Happier Abroad Forum Community

Except Celery forgets that women in Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America already think you (EU or US Citizen) is maybe not filthy rich but "doing okay".

IE, you can easily afford the typical US/EU lifestyle (two cars, house, vacation and a couple of kids).

Its when you don't meet that, you either have a woman that will work with you to reach that goal, or one that will drop you for the next Westerner that comes along.

Maverick is right, those who make high 5, low 6 figures work 45-50-60 hours a week, when they don't own the business. You can make that kind of money with your own business but you have a have a good idea and execute.

Lack of capital is what kills young businesses. Its too expensive to start a business in America.

fschmidt wrote: I have been posting my investment ideas there. My last one was about silver. Note how the price of silver has gone up since then. My latest one is about a real estate company. Note how most posts there are complaining about something or other instead of judging the potential return on this investment. The bottom line is that most guys prefer complaining to working.

If you already have a lot of money you can theoretically afford to lose then there will always be a bunch of stuff you could invest in that would likely make money in the short term. In addition to silver and corporate-feudalist landlording there would be retirement villages and services for old people, service industries targeting single career whores, property development companies removing old, stand alone houses in appropriate cities and replacing them with townhouses or apartment blocks and so on. It is really not hard to think of these things. The thing is that most people are broke or soon will be anyway, so it is really a moot point.

The Professor wrote:

celery2010 wrote:

Teal Lantern wrote:

celery2010 wrote:Heck if Winston made 300K a year, heck even 100K a year in Asia, he'd be swimming in it. No need for him to struggle.
Of course, he WOULD need to spend some of it, on some nice suits and watches, a nice apartment/house and a luxury car. Take the girl out to nice restaurants. Even if he didn't find love, he'd get dates.

In countries like Thailand, the Philippines, Brazil, the Ukraine, etc, women marry guys for money. Trying to find good looking studs is more of a western thing. So why not focus on making more money?

As for the other responses, this is America, land of the entrepreneur. There should be more people on this forum talking about how to make more money and networking.

Stated differently, if Winston was in the top 1% of U.S. income earners, heck even top 5% of U.S. income earners, in Asia, he'd be swimming in it ...

(for the doubters)
http://www.irs.gov/uac/SOI-Tax-Stats-In ... Percentile

If i'm not mistaken, Winston has told us his income is just $1800 a month with this site. Maybe he has other sources of income, i have no idea, but given that he has been living with relatives and not on his own for the last several years, i would guess not.

If he instead focused on getting his income to $7K or $8K a month instead, he could have likely reached his goal, and would be "swimming in it" anywhere in China or SE Asia.

Yup, all he needs to do is literally quadruple his current income, because it's just that easy. It already seems like he's monetized this website as much as you can. It's already flooded with ads and he's selling that e-book. Maybe some adjustments can be made but nothing he can do to this website is going to increase his current income 4x.

How old are you? You talk like someone who's never actually lived in the adult world. A lot of young guys talk like you do about how easy it is to make money but years later they're still working at Subway or working some dead end office job if they're lucky, still clinging to their fantasies of riches. The only difference is they at least have some sort of half-baked idea, you're pretty much just saying "Winston should make lots and lots of money...somehow, it's easy!"

$1800 is an extremely low income for someone from a 1st world country. In the Bay Area, where Winston is from it is near poverty level. Cab drivers and waiters make more than $1800 a month.

Winston's been at this for close to a decade and has been waffling since his relationship with Dianne.
Here's just a few ideas off the top of my head:

1. Start a tour/travel service
2. Start a marriage introduction service
3. Purchase a hotel/restaurant/bar in a 3rd world country (upfront capital and risk is lower than in 1st world country)
4. Teach english
5. Expand his online presence
6. Start an online business

Due to location in Asia, and Winston's Asian background-- a number of possibilities
1. Translation
2. Import/Export
3. Ecommerce/trade
4. cross-cultural
5. Winston also has a Taiwanese passport, speaks Mandarin: a lot of possibilities

Or if he returned to the US:
1. Work as a salesman, sell cars, real estate
2. Invest, buy/sell real estate
3. Take any regular job that pays 50K plus his online income
4. Work as a waiter/bartender

^ So no real ideas then.

Maverick wrote:There are money-making opportunities everywhere.

Meh. I love capitalism, but it produces losers a lot more often than it produces winners.

Hero wrote:

Maverick wrote:There are money-making opportunities everywhere.

Meh. I love capitalism, but it produces losers a lot more often than it produces winners.

Capitalism , what are you talking about.

.

Going on what Ghost is saying, here's an article by a man who lives on $7,000 per year:

http://earlyretirementextreme.com/how-i ... -year.html

Maybe instead of focusing on making more and more money, we could change our focus
and learn how to live a modest but comfortable life with less.

Cornfed wrote:^ So no real ideas then.

Hahaha. Keep in mind, social security income alone is like $1400/month!!

For Winston, the obvious course of action is to expand his online personality/presence, do something happier abroad related, or do something that is online/foreign related.

Of course, there's other stuff that he (or anyone) can do, but that's for the individual to figure out. Everyone has to figure what their passion is, their matching skillset, and find a way to use networking to leverage that into a real, profitable business.

Honestly, i myself could also live on $1800, no problem, if it weren't for women. They need a nice house, kids to support, needs for nice stuff & annual vacations, retirement money, keeping up with the Joneses etc. In 1st world countries, 100K minimum, maybe 80K in Dallas, and 65K in Dayton, Ohio.

I think you will get further if you focus on providing value, rather than making money.

Maverick wrote:I think you will get further if you focus on providing value, rather than making money.

Is that how the bank works?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_sands
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale_ ... allocation


Canada has the world's largest known deposits of bituminous sands (oil sands), and US has the world's largest deposit of shale oil.

The proven oil reserves in Saudi is estimated at 267 billion barrels. In the US we have over 2 trillion barrels of shale oil from known sites, of which approx. 20% are economically recoverable (at profit) with current technology. 20% of 2 trillion barrels is 400 billion barrels. Optimistically, the Petro industry have claimed that up to 800 billion barrels may be extracted at profit with recent, new technology. That's a lot more than what Saudi Arabia has. 800 billion barrels is worth um, $65 trillion dollars (?).

We -- you, me, and everyone else in North America are sitting on a gold mine. It's up to you to decide if you want a piece of the pie, or not. If you're inclined to depend on living in an "up and up" area, have good family contacts, part of some favored demographic, having the right degree at the right time and place (like winning the lotto), you probably won't get a piece of the pie. If you want it, you have to put one foot in front of the other and chase it. There are numerous industries and supporting industries that benefit from the energy sector. After I got laid off from the financial industry in 2008, I took a pay cut & got a new gig in MRO sector, which supplies heavy industry. The MRO market for wind power alone is ~$9 billion/year, aviation ~$50 billion/year, and much much bigger for manufacturing, oil, and mining. Today I work for a company that provides auditing and contractor services to heavy industry and energy sector (need a crew for an off-shore oil platform? Can do!).

If anyone wants to take the same path that I took, you can look into MRO "hardware" jobs to start with companies like Hagamayer, MSC Industrial, Acklands Grainger, etc. There are also numerous MRO software service companies. This is for those who want to work in "supporting industries" and not actually on-site crew. If you want to work as an on-site crew, you should be aware of the risks and dangers of working next to one of these:



Ultimately, it's up to you to decide if you want to chase the money, or sit and hope that luck, family, or being in the right place at the right time will win the lotto, making poor excuses like "can anyone do..." or "will this industry provide jobs for everyone".


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maintenanc ... operations

In addition to the Oil Patch, the coal sector in the US is 25% of the world's reserve. Thus, there's also potential synfuel growth, if the extended fracking runs into roadblocks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel

I just want a brainless job where I can go on autopilot all day. Like shelf stocking. Or convenience store cashiering (as long as it's not busy). Anything but fast food again.

celery2010 wrote:We all know that getting rich, powerful or famous (or better yet, all three) works for practically all men in getting women.

Actually, I think I've been rather focused on becoming 'rich' or at least, financially independent but at the same time, living a balanced life. My thread on hanging out with a lesbian ex-classmate, boycotting "romantic" relationships, and seeing esc@rts for bodily relief, highlights how that lifestyle is lived.

viewtopic.php?t=19511

And then, if I do become a millionaire, I can transition into a Sugar Daddy/Sugar Baby lifestyle during my mid-40s and 50s.