| 17 January 2009
This is a question that was recently posed to me by a travel and lifestyle
website, that, oddly, didn’t seem to offer up any answer. So, being an
eternal optimist who lives free offshore, I decided to set about answering it
for myself.
One good thing coming out of the recession is that it is making people question
their lifestyle choices, and forcing radical changes on people. You might have
been putting off something you really wanted to do for years, for example, because
of pressure of work or lack of time. Then, suddenly, you lose your job and you
are free to realize your dream! Ironic, huh?
Of course, in real life things aren’t that simple. But on the other hand,
we often make things too complicated. Always ask yourself why. Things that have
just come to be accepted as fact often need to be challenged. And right now
we are all facing challenges. It is up to us to make the best of them, and that
will probably involve doing something new and different.
Remember that in the years following the great depression in the 1930s, many
of America’s greatest fortunes were made, and family dynasties were created
that survive till this day. I believe that over the coming two or three years,
many new fortunes will be created. The people who become rich will not be ‘lucky.’
They will be creative entrepreneurs who saw opportunities and reacted. People
who are open minded. In fact, a lot of it comes down to common sense. And most
of those fortunes will not be made in the USA or the UK. They will be made (at
least on paper) in places like Panama, the Cayman Islands or Taiwan.
They say that “travel broadens the mind” and talking from personal
experience I can say that is very true. You see that in different cultures and
countries, there are different ways of doing the same thing, that work just
as well. As you gain experience of the world, you just begin to see opportunities
that never occur to people who stay at home watching soap operas.
One popular misconception, for example, is that travel is expensive. It’s
not. Add up what you spend right now on rent, mortgage, food, car etc, then
compare it with what it would cost you to rent an apartment in – for sake
of argument – Panama City, Panama (by no means the cheapest location,
but one with plenty of first world amenities). I think one person could live
a comfortable middle class lifestyle in a nice apartment, eating out in good
restaurants most days, for $1,500 monthly. For $2,500 you could live like a
king. For $750 you could live perfectly acceptably.
I mention Panama not by coincidence, but because I’ve known a number
of people who have moved there. Another friend doesn’t like the noise
of big cities, so he moved to an idyllic cool mountain house, in a private gated
community an hour and a half outside Panama City and forty minutes from the
beach, that he rents for $750 per month with his wife and two kids. They live
on fresh and natural local produce. My friend runs his business from there over
the internet. These are real people, and if you have need of computer security
solutions (as every business that handles money online does) you can probably
even go visit him there and enjoy a good cup of Panamanian coffee. And of course,
since his clients are not Panamanians, he doesn’t have to worry about
income or corporation taxes of any sort.
The internet, of course, allows you to run an ‘ideas’ business
like that from anywhere. A new concept for me, for example, was running an onshore
real estate business from offshore over the internet.
So to return to our original question, you just don’t need a million
in the bank to be free, to be your own boss. There are millions of businesses
out there you can start with no money down, and many of them can be run from
a laptop, with the paperwork and banking elements all secured in an offshore
tax haven.
There are thousands of desirable places around the world where you can live
and run your business – quite possibly for less money than your current
lifestyle is costing. Many of them are offshore. Even if you end up with a few
less material benefits, you will buy peace of mind, freedom from stress. Going
offshore is no longer about hiding money – it is about creating wealth
in an environment that is free from burdensome over-regulation. Real free markets.
This applies not to just to financial services, but to so many other fields
of endeavour too.
And most importantly, by freeing up your mind’s creativity, by living
free and hopefully debt-free, you reduce or eliminate the stress and worry that
I’ll bet are the biggest factors holding you back right now. So if you
feel it’s time to change, then go for it! Don’t wait until you have
a million in the bank, or you might never get there!
Peter Macfarlane is joint editor of The Q Wealth Report
an established newsletter dedicated to informing readers about international
banking, living, asset protection and wealth creation in a secure offshore
environment.
You have been reading an entry on the following blog:
The Q Wealth Report
Peter Macfarlane of The Q Wealth Report blogs on Freedom, Wealth and Privacy
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