The Netherlands is an excellent country to live and live in. Healthcare is among the best in the world, we have a large degree of freedom, and there is a good social safety net in case things go wrong for a while. Yet more and more Dutch people are emigrating or wishing to emigrate. Anyone who has an income in Euros and lives in a cheap country with a different currency can benefit greatly from this.
Cheap living but no social safety net
Suppose you have a job that earns you 2000 Euro net per month, and your boss asks you if you want to live in a cheap country for two years for work. If you like the country and you have no problems moving, then it would be very useful from a financial point of view to seize the opportunity with both hands. One problem, of course, is that most of us are not asked by our boss to live in a cheap foreign country for a number of years. However, there are also options to ensure that you can benefit from cheap life in a country with a currency other than the Euro. It is of course important that you do not have to take a job in the country where you are going to live. After all, you will be paid in the currency of the country and according to the rewards that are common there. Usually that is not a problem. In fact, you might even have to lead a rather poor existence. And if you accidentally become unemployed, there is no Dutch social safety net
Home equity
The best way to make a good living in a cheap country is to bring money with you or ensure that there is a fairly steady flow of euros or dollars coming your way. Of course, you can only bring a lot of money if you also have a lot of money. This does not always mean that you have to have capital in the bank. It may also be that you have a significant amount of equity in your house and can, for example, get a hundred thousand or several thousand euros from it. In many cheap countries you can get by very well for a few hundred euros per month. A hundred thousand euros is an amount that will last you a very long time, especially if you also manage to create a small source of income.
Ways to ensure a steady flow of money
Those who have no money are of course dependent on a constant flow of money. There are also creative ways to do this. Some examples:
Your own website
Start a website, make that website attractive to visitors, and place Google Ads advertisements on it. If over time you get thousands of visitors per day and a lot of people click on the advertisements, you will soon receive five to eight hundred euros transferred every month. That is of course a meager income in the Netherlands, but in cheap countries you can live very well on it. In the country where you are going to live, you can then simply continue filling and updating your website. Instead of Google Ads advertisements, you can of course also opt for affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing involves posting product information on your site for companies. If visitors to your site then order from those companies, you will receive a commission on the order. These commissions are usually much higher than the amounts that Google Ads pays for clicks. However, you do have to promote successful products on your site to generate a nice cash flow.
InfoNu
If you don’t feel like managing a website yourself, you can also write for InfoNu. In this internet library, the informative articles are written by ordinary people who have fun and informative things to say. Addictive fun to do, and you slowly but surely build up a database of articles that gradually increases your readership. You get the reward just like when you have your own website through Google Ads advertisements. A condition is of course that you have sufficient writing skills to write articles of acceptable quality. Moreover, you will of course only get many visitors if your articles are distinctive and interesting in terms of content. Creating a cash flow in this way can take a long time. Unless you write articles that attract a lot of traffic, you will still need to write at least 100 articles to make a reasonable income. However, it is an ongoing achievement.
Network Marketing
If you are not good with websites, nor can you write very well, but you are socially skilled, there is another nice option to create a constant flow of money, namely network marketing. Network marketing is a way for consumer products companies to promote products without the involvement of retail companies. The promotion is done by private individuals, through word of mouth advertising. Companies that distribute their products in this way save enormously on advertising and margins that would otherwise go to wholesale and retail. This allows them to give the so-called (private) distributors or network marketers a generous reward. Network marketing usually does not require keeping inventory. Customer orders are placed directly with the company with a unique number from the distributor. The distributor receives commission on the orders.
Also committee on deeper layers
One of the very interesting aspects of network marketing is that the distributor also receives a commission on the sales of the distributors under him. In some systems this continues indefinitely. The reward then has the following structure: the distributor registers two new distributors, who in turn register four new distributors, the four new distributors register eight new distributors, etc. etc. And the first distributor receives a commission on the were beneath him. When a distributor works hard for a long time, his income can grow quickly. But what is very important for someone who is going to live abroad, it provides a constant flow of money. Usually in dollars because the companies that distribute their products through network marketing are often based in the US.
Expansion of network in new country of establishment
A disadvantage of network marketing is that when the distributor moves abroad, he cannot continue to physically support his distributors in the Netherlands. However, once the layers beneath him are functioning properly, guidance can also be provided via Skype, telephone or email from abroad. In addition, the distributor can also further expand its network in its new home country. Not everyone will find it easy to be successful with network marketing. There are network marketers who earn tens of thousands of dollars per month. However, there are also many who do not get further than an income of between 500 and 1500 euros. However, that is more than enough to lead a comfortable life in countries where life is many times cheaper than in the Netherlands. Please note that the company whose products you are promoting must be able to deliver to the country where you are going to settle, otherwise you will not be able to continue your activities.
Freedom
Of course, these three ways to create a cash flow don’t offer a true rentier existence. In all three cases you must remain active to maintain the flow of money. Update and promote the website, write new contributions for InfoNu, create new customers for your network. However, it does offer you the opportunity to build an existence where you are free to live in a cheap country of your choice, and to manage your own time and work when you want. And especially with network marketing, if you work hard you can create an income that allows you to really live like a king in a cheap country.
Additional research
If you manage to build up a cash flow that gives you the freedom to live elsewhere, the question naturally arises as to where it is good to live. First, you can make a list of a number of countries that you prefer based on their location, climate, political situation and culture. It is then very fun and fascinating to search for information about the countries in question via the internet. Via Google Earth you can find a lot of visual information about the regions, cities, landscapes, etc. By Googling restaurants followed by a place name, you will find a lot of information about the local cuisine and you will also know what the current prices are. For example, under house for sale and a place name or the name of a country, you will find information about the current state of real estate in a country. In some countries you can buy a beautiful house for ten or twenty thousand euros, sometimes even with a swimming pool. If you do not have a budget for this, it is useful to search under house for rent. By searching under the terms supermarket and a place name in a specific country you get a very good up-to-date picture of the prices of living. It sometimes takes some work to convert everything, but it is very important to know what the current state of affairs is. Once you have chosen a country, it is useful to request detailed information from an embassy.
Social network
An important reason not to move abroad may be that you do not want/cannot say goodbye to your social network. That is indeed a good reason not to do it. Yet there is also a plaster for the wound here. Making friends is a lot easier in many other countries than in the Netherlands, as a study by the international bank HSBC showed in 2009. HSBC asked 50,000 customers about their experiences abroad. The research showed that expats believe that the Netherlands and Belgium are among the most difficult countries when it comes to making friends and creating a social network. In Asian countries, purchasing friendships turned out to be easiest. Of those interviewed, 23% had experienced feelings of loneliness abroad . The main benefits of staying abroad were financial.