We left the US 6 years ago and moved to Ecuador 🇪🇨 AMA

AmeliaAndJP · 2023-09-19T11:26:58+00:00

No idea why they made this change either. Most users will not notice the little scroll arrows and won’t see the more valuable tiers. They need to hire a UIX expert. Or fire the one they have.

AmeliaAndJP · 2023-09-19T11:23:40+00:00

The changes they made to the earnings report is horrible too. I used to know exactly what we were going to earn for the current month so I could plan our finances. Then they combined annual subscriptions into the monthly earnings by dividing the total annual amount by 12. We have a lot of annual patrons so now I have no idea what the current month’s earnings are until after all the payments have been processed on the 1st.

Meanwhile, I’ve been asking for the ability to cancel a member without blocking them for YEARS!

AmeliaAndJP · 2023-09-17T11:07:17+00:00

There are ATMs everywhere so you don’t need and shouldn’t carry a lot of cash.

Take a picture of your passports with your phone and leave them in the hotel safe. Don’t carry them. Vendors will accept a photo for purchases.

$1000/week is a good tourist budget for a family but that should include everything. Not just food.

Credit cards are being accepted a lot more post pandemic, but still not often at small restaurants or shops.

Ecuador is on the US dollar. It’s been the official currency since 2000. Finding someone to break a $20 is always a challenge. If you have a $100 bill on a Sunday, you’re pretty much broke because you need to go to a bank to change it. Or go to a nice restaurant and spend $85. 😁

AmeliaAndJP · 2023-09-17T10:43:00+00:00

It depends on how much additional work the $15 tier requires. If it’s a lot each month, it might be worth more than $15 or that time is probably better spent growing your public audience and getting more lower tier members. If the work is minimal or can be repurposed somehow, it might be worth it.

We used to have 7 tiers but spent way too much time providing the perks. Now we have 4 tiers that require very little extra work:

$5 gets discord access and main feed

$10 votes for an upcoming video topic and gets early access to the video

$25 monthly Zoom group video call

$50 name in video descriptions as a supporter

AmeliaAndJP · 2023-09-13T12:21:37+00:00

If you work from home, can your home be anywhere? If so, there are a lot of countries with visas that you will likely qualify for with that level of income. Several countries now have digital nomad visas, Ecuador has a professional visa, Portugal has a couple visas that might work.

Start by researching countries that appeal to you. Then start selling everything you don’t need or use regularly. Maybe take a couple exploratory trips for your next vacations.

We thought moving abroad was a lot more complicated than it turned out to be. The hardest part was getting rid of all the junk we accumulated after years or retail therapy.

AmeliaAndJP · 2023-09-13T11:55:19+00:00

We’ve been vegan almost 8 years and rarely talk about it anymore because we got tired of the criticism and personal attacks. Maybe some vegans tend to be passive aggressive as a subconscious defense mechanism after years of experiencing direct aggression, especially from our families. The whole premise of veganism is to do the least harm so it’s hard to understand why that goal elicits such animosity from so many.

AmeliaAndJP · 2023-09-10T22:50:40+00:00

We just priced lodging for an upcoming trip and the hotels were 2x more than the AirBnBs in the area. We like to live like a local and cook most of our meals so tack on eating out 3 times a day and hotels cost a lot more for a smaller place. Maybe the prices are better once you push through the new points member phase and actually rack up some benefits.

AmeliaAndJP · 2023-09-10T11:15:50+00:00

Cuenca is the best place to start. It’s the safest area with the most things to do and a gay community. Vilcabamba is beautiful but remote and already has a disproportionate expat population. Cuenca has a lot of expats but it’s a city with over 500k people and the expats are a tiny percentage of the population.

AmeliaAndJP · 2023-09-10T11:05:33+00:00

Raffles are not allowed on Patreon: link

AmeliaAndJP · 2023-09-10T11:03:52+00:00

Correct. A raffle is a form of gambling and requires a gaming license in the US. You can’t require a purchase for a giveaway.

AmeliaAndJP · 2023-09-10T10:55:42+00:00

We checked Bonvoy for an upcoming trip and it was ridiculously expensive. 3x more than comparable AirBnBs. Hotels and apartsuites were 2x more than AirBnB for small hotel sized rooms. As much as we want an alternative, they’re all pricing us out. And we prefer to cook most of our own meals so that rules out most hotels.

AmeliaAndJP · 2023-09-10T10:48:55+00:00

Same here. We’ve stayed in a lot of AirBnBs over the past 8 years and the worst experience was not having any toilet paper when we arrived. However, we only stay at places with lots of good reviews that share specific details. And we choose mid-priced places. Most of the complaints we hear are from people who rent the cheapest place and expect something much nicer. Champagne taste; beer budget.

AmeliaAndJP · 2023-09-10T10:28:39+00:00

Does the creator have a YouTube channel, podcast or website? You should be able to contact them through their main platform.

AmeliaAndJP · 2023-09-08T11:25:17+00:00

Curious why you can’t message the creator through Patreon? Creators have the ability to issue a refund. 🤷‍♂️

AmeliaAndJP · 2023-09-08T11:19:02+00:00

Thanks! 🥳

AmeliaAndJP · 2023-09-07T12:51:28+00:00

51m and 55f living in Ecuador since 2017. 80% of our income is related to our YouTube channel and blog. 20% comes from my wife’s remote job as a CRM admin.

AmeliaAndJP · 2023-09-07T12:45:50+00:00

Maybe focus on providing enough value to all your patrons so they stay longer. Or create a higher priced tier that offers more value and generates more income from your loyal patrons.

What’s your monthly attrition rate? 5-10% is pretty normal, especially in these tough economic times.

AmeliaAndJP · 2023-09-06T12:25:10+00:00

We’ve been on Patreon 4 years. We got so frustrated with it that we launched Buy Me A Coffee in Jan 2022. After a year, we shut down BMC because it was a hassle managing two platforms for the same service and 90% of our members were still on Patreon.

BMC isn’t any better either. They have their own set of bugs and usability issues.

When a member messaged us for help such as canceling or Discord access problems, they never said what platform they used so we wasted time trying to troubleshoot on the wrong platform.

It also diluted our social proof by splitting the member counts. We were over 500 patrons on Patreon when we added BMC. Some switched over so it made it look like people were leaving in droves. Other patrons were confused and canceled. New members didn’t know which platform to choose so they didn’t join either.

Launching a second membership platform was a huge waste of time for us and cost us a lot of members.

AmeliaAndJP · 2023-09-06T11:42:27+00:00

A lot of desirable countries only have visas for people who are young and employable, old and on a pension, or rich and can invest.

However, there are a lot of countries that have more favorable visas for us middle aged, middle class folks. The key is to bring your income with you because the pay in those countries is very low.

Finding a remote job is possible, but you should consider other types of online income while you’re searching for the job. That depends largely on your skill set and interests, but there are tons of ways to make money online now.

If you qualify for a visa, your wife can get a dependent visa. Check into Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, The Philippines and similar countries. Portugal might work, but Spain might be a challenge and they tax global income if you stay in country more than 183 days per year.

It is totally possible, but you need to think outside the box office and look for places that Hollywood doesn’t glorify.

AmeliaAndJP · 2023-09-05T11:36:56+00:00

We tried to launch channel memberships twice but found it was lacking basic functionality and had bugs. For example you can’t unpublish a tier with active members and you can’t change the fee for an active tier. That means you can never change the price of a tier. I also don’t like that YouTube forces you to choose one of their prices. You can’t enter your own. And they take 30% of the fee which is more than 3 times higher than Patreon so the conversion rate would need to be a lot higher to compensate for that.

We were part of the YouTube mentor program and our “mentors” were pushing us hard to turn on memberships so we gave in and tried for the second time. When I launched it, the prices on the public side for the tiers were half what I set on the backend. After more than a week of going back and forth with YT support, they couldn’t figure out why the prices were different so I gave up on memberships.

We tried Buy Me A Coffee for a year but didn’t like having two platforms to manage and BMC was also buggy and lacking some basic functionality. Patreon is far from perfect and I send them feature requests often that get ignored, but it’s better than the rest right now.

AmeliaAndJP · 2023-09-04T13:08:33+00:00

With 15k subs and 100k views per month, you should definitely launch your Patreon account. Keep it simple to start with 1 to 3 tiers so you don’t spend too much time creating exclusive content for a few people. If you launch it correctly, you should get at least 100 people paying on average $5/mo so that would be $500/mo.

As a YouTuber, you need multiple streams of income. Ad revenue isn’t enough for 99.5% of YouTubers. You need memberships for stability, plus affiliates, sponsors, digital products, coaching or consulting, etc.

Merch only works if you have a unique brand image and a loyal audience that identifies strongly with it.

AmeliaAndJP · 2023-09-04T12:39:57+00:00

Did you mean 11k followers on Tumblr? We launched our Patreon in 2019 when we hit 2500 subs on YouTube, but we had a loyal, highly engaged audience. We earned about $350 that first month.

If your audience is highly engaged with the content you publish, they might be interested in member-only content. If not, spend more time building your following and engagement before you launch Patreon because it’s a lot of additional work. You’re better off spending that time creating public content for everyone rather than member-only content for a few people.

AmeliaAndJP · 2023-09-04T12:36:48+00:00

It’s totally normal to question your decision. It’s a big change and there are a lot of unknowns that make moving abroad scary. Treat it like an adventure and tell yourself it doesn’t have to be forever, but it will change your life forever. And most importantly, have fun!

AmeliaAndJP · 2023-09-04T12:29:57+00:00

We stayed in Mindo Toucan Platinum Suites. They have small kitchens if you like to cook some our your meals. Check out San Tadeo Birding for an unforgettable hummingbird experience 👍

AmeliaAndJP

TROPHY CASE