How can I change my life dramatically? I feel stagnant.

[Trello]

I have about $4k in savings. What country should I move to if I want to change my life dramatically (financially and otherwise)? I'm African.

I know my question may sound absurd, but I need ideas on what to do. And I think an entirely new environment may be the answer to unlock new opportunities.

 

[kkein]

My recommendation would be to not move anywhere illegally. If you do not want to end up enslaved by some organized crime, that is. This said, i read today China marked a +18% year over year growth on its economy..

 

[Sols]

Depending on what African citizenship you hold (and languages spoken), you might be able to relocate quite freely within Africa and try life in different parts of the continent.

$4,000 lasts you a lot longer in most of African than in most of for example nearby Europe or Middle East. It is not enough to qualify for any kind of investor/entrepreneurship visa. You can try applying for regular jobs, though, and get a work permit that way to get out.

 

[Gleam]

I have about $4k in savings. What country should I move to if I want to change my life dramatically (financially and otherwise)? I'm African.

I know my question may sound absurd, but I need ideas on what to do. And I think an entirely new environment may be the answer to unlock new opportunities.

 

[Golden Fleece]

I have about $4k in savings. What country should I move to if I want to change my life dramatically (financially and otherwise)? I'm African.

I know my question may sound absurd, but I need ideas on what to do. And I think an entirely new environment may be the answer to unlock new opportunities.

Africa has a huge untapped market. The capital that you have accumulated will go a long way in most of Africa. Just find a need and then fill it. Start small and build your business cautiously. For example, many Americans move to Latin America and introduce business models that are quite common in the U.S. (e.g., delivery services) but that are very uncommon in Latin America. In the U.S., there is tremendous competition, but in Latin America there may absolutely no competition at all for the very same goods or services.

Find something with a proven track record in the U.S. or Europe and bring it to Africa. You will make yourself wealthy and also do a great service for the locals who have a real need for what you have. The problem is finding a niche where people have disposable income.

 

[EuroKiss]

Even if it seems difficult to believe that, Africa is growing at a good pace, and more and more opportunities are popping out all around African markets. I suggest you to check what Chineses are doing in your country or countries close to yours, and see what kind of product/services are introducing - or requiring from local suppliers! What must be avoid? Don’t fell in the trap of the mafia NGO business and don’t move illegally to Europe.

 

[Gleam]

U ryt Euro.Any paying website u know??
What can I do online rather than scrolling on social media

 

[EuroKiss]

U ryt Euro.Any paying website u know??
What can I do online rather than scrolling on social media

None unfortunely since I am geographically focused on other emerging market (Latin America specifically). But you should find a lot of information online, of course opportunities change a lot depending on your country, we don’t even know if you are from North (Arab countries) or central/south Africa (very different economies). Good thing in Africa 4K is enough capital to start a real business (financial services are growing a lot, remittance, and e-commerce is booming since it is pretty much new and has low competition - and it drags other collateral biz like logistics for example).

 

[Gleam]

Am from the east.... Anything u can join me in Euro????make me one of them.

 

[tyrexoid]

Well I spent about 8 months in Thailand with 9k$ back in 2011. You can live in Chiang Mai or Chiang Rai renting a place for 100$ a month (there are smaller local places down to 60-80$ a month but it'll be a slum). It's even possible to relax on some Islands like Koh Chang, for up to a year, with this budget (well you'll probably waste 50% of it for flight tickets... but you could earn something in Thailand, just do a research on the forums, people do various types of work like tour guides, it might be slightly illegal to work as a tour guides but the top penalty is deportation lol which means free tickets back home? ). I know many Russians who had same budgets as you, and went travelling... Just learn as skill you can earn income with, on upwork.com / freelancer.com / fiverr.com / etc' and you can earn 5-10$/hour doing stuff like writing texts/articles on any topic, drawing something, maybe 3D modelling but it's more difficult, video editing and photoshop, even manual QA (Homepage - TesterWork) where you just repetitively test applications and report bugs, it can be paid nicely and people use such jobs to start from scratch. I personally was Flash games developer and started from nothing after school, basically same situation as yours - in 2006, finished high school, no university degree, just learned Flash and scripting online within a year, started making banners/websites/games earning barely 500-800$ a month. Now I live and work in San Francisco with 15000$/month salary and it's all just hard work and dedication (well not THAT hard work, I never spent more than like 10-12 hours a day, in my worst days, working on something difficult).

Your best bet is of course online jobs like design, data analytics (Tableau/Big Data), scripting (python/javascript), QA (manual work with apps, easiest entry job), even gaming QA, to play games and report bugs both fun and profit. Just need to look for it, read a lot online about what other people do for a living online, look at all categories on Fiverr - there are even these who do a funny dance or funny voices and sell it for 5-10$ a piece some birthday greetings and such, even paintings and drawings with personal message - people buy it as a gift for someone else since it's a personal performance it's kinda cool.

Good luck I wish you the best ))

 

[Rprox]

@

Well I spent about 8 months in Thailand with 9k$ back in 2011. You can live in Chiang Mai or Chiang Rai renting a place for 100$ a month (there are smaller local places down to 60-80$ a month but it'll be a slum). It's even possible to relax on some Islands like Koh Chang, for up to a year, with this budget (well you'll probably waste 50% of it for flight tickets... but you could earn something in Thailand, just do a research on the forums, people do various types of work like tour guides, it might be slightly illegal to work as a tour guides but the top penalty is deportation lol which means free tickets back home? ). I know many Russians who had same budgets as you, and went travelling... Just learn as skill you can earn income with, on upwork.com / freelancer.com / fiverr.com / etc' and you can earn 5-10$/hour doing stuff like writing texts/articles on any topic, drawing something, maybe 3D modelling but it's more difficult, video editing and photoshop, even manual QA (Homepage - TesterWork) where you just repetitively test applications and report bugs, it can be paid nicely and people use such jobs to start from scratch. I personally was Flash games developer and started from nothing after school, basically same situation as yours - in 2006, finished high school, no university degree, just learned Flash and scripting online within a year, started making banners/websites/games earning barely 500-800$ a month. Now I live and work in San Francisco with 15000$/month salary and it's all just hard work and dedication (well not THAT hard work, I never spent more than like 10-12 hours a day, in my worst days, working on something difficult).

Your best bet is of course online jobs like design, data analytics (Tableau/Big Data), scripting (python/javascript), QA (manual work with apps, easiest entry job), even gaming QA, to play games and report bugs both fun and profit. Just need to look for it, read a lot online about what other people do for a living online, look at all categories on Fiverr - there are even these who do a funny dance or funny voices and sell it for 5-10$ a piece some birthday greetings and such, even paintings and drawings with personal message - people buy it as a gift for someone else since it's a personal performance it's kinda cool.

Good luck I wish you the best ))

@tyrexoid, helpful post thanks. I am researching this and looking for the best and cheapest formation service options that are available, whether I should dodge tax or just do this from a non tax dodging standpoint is the question. This forum has been very helpful but some fornation services are really expensive. Upwork is a good point but my application was rejected so many times and toptal seems to have high expected pass criteria. Definitely good at my skillset and have mailed so many formation service agencies and their costs seems to outweigh the benefits of starting-off small like me as a freelancer and having the right qualifications and experience, its an investment but the fact that I wont be able to recoup those costs in a year is kind demotivating, feel like my time is running out and taking way long to make a move to form my mini single person startup. Thanks for your post and spare some more pointers please.

 

[Rprox]

In my first year of establishing my company I do not want the need to travel as these expenses are not built into my seed as I will remain in my resident country for a while, I do not want to be forced to travel to submit legal documentation manually. I do not want to be liable for extensive annual fees and compliance costs if I do not receive any work for the first few months. I do however want something cheap, once off and transparrent which complies with all jurisdiction and tax laws, this makes it difficult for me to take the next step.

 

[tyrexoid]

@

@tyrexoid, helpful post thanks. I am researching this and looking for the best and cheapest formation service options that are available, whether I should dodge tax or just do this from a non tax dodging standpoint is the question. This forum has been very helpful but some fornation services are really expensive. Upwork is a good point but my application was rejected so many times and toptal seems to have high expected pass criteria. Definitely good at my skillset and have mailed so many formation service agencies and their costs seems to outweigh the benefits of starting-off small like me as a freelancer and having the right qualifications and experience, its an investment but the fact that I wont be able to recoup those costs in a year is kind demotivating, feel like my time is running out and taking way long to make a move to form my mini single person startup. Thanks for your post and spare some more pointers please.

ehmm, not sure what do you mean by formation, a 'company' like LLC or something? well I never had one... I always was registering on all these freelance websites as 'myself' individually. Also after you make first tasks with some customers to build/create something, you can settle payments with them directly, they can pay with paypal, payoneer, and today also crypto. There are many crypto debit cards like crypto.com, wirexapp.com, blockcard (Ternio project), etc'. Payments that are made in crypto to these cards (crypto wallet addresses usually) you can use anywhere Visa is accepted. I had a Payoneer mastercard or visa, don't remember already, but it was what I used most.
regarding taxes, depends on the country, but most places won't even try to go after your taxes if you're in a middle-class range of income and are a 'tourist' (like I was in Thailand, and many places in Asia at the time) since trying to get something from and enforce some of their local tax laws on you, is more expensive than the amount they get from it. But if you're making tens of thousands a month and staying very long in a country, becoming their tax resident, it's a different story. But the issue is, in freelance, you're most likely to make some 2k-5k income a month, and for these amounts nobody cares, tax authorities really don't care about the small folks, based on my experience and the fact I never bothered to pay any taxes in any countries during a period of 5-6 years freelancing lol. Not saying it's a good idea, since things change over years and it's also very individual case by case issue, but I wouldn't worry too much, when my income is barely even taxable since it's so small. If your income is high and you're a tasty piece for the tax man, then start to worry (a little bit).

 

[tyrexoid]

In my first year of establishing my company I do not want the need to travel as these expenses are not built into my seed as I will remain in my resident country for a while, I do not want to be forced to travel to submit legal documentation manually. I do not want to be liable for extensive annual fees and compliance costs if I do not receive any work for the first few months. I do however want something cheap, once off and transparrent which complies with all jurisdiction and tax laws, this makes it difficult for me to take the next step.

just saw your second part of the message. You might want to try the Estonian E-residency? I got this ID card for 100 Eur, it's really simple to apply and get one. Then you can make legal entities for some 100-200$ as I saw on various digital nomad blogs. I used it to make some non-profit and tried to raise money 3 years ago lol but nothing worked out, but I have the card as a souvenir. Might need to use it one day, it seems like a good idea to have Estonian company and use it for banking in Europe I guess. But for banking they ask you to come in person so I was unable to make local Estonian bank account (still can use TransferWise for various needs so no big deal).

 

[Rprox]

ehmm, not sure what do you mean by formation, a 'company' like LLC or something? well I never had one... I always was registering on all these freelance websites as 'myself' individually. Also after you make first tasks with some customers to build/create something, you can settle payments with them directly, they can pay with paypal, payoneer, and today also crypto. There are many crypto debit cards like crypto.com, wirexapp.com, blockcard (Ternio project), etc'. Payments that are made in crypto to these cards (crypto wallet addresses usually) you can use anywhere Visa is accepted. I had a Payoneer mastercard or visa, don't remember already, but it was what I used most.
regarding taxes, depends on the country, but most places won't even try to go after your taxes if you're in a middle-class range of income and are a 'tourist' (like I was in Thailand, and many places in Asia at the time) since trying to get something from and enforce some of their local tax laws on you, is more expensive than the amount they get from it. But if you're making tens of thousands a month and staying very long in a country, becoming their tax resident, it's a different story. But the issue is, in freelance, you're most likely to make some 2k-5k income a month, and for these amounts nobody cares, tax authorities really don't care about the small folks, based on my experience and the fact I never bothered to pay any taxes in any countries during a period of 5-6 years freelancing lol. Not saying it's a good idea, since things change over years and it's also very individual case by case issue, but I wouldn't worry too much, when my income is barely even taxable since it's so small. If your income is high and you're a tasty piece for the tax man, then start to worry (a little bit).

ehmm, not sure what do you mean by formation, a 'company' like LLC or something? well I never had one... I always was registering on all these freelance websites as 'myself' individually. Also after you make first tasks with some customers to build/create something, you can settle payments with them directly, they can pay with paypal, payoneer, and today also crypto. There are many crypto debit cards like crypto.com, wirexapp.com, blockcard (Ternio project), etc'. Payments that are made in crypto to these cards (crypto wallet addresses usually) you can use anywhere Visa is accepted. I had a Payoneer mastercard or visa, don't remember already, but it was what I used most.
regarding taxes, depends on the country, but most places won't even try to go after your taxes if you're in a middle-class range of income and are a 'tourist' (like I was in Thailand, and many places in Asia at the time) since trying to get something from and enforce some of their local tax laws on you, is more expensive than the amount they get from it. But if you're making tens of thousands a month and staying very long in a country, becoming their tax resident, it's a different story. But the issue is, in freelance, you're most likely to make some 2k-5k income a month, and for these amounts nobody cares, tax authorities really don't care about the small folks, based on my experience and the fact I never bothered to pay any taxes in any countries during a period of 5-6 years freelancing lol. Not saying it's a good idea, since things change over years and it's also very individual case by case issue, but I wouldn't worry too much, when my income is barely even taxable since it's so small. If your income is high and you're a tasty piece for the tax man, then start to worry (a little bit).

ehmm, not sure what do you mean by formation, a 'company' like LLC or something? well I never had one... I always was registering on all these freelance websites as 'myself' individually. Also after you make first tasks with some customers to build/create something, you can settle payments with them directly, they can pay with paypal, payoneer, and today also crypto. There are many crypto debit cards like crypto.com, wirexapp.com, blockcard (Ternio project), etc'. Payments that are made in crypto to these cards (crypto wallet addresses usually) you can use anywhere Visa is accepted. I had a Payoneer mastercard or visa, don't remember already, but it was what I used most.
regarding taxes, depends on the country, but most places won't even try to go after your taxes if you're in a middle-class range of income and are a 'tourist' (like I was in Thailand, and many places in Asia at the time) since trying to get something from and enforce some of their local tax laws on you, is more expensive than the amount they get from it. But if you're making tens of thousands a month and staying very long in a country, becoming their tax resident, it's a different story. But the issue is, in freelance, you're most likely to make some 2k-5k income a month, and for these amounts nobody cares, tax authorities really don't care about the small folks, based on my experience and the fact I never bothered to pay any taxes in any countries during a period of 5-6 years freelancing lol. Not saying it's a good idea, since things change over years and it's also very individual case by case issue, but I wouldn't worry too much, when my income is barely even taxable since it's so small. If your income is high and you're a tasty piece for the tax man, then start to worry (a little bit).

ehmm, not sure what do you mean by formation, a 'company' like LLC or something? well I never had one... I always was registering on all these freelance websites as 'myself' individually. Also after you make first tasks with some customers to build/create something, you can settle payments with them directly, they can pay with paypal, payoneer, and today also crypto. There are many crypto debit cards like crypto.com, wirexapp.com, blockcard (Ternio project), etc'. Payments that are made in crypto to these cards (crypto wallet addresses usually) you can use anywhere Visa is accepted. I had a Payoneer mastercard or visa, don't remember already, but it was what I used most.
regarding taxes, depends on the country, but most places won't even try to go after your taxes if you're in a middle-class range of income and are a 'tourist' (like I was in Thailand, and many places in Asia at the time) since trying to get something from and enforce some of their local tax laws on you, is more expensive than the amount they get from it. But if you're making tens of thousands a month and staying very long in a country, becoming their tax resident, it's a different story. But the issue is, in freelance, you're most likely to make some 2k-5k income a month, and for these amounts nobody cares, tax authorities really don't care about the small folks, based on my experience and the fact I never bothered to pay any taxes in any countries during a period of 5-6 years freelancing lol. Not saying it's a good idea, since things change over years and it's also very individual case by case issue, but I wouldn't worry too much, when my income is barely even taxable since it's so small. If your income is high and you're a tasty piece for the tax man, then start to worry (a little bit).

Thanks @tyrexoid, this is very helpful. Apologies, what i mean by formation service is the agency that offers the service to help me for a Limited Company, I am new to this so I may use the terminology interchangeably. Really good points thank you especially regarding the tax residency.

 

[Rprox]

just saw your second part of the message. You might want to try the Estonian E-residency? I got this ID card for 100 Eur, it's really simple to apply and get one. Then you can make legal entities for some 100-200$ as I saw on various digital nomad blogs. I used it to make some non-profit and tried to raise money 3 years ago lol but nothing worked out, but I have the card as a souvenir. Might need to use it one day, it seems like a good idea to have Estonian company and use it for banking in Europe I guess. But for banking they ask you to come in person so I was unable to make local Estonian bank account (still can use TransferWise for various needs so no big deal).

@tyrexoid, I will look into estonia also for the E-residency card as you suggested. I will educate myself on this a little more and I have been to their site where one can apply for it, I think whats scared me about estonia is that based on some report online , some ' offshore ' companies were seized a few years ago