Building an International Plan-B While Still Living in the U.S.

Fiat is failing banks are cracking and smart investors are moving their gold offshore outside the system I've partnered with a fully insured private vault in the Caribbean where you can buy store and protect physical gold legally and securely The entire account opening is done online fast private and no nonsense If you're serious about protecting your wealth get the details now at expatmoney.com forward slash gold That's expatmoney.com forward slash gold one more time expatmoney.com forward slash gold This year. I'm taking a private group to Medellin Colombia's most exciting city for offshore opportunities We'll dive deep into banking real estate and asset protection with Columbia's top experts We'll tour high-growth developments visit a private Reforestation project and get boots on the ground access to one of Latin America's fastest growing economies This is serious Intel and serious opportunity want in go to expatmoney.com forward slash Columbia That's expatmoney.com forward slash Columbia to sign up today and for more information go to expatmoney.com forward slash Columbia We all dream of seeing the world, but the realities of living somewhere outside your place of birth can be daunting to say the least Welcome to the expat money show helping you make the most out of your overseas career through conversations with successful expats on Investing entrepreneurship self-improvement and continual education all while sharpening your financial acumen now Please welcome your host with over 20 years of overseas experience Miquel Thorpe Welcome welcome welcome. My name is Miquel Thorpe and this is the expat money show today. We're gonna do something a little bit different We are going to be doing an interview that is a replay from the summit This interview was done between Mark Claire from my team as well as Ryan one of our clients And I just really loved this conversation so much So I wanted to share it with you guys on the podcast now It is really interesting because Ryan has been a member of the community for a couple of years now And he's joined us for a lot of the events and invested alongside of us So I think it is a really good case study in all of this and what to do and how to make it work He gives some fantastic tips in the episode He shares what worked and what didn't work for him and gives lots of advice for people who are thinking about doing these types of things So if you want to follow along with what he's doing, then this is the episode for you now in the episode One other quick thing he mentions the wealth freedom and passport conference. I just want to put this on your radar guys We are doing live Panama City Panama March 6 and 7th the wealth freedom and passport conference I hope you guys are going to get a chance to join us. I will be there hosting Mark will be the emcee Ryan is going to be in attendance and a whole host of other people from our community Including a bunch of the property developers precious metal depositories lawyers accountants bankers etc etc etc That we work with and so many clients from around the world. So this conference is our in-person version of the online summit And we get a really good response from everybody. So I hope you guys enjoy that I hope you guys are able to come and meet us in person and check out this one And this will give you a little bit of a taste what it's like to work with expat money So let's dive into the interview with Mark Claire and Ryan All right, welcome back to the expat money online summit, I'm here with another expat story with Ryan Ryan How are you good mark? How are you doing? Excellent? Thank you for joining us here at the expat money online summit Just want to start off getting to know you a little bit better before we dig into your expat journey Why just tell me a little bit about know where you're from where you guys live a little bit of the background Yeah, absolutely. So US based currently at a short hour like North Carolina. I've been a little bit of a domestic nomad over the past 1520 years I've lived in 18 different cities been a little bit more stable since my wife and I got married and we've been in Charlotte for the last six years Wow, that is so interesting to live in. I mean, I know people that have lived in a few cities I've lived in a number of cities myself, but 18 is is a heck of a lot Can you dig into a little more of what's behind that? And what's that been been like sort of hopping between cities? So, you know, it's it's interesting Mark because a lot of that was done as a single male in my post college early 20s Pick up a move type of thing and I Started my career in sales and sales is pretty much interchangeable as long as you know people, you know relationships It's easy to sell so you can find a sales job in pretty much anger And what would happen was as I would go on a vacation with some buddies So let's just say Austin, Texas and I'd have a really good time and I'd be like hey, these people are really cool I want to get to know them better rather than go back and take another vacation I just pick up a move there find a sales job live there for a few years a couple of the moves for Predicated by grad school. I went to grad school at NYU. I kind of regret that decision now and hindsight money could have been thought Better elsewhere, but you know, some of the moves were driven by things like grad school But yeah, it's it's been good We are running out of places to live in the US that are on our last and I've always wanted to move Internationally as an adventure and as we kind of go through this live Somebody you'll see that I feel that the adventure has become a little bit more of a necessity now and less of an adventure It'll still be fun. Nevertheless, there will still be the challenges and the excitement and the nerves and all the emotions that go with it But each day we get a little bit closer to that journey of taking the 18 cities domestic and starting on 18 cities internationally So I think that would be a really great start and that's it's really interesting Yeah, the lifestyle you just described to going from city to city finding a place you like setting up shop There for however much time you feel like until you kind of move on what you've described There really is so much of the what many people start as digital no-man life And as you know as you get a little bit older have a family have a kids Maybe that comes into at least longer periods of time in certain cities But you certainly have the the groundwork with maybe you weren't thinking about it internationally But you certainly laid the groundwork for being able to transition pretty well into the expat lifestyle I would say absolutely and what we were kind of always holding on to was we have four kids Two of them are out of the house one is 16 So we were gonna wait for the 16 year old to kind of finish high school But now he lives with my ex-wife and his mom and you know He's 16 he really doesn't want much to do with mom or dad for that matter So, you know, we've kind of increased our timetable and moved a little bit forward And then our last one's a three-year-old and is we've got our own opinions of the U.S. education system that We won't share here, but I'm sure many like mine. You're allowed to share them a little bit if you like It's an open forum my friend. You're in the right place Well, we are of the belief that ideology does not belong in the school system Whether it's right or left it doesn't matter Education is supposed to be education and if you're gonna teach one you need to teach both so that kids can Have all the information to make decisions rather than just one side and it doesn't matter what side that is and what we're finding as we're Researching schools and jurisdictions outside the U.S. That's not necessarily the case and education is more based on actual academia rather than Someone's viewpoints or opinions So that is a big factor I suppose in what you mentioned earlier that you started to see that the idea of you know traveling internationally and moving around internationally It wasn't just necessarily about adventure although that'll always be a part of it, but there you're seeing the necessity for it I mentioned that I was one of the reasons what are some of the other reasons out there that you started to see where you said Okay, this is not just about having some cool vacations. This is actually something we have to do for our family You know, it's been a series of events that really started with COVID right and everyone again any such cases Yes, it has their opinion of COVID where it's like hey, I never thought I was gonna be locked down I never thought my freedoms were gonna be taken from me Oh god, I better figure out what else is out there, right? So that that was one driving factor and then you've got in the U.S. A walls being built Well, most people think hey, yes walls keep people out, but they forget the other side of that coin walls can also keep people in Which was another factor that was kind of like uh-oh and then from there, you know, you've got the 2022 decision of Freezing Russian assets because of the special military operation in Ukraine Which from someone that's spent a lot of time studying macroeconomics and finance and and looking at the direction of the global monetary system That's very very alarming right is When you start freezing and stealing another nation's asset that raises a lot of flags, right is they tend not to like it Yeah, exactly. And then you look at, you know, 37 trillion in debt and climbing, right? And there were a lot of promises made from a lot of politicians on both sides of the aisle Don't want to go into the politics of it, but I just don't see A effort on either side of the aisle to cut government spending And I don't see the American people willing to make the necessary austerity measures to balance the budget And that's alarming to me, right? So we're looking at jurisdictions that are a little bit friendlier in terms of true Free markets true freedom of speech have a balanced budget pro-business and freedom of speech right amendments rights everything like that So, you know, that's kind of some of the things that's been driving the decisions and Each day you hear about somewhere else, right? I mean, I read a lot of mckels great content He puts out, you know about what's going on Really, I think mckels hit the nail on the head where latin america seems to be The future for freedom-minded individuals, right? We spent time and hopefully found mckelynx fat money looking at europe We were thinking about portugal and greece and and even ireland right and then we realized hey We don't want any part of the anyone that's talking about capital controls or freezing bank accounts of their citizens Is not okay anyone that sides with people that are going to Her children because they're afraid of being called a bad name is not okay Right, so it's really kind of helped guide our decisions for us is hey This is a region that still has law and order still has stability You know the secrets just now starting to get out and get in front of that before More and more people start to shift into that region So that's kind of what we've been targeting And we're looking forward to seeing where we end up and what you mentioned there even today When I you know when I talk about what I do for a living and expat money The first thing that comes up are all the countries you mentioned there portugal greece spain That's still what's in people's mind as sort of the expat havens Can you dig a little bit more into what you saw besides you know some of the pretty strange things? I guess you could say the uk is doing when it comes to speech and that sort of thing What else you saw there in those locations that said well, this doesn't really improve our situation as opposed to what you're seeing in latin america Yeah, so you see a country like germany that historically has been a manufacturing powerhouse completely deindustrializing right and going Full all in on renewable energy right and you're looking at where it is and where it sits in the world and you think about it It's like hey, it's really not that sunny there. So how am I going to rely on solar when it's not sunny right or wind? But yet you have access to natural resources Is they may not be as eco-friendly as you want, but you got to have a balance As and that's what we're seeing, you know from our analysis of the world is There seems to be an overcorrection in the west versus other parts of the world where it's like hey We're going to do this to this extreme and hope for this outcome rather than hey, why don't we take a more balanced approach? Why don't we let the technology catch up with our desire to be renewable and go from there? Right, so there's a few places in in europe that we would still be kind of open to the republic of georgia Interest us a Serbia interest us I was listening to a j marten podcast I'm not sure you're familiar with j or not. He does the Vancouver resource investor conference every january and Has a podcast on geopolitics and he had a guest song and I forget the gentleman's name But he kind of lives that expat life and he ended up in Serbia and was talking about how Serbia has very Conservative family oriented values. They're very much anti-government, but they're quick to lend a hand to a neighbor in distress Right, so they're not like anarchist anti-government, but they're going to question their government They're not just going to take everything at face value. They're going to push back And they believe in limited government kind of what America was supposed to be founded on and has moved away from was limited government So it's interesting. So Serbia isn't interesting for us, but then it's like the language barrier, right? And my wife is a dual citizen already She's got her mexican and american my girls have their mexican and american my youngest has his We're waiting for our 16 year olds to turn 18 to get his and then I'll get mine through marriage But they're already spanish-speaking so it makes the transition a little bit easier to Already know the language be able to acclimate have a little bit of spanish and our blood and in our culture Then it does to go to like a serbian nation where You know, yes, english is spoken, but we would all want to assimilate because there's so many people that go to a country and Stay in their own little niche and don't assimilate anyways, right? And they just they're like there and they're like, hey, we're going to live our lives But we're going to live our lives in your country, right rather than hey, you know, we're going to come here We're going to make a better life, but we're going to learn the culture. We're going to respect the culture We're going to respect other people have different viewpoints. We're going to learn the language, right? When we end up in latin america, I will be fluent in spanish. I've been working on my spanish I do my duelingo every night. I a little plug for mckel. I know he's got someone that offers a course as well I just for me personally, I've been able to pick up enough on my duelingo and my wife speaking to me in spanish And me answering in english, you know working on changing that in the park so You'll know you pass the test when you can hang out with a bunch of your wife's mexican friends for 10 minutes and follow the Conversation that's when you'll be they'll be fully ready. Yeah, you know and real quick too before we move on to the next question As I think it's important for viewers of the summit to realize too is we've spent some time in southeast asia as well So malaysia, singapore, thailand, some of those jurisdictions are very very interesting as well You know, they check a lot of boxes too, but for us our three-year-old has eczema So climate and temperature is very very important the more he sweats the more he itches and that irritates the skin In southeast asia, it's got two seasons hot and hotter and wet and wetter, right? And so that kind of brought us back to latin america and as as a Most probable jurisdiction for our first ex-pat Journey in all future expat locations that we decide to go to as well If you're planning to move overseas or even just set up your offshore plan b learning the local language isn't optional It's protection. It's access and its power story learning makes it easy to start today from home by immersing you in real stories Not grammar drills Spanish, portuguese, french and more learn the language the smart way before you land go to story learning courses.com That's story learning courses.com one more time story learning courses.com Don't wait until you're on the ground and you realize you should have started earlier So if you guys started to hone in on one country specifically or have you taken any? What have been the first steps you've taken along your expat journey And then you can feel free to mention how once you started working with expat money how we've helped you along the way Yeah, absolutely. So great great questions. So I attended the first expat money summit for me was in 2023 I had just gotten back from a similar conference in malaysia and found expat money mckellon attended and I loved The setup of the summit, right? I loved having Helpers and experts in country come in and give real advice and present real investment opportunities and the way I Run our household with obviously my wife being in charge because if she ever sees this she needs to know that she's in charge Don't worry. She knows. Yeah, exactly Is set up investments first before we buy a primary residence So that's what we've sent the last two years doing is evaluating projects that mckell's put in front of us We've done two projects in colombia. We've done one in paraguay where we've bought multiple units We've done two with michael in brazil and we've done one on our own Through a friend of mine who is a developer down in Buenos Aires, argentina. So what we're doing is we're expanding our portfolio of jurisdictions and cashflow producing real estate amongst other things and from there then we will look to Purchase our own primary residents, but the goal mark is obviously to replace domestic w2 income with You know our international real estate We have domestic real estate as well that we're going to hold on to and use that to live so That's kind of been the thesis and where it's really come in from a next time My next standpoint is all the due diligence is done. Everything's turnkey. It's net net It's simple is and that's that's why we started with one and that you know I believe is being delivered in march of this year or june I can't remember But it was worth tying up the capital to have that project and the risk reward to me for some of these entry prices Was a no-brainer. I was willing to even if the project fell flat on its face Which I don't believe it well by any stretch of the matter because I wouldn't have invested more with My first project was with michael in brazil and I've done another one with him I like him and bruno and the guys that right in part. I think their first class you know is That made a lot of sense to dip our toes in the water, right? And is my wife and I made the conscious decision to invest in mckell's first class program That was very very helpful For us that just kind of help keep us on track keep us moving forward because sometimes you get lost in the day to day And you realize hey, oh my gosh, another year went by and I'm not any closer to starting my journey Now one of the things that we've come to realize that I think it's important for a fellow access to consider is and this was very very tough for me to swallow because i'm so Methodical my decision making and want a perfect place is there is no such thing with a perfect place For a while we were dead set on months of video From a lifestyle perspective not an investment perspective and then we found out from mckell That they are not from mckell excuse me mckell fixed it for us But from francesca at anderson is that hey, you can live there for three years But we will give you citizenship, but we won't naturalize you. Well, what does that mean? You're still you have a urquine passport with your nationality saying american Well, that kind of defeats the purpose if I ever decide I want to renounce my u.s. citizenship because I've still got to travel on american documents. Well, your voice since has corrected that So it was back on our radar, right? Panama is absolutely amazing. You know territorial tax system great projects there The biggest challenge with panamol city is the weather right is having a sum with eczema and knowing what that weather is going to do We're going to go spend some more time up in the mountains and see if that works But if it's a little bit more demographically focused towards retirees and not great for young kids then there's that tradeoff as well Mexico it makes a lot of sense. My wife's got family there, but you know, I asked mckell too I'm like, hey, what are you thinking? He's like, honestly, there's several options Let's kind of stew on that a little bit and try and find the best one, right? Because then you know, mexico's got a little bit of a safety risk But then again, there's a lot of american expats down in yucatan or jaleisco and puerto viarta, right? Mexico city is growing. So it's just like what do you look at right? There's so many different variables We absolutely loved medellin. Juan Dario Felipe and daniel were fantastic. They went above and beyond To make our trip great there, you know, it is they got arranged a driver for us Took me around and showed me some of the projects are so willing to help You know, we may do six months on a tourist visa, right? I was talking to Juan Dario v email a few days ago And we were talking about my dog, right because we have a golden retriever. How do we get the dog into the country? He's coming with us. He's like, oh, it's really simple. It doesn't matter if you're on a tourist visa for six months You do abc and d you pay a fee and you get the dog into the country right the support not just from mckell and In the expat money team, but the the partners that he's had and the relationships he's built has been fantastic Right, my daughter's in spain right now teaching english as the second language And franando is helping her because of the type of visa she's on try to find additional work to Have a little bit more disposable income because the program doesn't pay that much for us, right? I mean franando doesn't have to do that just shows The character that he is and how much integrity he has and how he genuinely cares about this community and his clients and people Right, so that's kind of where we're at in the journey mark where we are still narrowing it down We're going to go spend some time down in periway Like I mentioned, I think before we start a recording do our residency We'll spend some time in there sensing on and then up and said do dad do less day We run into the same kind of heat concerns there So I think what we're going to probably end up doing is we're probably end up splitting our time and and look at something Like michael strong's international school when our three-year-old hits third grade as a viable option for him and we'll just spend Some time maybe in in columbia some time in argentina some time in periway some time back in the us visiting family And do it that way rather than establishing a single home base Other than that home base being the tax residency I think what you've just laid out here ryan is a lot of people come up with it as an objection like Oh, I have so many options. I'm not really sure But what building a plan b is all about is creating more options and having many options And you guys are in the phase where you're creating a bunch of options for yourself by having property in different places Pursuing residency in several places. So as you get ready to make that first move or big move Whatever it may be you can then decide amongst several options as opposed to only having whatever one option you focus on So I would say that the the options out there and building of a plan b with several different elements It's really the feature not the bug of the whole thing, right? I will caution to fellow expander So sometimes you can get a little bit overwhelmed, right? You can get a little bit of an analysis paralysis And that's we've run into that. We've run into those stumbling blocks I think the best piece of advice I can give is and you know, we're about to follow our own We're we've got a few more things in Plans before we take that first step like again, it's very methodical But it's kind of the old expression shit or get off the pot, right? Take that first leap and my thesis around the us is that it's due for an economic reset If i'm right, then we're prepared because we've got multiple residencies Whole family's got the second citizenship, right? Hey, we're planting flags in all these countries that mckels has done a fantastic job of In the team researching due diligence giving us the best information to make important decisions We go and we plant those flags and if it doesn't work out or the us miraculously Cuts government spending or takes the austerity measures or does some of the our monetizes on It's 150 trillion of natural resources. We can always come back so if you're Afraid of the direction it's going is you know, my advice is go for it We are going to be following our own advice here very very soon again a couple more things have to fall into place But whether they do or they don't we've got to set time and we're going to go for it We just want the things to fall into place first All right, ryan well a final question as you we think about everything you've laid out here today All the steps that you've taken so far all the work that you've done You've done a lot of work creating all these options and pursuing these properties pursuing this residency Was it all worth it? Would you do everything again up to the point that you've done now? Yes? There's a few things that I've done a little prematurely is one of the things that I wanted to do Was the pan of my private interest and a foundation? I stand behind that decision of still doing it. Eda was great. Macal was great and it However, I jumped the gun a little bit early on it. I didn't You know by my own admission do my full due diligence on the u.s. Side of the house So I've been working with my cpa just to make sure that all my ducks are in the row and make sure that everything's properly disclosed I am in a hundred percent agreement with Macal. Hey is we always follow the tax laws We always follow all the laws of the country wherever we're in So that was a little bit premature on my part I still would have done it down the line because I think it's a fantastic tool for wealth protection and structure So that was a little bit premature on my part You know, I I moved some precious metals to a jurisdiction and you know outside of swp And and grand came in prematurely as well. That was before Macal and next fat money So I've learned some things along the way And I made some decisions along the way that have been great great teaching moments if I had to do them all over again I would for the teaching perspective, but not probably for the where it fits in the timeline perspective So to answer your question. Yes, it's been absolutely worth it. I think the investment that I've made in the expat money team between all the memberships the foundation the Paraguayan residency has Paid for itself and will continue to pay for itself 10 times over And that's the other great thing about becoming a part of the community whether you join a hub the hub or go on a trip Or become a first-class member you get to work alongside and meet the other members of the community that've gone through this stuff So the community only gets stronger as we go you get to work with people and meet people like Ryan and hear from them and learn Everything they've learned along the way So everything only gets smoother and smoother for the whole entire community as a whole and everything just gets stronger as time goes on So Ryan, it's been so great to talk to you here And I certainly look forward to seeing you again at uh at future events Any any final words for everybody watching there at home today at the expat money online summit Yeah, enjoy the summit and you know for those of you that are going to be at the wealth freedom and passports conference next year I hope to to see you guys in person and meet you there And you know, thanks very much to the expat money team for putting on a first-class event as always And I look forward to listening to the other speakers and learning I guess this week later this week So thanks for the opportunity mark to share my experience. Thanks so much, ryan appreciate it And we now return to the rest of the expat money online summit This episode may be over but your journey to greatness continues by visiting our web page and signing up for our newsletter For convenient access to new episodes show notes and other crucial resources visit expat money show dot com We look forward to you joining us on the next episode of the expat money show safe travels Fiat is failing banks are cracking and smart investors are moving their gold offshore outside the system I've partnered with a fully insured private vault in the caribbean where you can buy store and protect physical gold legally and securely The entire account opening is done online fast private and no nonsense If you're serious about protecting your wealth get the details now at expat money dot com forward slash gold That's expat money dot com forward slash gold one more time expat money dot com forward slash gold This year i'm taking a private group to medellin columbia's most exciting city for offshore opportunities We'll dive deep into banking real estate and asset protection with columbia's top experts We'll tour high growth developments visit a private reforestation project and get boots on the ground access to one of latin america's fastest growing economies This is serious intel and serious opportunity want in go to expat money dot com forward slash columbia That's expat money dot com forward slash columbia to sign up today and for more information go to expat money dot com forward slash columbia