How to survive when your broke, tips and tricks.

 

Recently in in this new recession corona virus times most or many people lost their jobs and had to make adjustments. One of the adjustments was they have to get used to a higher cost of living in the United States or many parts in Western Europe.

One of those costs is higher rents and higher food prices. 

This article is meant for people to have a strategy before a crisis happens or they are made homeless or something like that.

Have a plan B. 

In my case I always like to live in the cheaper parts of the world so, if I have to live on my saving for awhile I can live cheap, find work online or offline and still afford to pay my rent and buy groceries and live a decent life.

One example of this was when I lived in the United States in Iowa and my rent was 175.00USD in one of the Northern Iowa regions, now that rent would be closer to 250.00 USD. It was a big apartment and not really a hardship to live in and it was a really small town and a mellow place to live and I got a job as a welder in one of the near small towns.

It was a cool place to live although not much to do. I mad 13.00 bucks an hour, which although not much was enough to pay my rent save some money and plan some travels overseas.

In my case I have a list of places I can go to to live cheap either in the United States or south of the border in Mexico or Guatemala. I have rented small studios for anywhere from 150.00USD to 300USD although for 300USD you can rent a small house with a place to park your car, at least in Guatemala you can and even in some places in Mexico.

So I am always willing to move and rent a small studio, and if I am really broke am willing to just rent a room in a house from 50USd to say 100USD, I even rented a room in Lima, Peru for 90USD a month but that was 2 years ago.

I always have some emergency saving in gold and silver coins and nowadays I would include Bitcoin in that mix. The reason I do is at least in my case I normally wont sell a gold coin unless I am really hard up for cash so that always leaves me with at least some resources at my disposal, its the same with Bitcoin.

Gold is very marketable almost in any part of the world so, if for example I am in Mexico and I need cash I just go to the coin stores and sell some gold or I go to the jewelry stores hint, if you have a hard time getting a good price on your gold just go to a jewelry store and many times you will get the current gold price.

Its the same with Bitcoin, in fact its easy to sell Bitcoin and have the money deposited to your account or your lawyers account then you can just send it to your ATM account and withdraw anywhere in the world you find yourself.

So say you have 10K USD in your ATM account you can at least last a year before running out of money, you could live in Asia or Latin America on 800USD a month and have a year to work on building up your business or working at an online job.

Speaking of working online. You should always have at least 2 online accounts set up before you need them. Assuming your in the USA have at least one account at a large bank that has low fees to withdraw your money overseas like Charles Shaub bank. Then have another account set up to send money back and forth to Charles Shaub account to get the ATM fees reimbursed to your account.

I would have both accounts set up with PayPal so you can send and receive money from clients and pay all your bills online. I would have 2 or more accounts that can send and receive money from clients and all your banks in case one account gets flagged and then you can at least move the money to the other account and use the ATM card from the other account so you are not without money when your overseas.

I would at least have one or two credit cards just in case you get into a jam and need emergency money to get home or have to pay some unforeseen expense and not end up homeless on the street some where in the USA or overseas. Of course it goes without saying never keep a balance on those accounts until you have an actual emergency, just pay the balance off every month if you use them for points or convivence.

The most important thing to consider is to have a plan before the crisis occurs and then work your plan when the crisis occurs. Also have a willingness to be flexible and get out of your comfort zone and do things you have never dome before. Like for example, work online in sales and live overseas to get a lower cost of living and build up your savings.

Thats it for now, if you have any tips leave a comment, thanks.

Best bugout bag for travel.

 

My favorite bug out bags for travel are the back packs from Timbuk2, they are located in San Francisco, California.

Go here for their Website.

The Timbuk2 Tuck and Roll bag is my favorite.

Its the perfect bag for travel mainly because I can pack a lot of stuff into this small bag and easily carry it on the plane as a carry on.

Its also easy to stow under a bus seat or in the rack above the seats. As a budget traveler, I like to pack lite and not carry much, its a great bag to carry just enough to travel. It has room enough for a few pairs of wool shirts, underwear, and socks, and space for my toiletry bag.

The bag itself is light weight and has a top end part of the bag you can roll up or down if you need more space for your stuff. It also has a secret pocket in the bag that you can see from the outside, its a small pocket but nice to have if you want to stash a little cash.

It also has a nice zipper on the outside you can unzip to easily take out your laptop Chromebook, or small laptop.

It has just enough space for all my gadgets so I can live work or play out of this bag.

Go here for a review of this bag.

Bitcoin is changing how we send money overseas.

 Bitcoin is changing how we send money overseas.

Bitcoin is now changing how we send remittance's overseas or even how we send money to loved ones using MoneyGram or even Western Union. In the good ole days we paid 20% of a transaction to send money to our loved ones in the Philippines or Mexico sense then the fees have dropped on half in many cases but are still high compared to using Bitcoin or other Crypto currencies. 

Crypto currency can be sent fast than traditional methods using Swift.

For migrant workers who frequently send money across borders to support their families, the minimal transaction costs of cryptocurrency exchanges beat exorbitant transaction fees of traditional money wire companies like Western Union and MoneyGram, whose dominance of the remittances market has long troubled international development institutions concerned with economic growth. Cryptocurrency transactions are faster than official currency transfers, which require working through banks reliant on SWIFT, the sluggish, half-century-old interbank messaging system that handles cross-border payments.

According to this article there is record use of sending money overseas using Crypto, Go here for chart and article

Crypto currency is also being used to get around U.S Sanctions.

Cryptocurrency exchanges also avoid the political complications of official channels. They have been used to skirt US sanctions to access international payments and financial markets, and by unofficial migrant workers who lack access to local banks. The global reach of cryptocurrencies avoids the inflation risk inherent to official currencies, especially in politically unstable countries reliant on fickle foreign investors.

So far Latin America is the regions most affected by use of Crypto currency and time will tell if this trend continues.

The good news is Crypto currency and Bitcoin is forcing the legacy money transfer companies to lower their fees and to compete. The banks so far have resisted lowering their fees, in time they may need to lower their fees to compete or lobby the Governments of the world to regulate or shut down their competitors. Time will tell how it all works out for holders and users of Bitcoin and Crypto currency.

Go here for full article.

Margin debt is at all time highs, signaling a market collapse.

Margin debt is money investors borrow using there stocks as collateral. Margin debt is at an all time high.

The rise and fall of margin debt parallels the rise and fall of the stock market. Most of the time margin debt peaks right before a stock market falls or collapse. Then when Margin debt is at an all time low the stock market starts recovering and begins a long rebound.

Here is a chart from Wolf Richter.

Go here for his full article

Richter says we are in a stock market mania.

Margin debt – the amount that individuals and institutions borrow against their stock holdings as tracked by FINRA at its member brokerage firms – is just one indication of stock market leverage. But FINRA reports it monthly. Other types of stock market leverage are not reported at all, or are disclosed only piecemeal in SEC filings by brokers and banks that lend to their clients against their portfolios, such as Securities-Based Loans (SBLs). No one knows how much total stock market leverage there is. But margin debt shows the trend.

In February, margin debt jumped by another $15 billion to $813 billion, according to FINRA. Over the past four months, margin debt has soared by $154 billion, a historic surge to historic highs. Compared to February last year, margin debt has skyrocketed by $269 billion, or by nearly 50%

He says margin debt is high, for example Fidelity charges 8.325% on balances of less than 25,000USD. Morgan Stanley charges 7.75% for balances below 100,000. If you have 50 million or more Morgan Stanley charges 3.375.

Leverage usually blows ups accounts and the dream of riches that went with it. The reason account blow up is because most of the time stock markets eventually go down and at the first sign of trouble brokers raise rates and margin requirements to hold those kinds of accounts and most investors cant meet the new requirements.

Here Mr. Richter says.

Leverage is the great accelerator of stock prices, on the way up, and on the way down. Purchasing stocks with borrowed money creates buying pressure, and prices rise, and rising prices increase the margin balances a portfolio can support, and this encourages more stock-buying on margin.

On the other hand, selling stocks to deal with margin calls adds more selling pressure to an already declining market. The more prices fall, the more selling pressure there is from frazzled forced sellers trying to deal with margin requirements.

And then he says.

The historic surge in margin balances in recent months is another indicator of how hyper-speculative and blindly courageous the mega-bubble has become. All kinds of new theories are being proffered why fundamentals and valuations are meaningless, and why prices of all assets will shoot to the moon, no matter what.

I think its not different this time and we will see a big selloff soon, maybe this Fall or sooner buckle up its going to be a wild ride.

John Hussman, says markets are in the greatest bubble in history and could crash at any moment, and crash more than people think.

 John Hussman is one of the smartest stock market analyst out there who actually manages money.

He is an impressive writer and investor and that is rare in these modern times.

In his latest report he says stock markets are overvalued and could crash fast and at anytime and he is ready to sell at any moment.

Go here to read the report.

If you can print it out and read it many times to get the gist of how bad it could really get.

He talks about exponential curves. He explains how they work and why they are bad now.

The stock markets have gone up so much and more money has piled into the markets including pension funds and reinvestments that the slightest selling could really crash the stock markets.

To keep markets from crashing the Fed may have to step in to rescue the stock markets from crashing again like in 2019. At some point the Fed will not be able to control the crash and will have to throw in the towel and let markets fall ruining the retirement dreams of millions, the political ramifications from that will be astounding.

Here he describes a bubble{

The defining feature of a bubble is inconsistency between expected returns based on price behavior and expected returns based on valuations. If investors pay $150 today for a security that will deliver a single $100 payment a decade from now, but they also fully understand that they’ll lose 4% annually on the deal, without extrapolating past gains into the future, then we might say the security is overvalued, and we might question why investors would accept that trade, but we can’t call it a bubble.

But if investors pay $150 today for that security, because they look back in the rear-view mirror, decide that it “always goes up” over time, and convince themselves that expected future returns are always positive, then you’ve got a bubble. Discounting the future $100 cash flow of the security using any positive expected return would produce a price less than $100. So the positive returns expected by investors are inconsistent with the returns that would equate price with discounted cash flows. The size of the bubble is the fraction of the market price that represents expectational “hot air.”

Likewise, the willingness of investors to embrace “passive investments” like ETFs and asset-backed securities based on past performance, with little concern about the valuations, yields, or credit risk of the securities inside, is a the very soap from which bubbles repeatedly emerge. Amid the current enthusiasm for special purpose acquisition companies (SPACS), investors might recall the bubble in “incubators” at the 2000 peak, the “conglomerates” of the late-1960’s Go-Go bubble, and even the South Sea Company in the early 1700’s, along with similar companies formed at the time “for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is.”

If investors price the S&P 500 at levels that are highly likely to produce negative returns for a decade, as they did in 1929 and 2000, and as I believe they are doing at present, yet investors continue to press stock prices higher on the expectation that they will provide historically normal levels of future return regardless of valuations, then you have the sort of inconsistency that defines a bubble.

Likewise, if the expected return of a conventional passive investment mix is negative on a 10-12 year horizon (based on reliable valuation measures strongly correlated with actual subsequent returns over a century of market history), yet pension return assumptions remain locked near 7% annually, you’ve got a bubble, and most likely a future pension funding crisis, on your hands.

He thinks the next ten years we will see negative rate of returns, he makes a good case on why this will happen and is inevitable.

Check out this cool chart, its scary

Again he says we are in a bubble.

Margin debt, people who borrow money to buy stocks.

What the losses will be.

Sticking with 4% nominal growth, and adding a 1.5% dividend yield, a “permanently high plateau” in market valuations would imply S&P 500 total returns of about 5.5% annually. Again, this assumes that valuations never retreat from levels that presently stand at about 3.6 times their historical norms. Simply allow them to retreat to 2.4 times their historical norms a decade from now – which would still keep valuations among the highest 10% in U.S. history – and the resulting 10-year total return would drop to about 1.3%. I think this would actually be the best-case scenario even in a permanently overvalued world.

At elevated valuations, even very small changes in expected return imply enormous changes in prices. So it’s unlikely that a period of much higher average valuations will escape the prospect of relatively high volatility. Rather than a 70% market decline, which would presently be required for the S&P 500 to simply touch historically run-of-the-mill valuation norms, investors could expect rather frequent market losses in the 20-35% range, which is essentially what we’ve seen even over the past few years.

All of that would be fine with us. We’ve adapted our discipline sufficiently (especially in late-2017) to tolerate the possibility of permanently sustained overvaluation. My impression is that the impact of those adaptations has become more evident as we’ve had greater opportunities to live into them. I can’t say that I believe for a second that investors will actually be spared from a 50-70% loss in the S&P 500 in the coming years, but again, it will be fine with us if the market never approaches historical valuation norms again. With the adaptations we introduced in late-2017, our discipline is flexible enough to navigate a bubble even without embracing its premise.

People may lose 70% of there pension's in this upcoming stock market crash.

President Biden and Fed chair Powell aren't prepared for this. It will get ugly, hopefully your cashed up and own a little gold.

The price of tipping goes up to 50%, post covid.

 

The price of tipping goes up to 50%, post covid.

I just finished reading a New York Post article on how your 20% tip at your favorite restaurant just wont cut it anymore. People are now tipping 50% in New York restaurants.

Affluent customers are tipping up to 50% more than they did pre-pandemic, nearly two-dozen owners, managers, waitstaff and customers told The Post. A flush handful of diners have even dropped C-notes like dinner mints on flabbergasted waiters, they added.

So as you can see Covid has changed peoples tipping habits already. As the article continues we can see tipping is going up for everything.

Many restaurant mavens who previously tipped 20% said they now tip between 30 and 40% — a range that came up repeatedly in our unscientific poll.

Restaurant-lover Adam Richman, 30, the founder of production company Medium Rare, which created the Gronk Beach music festival starring Super Bowl hero Rob Gronkowski, said: “On average I’m tipping 30%. I used to tip 20%. In some of my regular places I find myself tipping 40 to 50%. I find myself giving more to coat-check staff and bathroom attendants, too.”

So the next time you eat out dont be surprised if people arent happy with your 15 or 20% tip.

Go here for the full article.

Go here for the video version of article.

Best gold coins to bring to Latin America for your plan B

 

Best gold coins to bring to Latin America for your plan B

The top three gold coins to bring to Latin America are the Canadian Maple Leaf, The U.S. Gold Eagle and the South African Gold Rand, or Kruggerands.

The easiest and most recognizable gold coin in Latin America is probably the South African Gold Kruggerand.  It is one of the oldest and most recognizable gold coin in the world and is well known in Latin America and if you ever need to sell a gold coin take it to a jewelry store and sell it there.

The easiest place to sell gold coins is in jewelry stores in Latin America, not gold and silver coin stores but there are exceptions like in Panama, or say Mexico City. I once sold Colombian 5 Peso gold coins in Mexico City but I had to go to almost every gold coin shop to get the best price and cash, but in general Latin American gold coins aren't recognizable and hard to sell because people think they are fakes.

In most jewelry stores in Latin America Canadian Maple Leaves and American Gold Eagles are very recognizable and the easiest to sell if you need cash.

I suggest buying 1/4 gold ounce coins because the value isn't to high for most people to buy and you cn get that much cash easy without having to wait for the store owner to go to the bank and get cash say compared to a one ounce gold coin.

The easiest gold coins to bring into Latin America and to avoid getting any attention or your gold confiscated are the old European Gold coins like French Frances or British Sovereigns, or even Swiss Helvetia's. These are 1/8 to 1/4 gold coins and are small easy to hide and easy to get thru airport customs and immigration if you travel by plane. If you travel by land borders you are home free usually and you will never get searched or get asked about why you have them and in most cases there are no exray machines to even detect them.

So to reap the most marketable gold coins in Latin America to bring down for your plan B would be U.S.Gold Eagles, Canadian Maple Leaf's and South African Kruggerands.

Those are the most recognizable gold coins to buy and sell and most people are used to seeing them and buying them and trust them more than say there own countries gold coins or there neighbors gold coins.

How to travel with your gold coins, in Latin America.

Corona Virus and the declining birth rate and what it all means?

 Corona Virus and the declining birth rate and what it all means?

The birth rate is falling.

When the pandemic first took hold in the U.S., many joked that widespread lockdowns would spark a "baby boom" and sky-high birth rates. But nearly a year later, the opposite appears to be true.

Provisional birth rate data provided to CBS News by 29 state health departments shows a roughly 7.3% decline in births in December 2020, nine months after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. California, the most populous state, reported a 10.2% decline, falling to 32,910 births in December from 36,651 the year prior. In the same time frame, births declined by 30.4% in Hawaii.

While birth rates have been falling for nearly a decade, Phil Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland, said December's drop was the biggest he's seen since the baby boom ended in 1964.

"The scale of this is really large," Cohen said in a telephone interview with CBS News. "Regardless of whether you think it's good or bad to have a lot of children, the fact that we're suddenly having fewer means things are not going well for a lot of people."

Go here for link

This is unprecedented. The psychological affect of this are profound. This is not good news for peoples future and how they think of the future. If people have more kids they are optimistic of the future and what it will provide if not they don't, we are now like Europe and most of the Western World.

If the birth rate starts rising again we can be confident on the the future and a rising economy. If the birth rate keeps declining the end of the Welfare State is finished. 

Who will get the blame?

The science will get the blame. Ever sense the corona virus has been with us, the science and the people who represent scientists have been equally divided much like the United States is equally divided.

The scientists and politicians will get blamed for doing to much or to little.

Just six months ago Governor Cuomo and Governor Newsom were heroes in the eyes of the public now both are finished. 

Fauci and the scarf lady disappeared into the night not to be seen again by the public.

The longer the lockdowns remain the more the public will protest will persist.

The more skepticism will remain for people who don't trust the scientists.

This is good news for people who love liberty, so have more kids and be prosperous!

Bitcoin bull market March 1 2021

 Bitcoin bull market March 1 2021

Its Monday March 1 2021 and Bitcoin is already up 10% or more from Sundays low. I think we are still in a bull market for Bitcoin and one of the primary reasons Bitcoins going up is because we are in the reflation part of the economy now.

As you may have noticed the price of oil is up 75% off its lows copper is up 50% off its lows so I think the economy and worldwide economy is reflating and that's one of the big reasons Bitcoins going to continue bulling up.

I would buy Bitcoin in the low end of its trading range which I believe is the 44K range and sell or not buy in the 54K range is your a trader.

Silver is off its lows of 26.65 and bounced today and if it goes lower I would buy there too as a trade or if you don't already have a position is silver I would be buying here.

Good Luck!

Now is a good time to buy silver, 2/28/21

 Now is a good time to buy silver, 2/28/21

Silver at 26.65 cents at or below that price is the current low end of the price for silver and a good time to buy it if your a trader or long term investor.

The best silver to hold in your possession is American silver eagles or 1964 or before silver coins other wise known as junk silver.

American silver eagles come with a high premium so if you want more silver for your buck then get 64 or before junk silver, such as dimes quarters and half dollars.

If your resident in another country then buy the silver coin of your country unless US eagles are popular and there is a lot of liquidity in that coin.

I think we are in the early inning of a inflationary spiral so now is the time to be buying silver and gold to protest a portion of your savings.

Good Luck!

Cost of living for a single man in Guatemala. 2021

 

Cost of living for a single man in Guatemala. 2021

What's the cost of living in Guatemala 2021? Well it hasn't gone up much in all the years I have been living here. 

I usually don't like doing cost of living articles because peoples expectations can be so different and people are diverse in there lifestyle and expectations of what is a good quality of life and what it should cost.

This is written from a perspective of living a low cost of living and saving some money to have for emergencies and travel at a latter date. 

One of the big issues talking about cost of living is some expats want to copy there US or European lifestyle they have and that can be cheaper or more depending on the luxuries and other variables.

It can depend on eating out if you need cable or even the kind of booze you drink.

It can depend on if you have hired help or you do your own cooking and cleaning. So in the end its a tricky question to answer. In my case I live on 500USD to 600USD a month and sometimes cheaper, but keep in mind that's not counting if I travel on the weekends or fly somewhere for a week or two, in that case I can easily spend 800 to 1200USD a month.

These are generalizations but you can rent almost anywhere in Guatemala for 300 to 500USD a month and much cheaper in places like Lago Atitlan and other small towns or cities. In some cases a 500USD house a month will include 5 or 6 bedrooms and 2 or three bathrooms like in Xela Guatemala.

In the Capital of Guatemala 500 or 600USD will get you a small place in the nice zones but it will usually be small ad noisy at night or can be it depends on the building. If you get out on the highway or the Pan American highway going towards El Salvador you can live in middle class neighborhoods for 500 to 600 a month rents and get fairly big places to live with plenty spaces to park and of course its all guarded and gated and many times have woodlands spaces and trails to jog or bike in if you like that and all the cool shopping malls will be minutes away depending on traffic.

Of course if you venture into zone one which most of the time I wouldn't recommend you can sometimes rent a studio for 200 to 250USD a month, but it will be small, and it will be noisy during the day and evenings. and not really safe to walk in the neighborhood past 8pm or 9pm.

Where I live in Xela, Guatemala i have never spent more than 350USD and that was a full house, and I normally don't do that but it was in a nice neighborhood and great place to experience. 

I have rented for 150USD to 225 and everything in between, those were either studios or one bedrooms or two bedrooms including a place to park a car. The secret to getting cheaper rents is to pay six months in advance and asking for a discount and receipt.

As for food, in my case I don't like eating out as much so I cook at home and my food budget including beer ect is 300USD or much less. I don't use taxis much because Xela is a smaller city and easy to walk around in.

Bottles of cooking gas can for 20USD or less and last me two to three months. My internet is usually included in my rent but if its not is 30USD or less. For my phone is 25 bucks a month and I get 15GIGS data I think, if you want to pay more you can get up to 20GIGS.

My electric bill seems to average around 7 or 8 dollars for the bill, but I don't use a lot of energy sucking devises so your mileage will vary. I don't need an air conditioner or heating devises because its not to hot or cold here year round although its colder than Antigua or even the Capital.

I have met people living on three hundred USD to four hundred USD per month but that wouldn't be comfortable for me but I could do it if I had to or was building up a business and need the extra money for that.

In general I will say you can live comfortably in the Capital or anywhere else in Guatemala for the equivalent of a average social security check which is 1,400 to1,500USD per month. Me  I can live on much less and save money and build up savings and money for travel on the weekends and whatever else.

The big budget buster will be if you hang out in bars every night and or eat out every night but in gringo type places then you pay the same as in the USA or close to it but many gringos do and enjoy it but can end up spending more here than if they were in the States. 

Things like deluxe cable can cost 100 or 120 a month to but those aren't my cup of tea, for like 40 bucks you can get an internet package and cable that includes a lot of channels but not sports channels or things like that, usually that's pay per view or extra.

So to conclude, you can live on 500 to 600USD if you live a simple life and if you enjoy that kind of lifestyle you can live cheap here but you will have to be flexible.

If you want a more exciting lifestyle then it will cost you more but not much more than say 1500USD but you will live well and in the more upper end of neighborhoods. It all depends on your specific needs and desires and wants. 

Bitcoin trading alert, 02/26/2021

 Here is the days trading opportunity for buying or selling Bitcoin.

This is only for traders, not long term buy and holders. Buy at 44,000 and sell at 54,000 USD per coin.

I would take a bigger position on the buy and sell it at the top end of the range or short a really small amount for a short time frame duration. I would have a tight stop loss if i was shorting too.

Good luck out their.

The crypto crash continues.

 The crypto crash continues.

The crypto crash continues, yesterday we got a little bounce in Bitcoin and Ethereum and other crypto currencies but tonight prices are down again from 8to 12% or more depending on the crypto currency.

Today we got a stimulus package from the Biden administration and it didn't seem to move the crypto currencies much or Bitcoin, except in a downward way.

If I had to guess it might be a possibility that this maybe the beginning of a 30% to 50% correction in Bitcoin and Ethereum prices and bigger moves down in the broad crypto currency space. Even though I think this might be the beginning of a Bitcoin bear market it still seems possible we will see more stimulus from Congress or the Fed that might propel Bitcoin and other crypto currencies higher, only time will tell.

We live in such unprecedented times its hard to tell if this is the beginning of a bubble or a bubble getting ready to burst, I lean towards the beginning of a great big reflation of most assets including Bitcoin and other crypto currencies.

Go here for the video