for people of how they can make themselves
00:36:38.220 | attractive in this marketplace?
00:36:40.700 | Yeah. You know, I think experience, the working experience in multicultural environments,
00:36:48.340 | whether or not it's in different countries, is extremely important. A lot of people try
00:36:54.740 | to enter the field with a -- you know, straight up, they come out of college, they get their
00:36:59.780 | master's degree, and they try to find a job. And so one way to set yourself apart, if you're
00:37:04.740 | interested in this field, is to have some work experience and be able to explain how
00:37:09.940 | that's applicable to the international field that you want to get into.
00:37:13.020 | So if you're interested in international education, have you taught in the United States? That's
00:37:18.300 | very valuable, even just having, you know, a couple years of experience in a classroom.
00:37:23.360 | Or if you're interested in global health, you know, have you worked at your public health
00:37:28.180 | department? Or have you done research? I think having experience is really what sets people
00:37:35.460 | apart from all of the applicants that have a master's degree but zero years of experience.
00:37:43.620 | Two final questions. What's the toughest thing about the expatriate lifestyle?
00:37:49.980 | Oh. I think for us, a lot of things that are difficult for other people who are expatriates
00:38:00.300 | aren't as challenging, because we both chose this lifestyle, and it's because we decided
00:38:07.980 | together that the benefits outweigh the costs. But there are two things that are really difficult
00:38:13.420 | about it. One is that expatriate communities tend to be very transient. And so, not only,
00:38:22.980 | you know, we move every two to three years, but also most people in the expatriate community
00:38:28.900 | move, you know, every three, four, five years. And so as soon as you get to a new place,
00:38:34.620 | you know, it might take you six months or so to find your people and to make new friends.
00:38:39.800 | And then, you know, maybe as short as a couple months later, they'll start to leave. And
00:38:44.260 | so it's very difficult to maintain a sense of community, even though expatriates in and
00:38:49.740 | of themselves do tend to be a community. It's difficult to have to make new friends everywhere
00:38:56.540 | you go every two to three years. That's tough. And then it's very hard to be away from family.
00:39:02.020 | My family is very spread out all over the United States and all over the world, actually.
00:39:07.220 | I have siblings on other continents as well. And my husband's an only child. So we're both
00:39:13.740 | very, very far away from our parents. And it's very difficult on our families that,
00:39:19.500 | you know, we're only home once a year or once every six months.
00:39:24.460 | We live in an interesting geopolitical climate. My last question is this. How's the morale
00:39:33.320 | in the Foreign Service and also in the NGO world? And have you seen any changes over
00:39:40.660 | past years?
00:39:43.860 | So I think what's really interesting about spending large portions of your life outside
00:39:50.020 | of the United States as an American is that it makes you very, very patriotic. I think
00:39:59.860 | a lot of people in the Foreign Service, in the United States Foreign Service and in NGOs
00:40:05.120 | that are US Americans, see the flaws of the United States very clearly. But also, you
00:40:15.760 | can't replace... There's nothing like the patriotism that people feel when they spend
00:40:25.400 | their lives outside of their native country. So I think in general, there's, you know,
00:40:32.160 | morale in the Foreign Service people in the Foreign Service, excuse me, are very patriotic.
00:40:38.020 | And it's great to be around. You know, we do big Fourth of July parties. We do, you
00:40:42.400 | know, Thanksgiving celebrations together, celebrate all the American holidays. Even
00:40:46.160 | people who aren't actually diplomats serve that role and are diplomats to the people
00:40:53.240 | around them. But it's a very difficult, like you said, you know, there's a lot going on
00:40:58.600 | right now. And it's challenging. I think that as expatriates, people try to represent their
00:41:14.640 | country, to represent the good parts of their country. And in general, the people in the
00:41:20.200 | countries that we live in understand that just because they disagree with policies,
00:41:26.080 | or they disagree with actions, that doesn't mean that your government or your NGO or your
00:41:34.440 | business are the people behind those. In general, I think that people are very, very accepting
00:41:41.680 | of Americans and of foreigners in general around the world. It's making that one-on-one
00:41:46.360 | connection and, you know, not seeing somebody for just where they come from.
00:41:51.040 | Yeah, it's been my, I mean, you've traveled much more extensively than I have, but it's
00:41:56.400 | been my experience has been remarkable and I've been definitely just have been made to
00:42:01.360 | feel welcome. I often feel more comfortable in other countries than I do in my own homeland.
00:42:05.640 | And it's kind of... Yeah, it's funny.
00:42:10.960 | I mean, there's some of it is you almost, you feel bad, at least I feel bad about it
00:42:15.960 | sometimes, but you treat it like a VIP. And so sometimes you feel bad about it and sometimes
00:42:20.520 | you're just like, yeah, it's nice, nice to be treated as a VIP. And then you do try to
00:42:25.360 | do a good job to represent your homeland in a positive way.
00:42:30.000 | Yeah, there's, you know, a lot of people suffer from the fishbowl effect. And so they, when
00:42:38.760 | they're living in foreign countries, they're very uncomfortable with the fact that they
00:42:42.880 | are constantly, they have to be constantly on and that people listen very carefully to
00:42:47.800 | what they say and watch what they do and, you know, will generalize their actions to
00:42:54.960 | the entire country. But I think you can look at it in a positive light. And if, you know,
00:43:02.680 | you're willing to see yourself as a representative of your country, no matter where you are in
00:43:06.120 | the world. And sometimes that might mean, you know, watching how much you drink or being
00:43:11.120 | more careful about what you say in public and being sure that you represent your country
00:43:15.760 | and your organization in a positive light. You know, I think it's kind of freeing to
00:43:23.000 | be able to break people out of whatever stereotypes they might have about Americans by having
00:43:30.160 | them get to know me. Do you maintain a travel blog or anything
00:43:34.600 | like that that you'd like people to check out? I don't, but if I ever start one, I will
00:43:40.640 | go to the show notes and I will post the URL. Awesome. Well, Sarah, I appreciate you coming
00:43:47.040 | on the show and sharing your personal experience. It's definitely refreshing to talk to you.
00:43:54.680 | And I think it really is an opportunity that people should consider for how to design a
00:44:00.200 | lifestyle. Many people crave some adventure in their life and it doesn't get much more
00:44:05.440 | adventurous than moving to a new place every two or three years. And why not get paid to
00:44:10.240 | do it and build some financial reserves along the way? Any final words of wisdom or closing
00:44:17.040 | remarks that you'd like to make? No. If anyone has questions or is interested
00:44:22.080 | in getting started and working in either NGO or government careers overseas, they should
00:44:28.680 | feel free to contact me. They can find me on the Radical Personal Finance Facebook group
00:44:34.480 | and also the RPF Irregulars page. Perfect. Thanks so much, Sarah.
00:44:41.240 | My hope is that you can use this interview as inspiration for you to sketch out the plan
00:44:45.240 | that's appropriate to you and then move intentionally on it. As you can hear, Sarah and her husband,
00:44:50.160 | they didn't do it by accident. It was an intentional plan, carefully crafted, and it seems to be
00:44:55.480 | fitting exactly what they were looking to do. Now, you figure out what's right for you,
00:45:00.920 | but use this as inspiration to know that you don't necessarily have to wait. You don't
00:45:06.320 | necessarily have to travel the world as a broke tourist. Hey, if you want to go travel
00:45:10.860 | the world as a broke tourist, that's cool. But if you don't want to, you can figure out
00:45:14.800 | another path. And there are all kinds of exciting, interesting careers, doing jobs that matter,
00:45:19.840 | doing work that you can care about because of the impact that it's having on the people
00:45:24.640 | that you're serving and be paid handsomely for it as well. We live in an amazing time
00:45:31.000 | where the opportunities are massive. So thank you so much for listening. If you have an
00:45:36.440 | idea for a show like this or you think, "Joshua, hey, I might be a great guest," I'd be happy
00:45:40.280 | to hear from you. I get solicited a lot of times from people looking for guests, and
00:45:44.200 | I'll tell you, many of the professional guests, I turn them away at this point. But when someone
00:45:49.320 | who's a listener reaches out to me and says, "Hey, I got this idea," I almost always say
00:45:55.040 | yes. So if you feel like you've got an interesting story to tell, you've got something you think
00:45:59.000 | would benefit the audience, I'm not looking for you to be world-renowned. I'm just looking
00:46:04.120 | for you to have useful ideas. So that's one of the things I love about podcasting is that's
00:46:07.960 | very democratizing. I don't have to have whoever just is out trotting the publicity circuit
00:46:14.360 | promoting their book. Nothing wrong with that. I'm happy to do that when I feel strongly
00:46:18.400 | about it, but that's not always the goal. I like to talk with normal people who would
00:46:23.200 | just like to have an opportunity to share because all of you listening have some area
00:46:27.880 | that you're an expert. Every single one of you is superior to me in some area, and you're
00:46:34.000 | superior to everyone in the show, in the audience in some area. So if you've got an idea for
00:46:37.800 | a show, reach out to me. Email me, joshua@radicalpersonalfinance.com. Always happy to hear from you.
00:46:43.160 | Finally as we go, thank you to those of you who support the show on Patreon. That is my
00:46:46.360 | core foundation of financial support for the show. Yes, I do the advertisers in the beginning,
00:46:50.920 | but still the core foundation is you. If you would like to support the show, if you've
00:46:54.400 | benefited from this content, please go to radicalpersonalfinance.com/patron. Sign up
00:46:58.440 | to support the show there at radicalpersonalfinance.com/patron. See you all soon.
00:47:03.240 | (upbeat music)
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