Summary
This post is about how I started concrete preparation for the digital lifestyle.
I was definitely planned in Excel. I created the first of the many spreadsheets needed for preparation on December 5th. That was when the Todoist project called “my future” was completed and that was when I created the directory structure on my laptop with the same name.
Even earlier, on December 1st, I did something I rarely do: I just started searching the Internet. I looked up the requirements for working in Hawaii. I would have registered for the US Green Card Lottery that day if the registration period hadn’t just closed.
When it comes to gathering information, Google is not the only friend I have, but of course AI is too. In recent weeks, I have been regularly nagging about my plans.
With the help of AI, I found out how many countries there are on Earth, that is, how many destination countries I can choose. This list has already been included in the spreadsheet. The AI also whispered that yes, there are lists that rank countries, such as the Human Development Index (HDI), Mercer Quality of Living Survey, OECD Better Life Index, World Happiness Report. I downloaded the Human Development Index or World Happiness Report ranking of a given country into Excel, along with the country lists. After all, it doesn’t matter how happy the developed country I’m going to is. Then I got a list that shows how I can enter a given country with a Hungarian passport, and finally I also added the continent on which the given country is. Just in case I don’t know. I’ll show you this Excel table.
In the meantime, I continued my search, where I was able to find such useful information:
Many international job search portals now specialize specifically in location-independent jobs.
A characteristic of the freelance lifestyle is getting work from freelance platforms.
- https://www.upwork.com/
- https://www.freelancer.com/
- https://www.fiverr.com/
- https://www.toptal.com/.
Source: https://features.hu/digitalis-nomad
It takes days, even weeks, to process the results of such searches. So the list of specific things to do, to see, to answer grows bigger every day.
I signed up for quite a few sites without thinking. I signed up for free courses. I have been receiving daily tasks and daily videos for a week. I do these with honor, increasing the number of Excel tables and Todoist entries.
I created a budget table, which I have already designed so that it can perform cross-calculations with current USD, EUR and any freely chosen currency exchange rate. Now I know what my salary in Hungary is in USD, or even in EUR. I know how much money I need to cover my expenses in Hungary, and what is the salary that would fill me with satisfaction.
On December 17th, I paid the one-time 100 USD entry fee to nomads.com. This social site provides so much information about nearly 1,400 settlements (e.g. public safety, price of a pint of beer, quality of wifi, monthly living expenses, type of electrical outlet, specific job offers, etc.) that at first I didn’t know what to do with the sight. However, I already know that there is a country where you can live on 350 USD per month…
I started planning the future of my business in Hungary, and at the same time, my thoughts are constantly on the construction of a possible digital nomad business. I collect business ideas, assess my own abilities, involving, for example, good friends and family in this work.
I pay attention to all task-like things in the information sources I read and the lectures and podcasts I listen to, and I constantly shape and expand the tasks to be completed. I also asked the artificial intelligence to create an action plan for me for living abroad. It was from it that I first heard that I would have to deal with my driver’s license and driving abroad separately, and it also drew my attention to the importance of foreign insurance, for example.
With each click, with each video I watch, I move higher and higher in the information sphere.
In the future, I plan to write a more detailed article about each subtask.