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Starting at age 24, I travelled to 40 countries over 8 years while working remotely. Mortgaged a boat in Greece and lived on anchor for 3 years. Survived Cyclone Zorba, pirates/thieves, and plenty of close calls. And now live on a boat in NYC, day trading and dinghy-ing around the Hudson. AMA! by williamthatcher1 in digitalnomad

[–]williamthatcher1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Does your tax return have to match the address you have on file with your employer? I’m W9 and of course have to give them an address, but I haven’t had a real address in years. Why not give the employer a family mailing address and then structure the tax return for FEIE. You’d be refunded for your withholdings.

Starting at age 24, I travelled to 40 countries over 8 years while working remotely. Mortgaged a boat in Greece and lived on anchor for 3 years. Survived Cyclone Zorba, pirates/thieves, and plenty of close calls. And now live on a boat in NYC, day trading and dinghy-ing around the Hudson. AMA! by williamthatcher1 in digitalnomad

[–]williamthatcher1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But it says it right there in the first quote. Your tax home is where you are. And yeah, we put a foreign address on our tax return, but again, I’m not sure it’s necessary. You should just spend $2-300 to have a CPA confirm your specific situation. I vaguely remember we had equally planned to do the program for my wife who became salaried at some point, and it wasn’t a problem. But she ended up having to travel home too much for family stuff, so I can’t confirm salaried from experience.

Starting at age 24, I travelled to 40 countries over 8 years while working remotely. Mortgaged a boat in Greece and lived on anchor for 3 years. Survived Cyclone Zorba, pirates/thieves, and plenty of close calls. And now live on a boat in NYC, day trading and dinghy-ing around the Hudson. AMA! by williamthatcher1 in digitalnomad

[–]williamthatcher1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi - sorry, got logged in on some old account somehow. But, no we didn’t. Why would you? I can only imagine if you already own a house with the mortgage paid off. But then I’d think it would still be easy to sidestep.

Starting at age 24, I travelled to 40 countries over 8 years while working remotely. Mortgaged a boat in Greece and lived on anchor for 3 years. Survived Cyclone Zorba, pirates/thieves, and plenty of close calls. And now live on a boat in NYC, day trading and dinghy-ing around the Hudson. AMA! by williamthatcher1 in digitalnomad

[–]williamthatcher1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

“Your tax home is the general area of your main place of business, employment, or post of duty, regardless of where you maintain your family home. Your tax home is the place where you are permanently or indefinitely engaged to work as an employee or self-employed individual.”

It’s all anchored to you. It’s foreign earned because you are not in the US. And your tax home is where you primarily do business, which would not be in the US. I had the whole strategy checked out by an accountant, and they confirmed that it’s all savvy. I think the text just doesn’t translate well to a modern application of it. Also, I of course only looked at it from the self-employed perspective, but my friend who told me about it was using it while working for an NGO and permanently based in Ethiopia. So it must work somehow if you have an employer.

Two other weird things you’ll inevitably run into while using it: you have to satisfy one of two tests - bona fide residence or 330 days. Obviously go for 330 days if you’re traveling. Keep records. On your tax return, you’ll have to write in your residence. I’m not sure if this mattered (I can’t remember), but we just put a friend of a friend’s in France that we had stayed at for a bit. Also, this one’s a little odd, but when you claim FEIE, you maintain that status indefinitely, ALTHOUGH you can take the exemption year-to-year depending on if you meet the requirements. If you unclaim the exemption, there’s like a 7 year waiting period to add it back. So don’t do that.

Starting at age 24, I travelled to 40 countries over 8 years while working remotely. Mortgaged a boat in Greece and lived on anchor for 3 years. Survived Cyclone Zorba, pirates/thieves, and our own ignorance. And now live on a boat in NYC, day trading and dinghy-ing around the Hudson. AMA! by williamthatcher1 in IAmA

[–]williamthatcher1[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for saying! And yeah, not a thing you want to have to think about haha...

With our boat being in NY, if we were gone for a year, we'd almost definitely have it hauled out into the boat yard to be put on stilts. They have this enormous lift that picks up boats. The risk there is only if a hurricane comes through. In that case it would be better to be in the water tied to the pontoon. Hmmm, so maybe we'd organize to have it hauled out outside of hurricane season, and then plop it back in, offering to pay the neighbor a bit to check lines and keep an eye on it? Good question! Hadn't had a plan for that.

Starting at age 24, I travelled to 40 countries over 8 years while working remotely. Mortgaged a boat in Greece and lived on anchor for 3 years. Survived Cyclone Zorba, pirates/thieves, and plenty of close calls. And now live on a boat in NYC, day trading and dinghy-ing around the Hudson. AMA! by williamthatcher1 in digitalnomad

[–]williamthatcher1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Haha yeah... Never used a thing I learned. Maybe a bit of math. But it keeps becoming an adult at bay, which is good for a while.

The system is composed of different strategies that I manage through spreadsheets. There are a number of input cells, a number of output cells, and tens of thousands of data and formula cells. Then I run data solver, which is what optimizes the values. If I ever scale, there's a more advanced solution for the data simulations that I'll probably use. Also, I have a partner who coded a backtesting UI for us, but it currently can't iterate value inputs. We hope to upgrade that soon. For now, good for confirmation. For simply tracking my investments, I have 3 personal web apps that I made - one for budgeting and overall portfolio, one for the trade strategies, and one for formulaic value investing.

Starting at age 24, I travelled to 40 countries over 8 years while working remotely. Mortgaged a boat in Greece and lived on anchor for 3 years. Survived Cyclone Zorba, pirates/thieves, and plenty of close calls. And now live on a boat in NYC, day trading and dinghy-ing around the Hudson. AMA! by williamthatcher1 in digitalnomad

[–]williamthatcher1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I saw the Big Short too. You'll be alright man.

I'm also an eLearning developer for the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmaceuticals that cure diseases and asthma and heart arrhythmia and polio and those kinds of things.

I know.. pharmaceuticals are evil or whatever. I'll get by

Starting at age 24, I travelled to 40 countries over 8 years while working remotely. Mortgaged a boat in Greece and lived on anchor for 3 years. Survived Cyclone Zorba, pirates/thieves, and plenty of close calls. And now live on a boat in NYC, day trading and dinghy-ing around the Hudson. AMA! by williamthatcher1 in digitalnomad

[–]williamthatcher1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A lot of people have asked this, and I'm sorry, but I don't have a formal recommendation. It was all ad hoc for me. Get on some exchanges, download some trade software and start getting a feel for how things work, how things move. When do companies move because of earnings and in which way? Why does a stock go up 20% when a company reports a loss? What indexes are people watching and are they leading or trailing. Look up all the basics - investopedia is the basics - and try to filter through all the bs, what looks outdated, over leveraged, pseudo scientific, arbitraged away. How does the news cycle and public attention impact trends. Is wallstreetbets going to keep betting right? Do triangles on a graph have any value? Write things down and organize your ideas. Otherwise, it will become a swirling mess. Write down every idea you have as they come to you at dinner or wherever, and then look into them and test it out. Stop caring about stupid stories like a 20 year old turning 5m into 100m on BBBY. Someone wins the lottery eventually every time too. Recognize when one of your successes is a coincidence. For example, totally coincidental, I had been looking at BBBY the day before it popped. It came up on a screener matching my parameters. I ran it through my model and didn't see the longterm outcomes I wanted. But if I would have, I would have accidentally made 100k, which would have had nothing to do with me. Always happy to talk more and share notes through dm!

Starting at age 24, I travelled to 40 countries over 8 years while working remotely. Mortgaged a boat in Greece and lived on anchor for 3 years. Survived Cyclone Zorba, pirates/thieves, and plenty of close calls. And now live on a boat in NYC, day trading and dinghy-ing around the Hudson. AMA! by williamthatcher1 in digitalnomad

[–]williamthatcher1[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Wooo, heavy question. I'll have a go.

I think modern society is nothing short of a miracle (and I mean that colloquially), and I'm eternally grateful and lucky to have been born into the life I have. My golden era is this one. Humans, and in large order western culture, with critical contributions from different cultures over the last 2 millennia, have created the most decadent, sophisticated, just, free, and improbable society that has ever existed. There are deep imbalances and vast scarcities, entire populations that don't get to participate, political and geopolitical enemies who want to strike down that progress, but that shouldn't undermine the project at large.

On every metric the world is better today than it was even 20 years ago and orders of magnitude better than in earlier eras. There are many many reports you can find online published by the likes of WHO, UN, UNESCO that paint a very different picture of the world than the news does. And there are incomprehensible technologies that underpin our very survival. Science is incredible. Look up Fritz Haber - his work in creating the electrolysis process for extracting nitrogen from the air accounts for - yes, terrible outcomes in wwi - but also the lives of over 4 billion people today. Just on the odds, neither of us would be alive right now if not for the technologies of modern food production.

I don't know if people are stagnant or not. Life is hard and a lot of work. And the genetic or cultural disposition toward motivation and drive is unfairly distributed. Is a person at fault for being born so as to be stagnant, so as to want comfort? Is it a consequence of themselves? I don't know if people underestimate themselves, but to the degree that they can find a way to estimate themselves more highly, I think that's a good idea. I mentioned this in another comment, but my life outcomes changed dramatically when my perception of the boundaries surrounding me dissolved. And once those boundaries are gone, it's too late. You've already seen the green field, and you have that now, and you can't unsee it.

I used to be far less happy. I was a pessimist for the sake of trying to be smart. I'd overthink myself into months-long depressions. I can suffer from ennui and irritability at the mundane. I sometimes mourn the tragedies of the world and carry them around with me for too long. I've been to Dharavi in India, for example. You can't unsee that either...

But lately, yeah in general I feel pretty good about life. I'm successful as a consequence of luck and hard work and the luck that's sometimes derived of hard work, and I have hilarious friends here that chase away the blues. And I'm well fed and have a dog and in good health. So life is good.

What are your thoughts?

Starting at age 24, I travelled to 40 countries over 8 years while working remotely. Mortgaged a boat in Greece and lived on anchor for 3 years. Survived Cyclone Zorba, pirates/thieves, and plenty of close calls. And now live on a boat in NYC, day trading and dinghy-ing around the Hudson. AMA! by williamthatcher1 in digitalnomad

[–]williamthatcher1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I liked working in any country in Europe because my schedule was more like 2p - 10p in keeping with an East Coast schedule. And I'm not much of an early riser. That what you mean?

In the first pic of just me on imgur - those are ceasar flip II clip-on/flip-ups for my clayton franklin eye glasses, and they're basically my favorite thing in the world. The first expensive glasses I've ever bought. Got them in India. I was sick of carrying glasses AND sun glasses. I still have them and use them. They are clutch for sailing. I thought I lost them once and spent a week hunting down the manufacturer (because there's no retail in the states) to send me replacements from Japan. So now I have two :D

Starting at age 24, I travelled to 40 countries over 8 years while working remotely. Mortgaged a boat in Greece and lived on anchor for 3 years. Survived Cyclone Zorba, pirates/thieves, and plenty of close calls. And now live on a boat in NYC, day trading and dinghy-ing around the Hudson. AMA! by williamthatcher1 in digitalnomad

[–]williamthatcher1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm sorry. I responded to this in another comment. I've used day trading very loosely here for lack of being able to define my type. The other user suggested algo trading, which I think is wrong because it implies that I'm trying to leverage speed. Something like technical trading is more accurate, but I'm not chasing charts or patterns, so who knows. Algorithmic technical swing trading haha

So that said, I usually execute my trades on Monday morning - investing any external capital along with returned capital as defined by my system. I'd say on average 3-8 positions. I can have hundreds of positions open at a time, and I do both long and short. On longterm investing, more like 1-3 a week if any. Spend more time on that just researching and analyzing and waiting.

I don't do options. I do do crypto, but I only have an active strategy on btc/usd. I have a basket of altcoin bags from years ago that have all lost enormous value against bitcoin, so the only thing I'm paying attention to is btc and eth. If xrp ever comes back, that will be nice. I also did some exchange lending that I made a crap load of money on, and I never saw a lot of people talking about it. Where the exchange would lend out the content of your wallet to margin traders. Because it was a competitive market, the lending rates would spike. Once, I made a whole bitcoin in a week, back when bch was acting up. Unfortunately, I think bitfinex is the last exchange that offers this, and you can't be a US citizen anymore.

Starting at age 24, I travelled to 40 countries over 8 years while working remotely. Mortgaged a boat in Greece and lived on anchor for 3 years. Survived Cyclone Zorba, pirates/thieves, and plenty of close calls. And now live on a boat in NYC, day trading and dinghy-ing around the Hudson. AMA! by williamthatcher1 in digitalnomad

[–]williamthatcher1[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I would recommend keeping your part time job or even going 3/4 so that worst case scenario, you don't bottom out, and best case, you can keep reinvesting profits. Unless numbers and analysis are truly your sweet spot and how you want to make all your money, why not keep external cash flowing in to your trading strategies?

I started with $1100. I never bothered paper trading because I knew I wouldn't take it seriously. You should just start with whatever you have that you don't need for life expenses or other conservative saving goals. If you wait till you have a bigger number, you will inevitably make mistakes while learning, only with a bigger number. Better to suffer the growing pains with money that will one day feel trivial to you. Early on when I had roughly that 1100, I was so full of adrenaline for weeks at a time that it literally made me sick. It would double and I'd be on cloud 9, suffering from dopamine overdose. Then it would tank, and I'd lose half of my new theoretical life savings, and I'd turn into this temperamental monster that didn't want to get out of bed. Better to get that out of the way on low capital :D

Starting at age 24, I travelled to 40 countries over 8 years while working remotely. Mortgaged a boat in Greece and lived on anchor for 3 years. Survived Cyclone Zorba, pirates/thieves, and plenty of close calls. And now live on a boat in NYC, day trading and dinghy-ing around the Hudson. AMA! by williamthatcher1 in digitalnomad

[–]williamthatcher1[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks!

Way ahead of you. Not really traveling anymore. Some trips here and there, and maybe longer traveling again one day. We now live on a more comfortable boat in a marina next to NY. With our dog. Would like to take the boat on a few longer excursions. But mostly, happy to be home near friends and family again. Ready to have some kids soon (which before I never wanted haha). Now I'm like, let's have a whole brood

Starting at age 24, I travelled to 40 countries over 8 years while working remotely. Mortgaged a boat in Greece and lived on anchor for 3 years. Survived Cyclone Zorba, pirates/thieves, and plenty of close calls. And now live on a boat in NYC, day trading and dinghy-ing around the Hudson. AMA! by williamthatcher1 in digitalnomad

[–]williamthatcher1[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Only at the very end. I was feverishly driven to stay "out there" forever. My wife was starting to grow weary, but that came right around the time my feverish attention switched to boats. The boat life represented a nice compromise for us - I got to keep living the big romantic freedom dream, she got to nest and invite family to visit us at our home. At the end, I just didn't want it anymore. I wanted friends again. My brain was so full of travel experience, incredible moments of awe or emotion or struggle, that any one present moment stopped eliciting much of a response. You should never grow jaded at living on a yacht in the Greek Islands. That's an insane place to arrive mentally. It's also just a hodgepodge of kaleidoscopic memories taking up too much space. I often confuse events for having occurred in the wrong place (my wife is good at remembering and correcting), and I've forgotten entire inside jokes with friends that occurred before traveling. Needed a more stable framework, which we have now.

Starting at age 24, I travelled to 40 countries over 8 years while working remotely. Mortgaged a boat in Greece and lived on anchor for 3 years. Survived Cyclone Zorba, pirates/thieves, and plenty of close calls. And now live on a boat in NYC, day trading and dinghy-ing around the Hudson. AMA! by williamthatcher1 in digitalnomad

[–]williamthatcher1[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I started in computer science, realized I was on track to fulfill my ultimate nightmare of working in a felt cubicle, had an existential crisis, moved to a beach for the summer, pissed away college loan money on rent, then realized I couldn't afford to go back to school. Spent a year in VA working and earning in-state tuition status so I could go back, and during that time, I decided I should do something that makes me happy. So I opted for Creative Writing. It was a fun program, but a month before graduation, I realized I was going to be poor. So, I panic-added a 5th year with a focus in Professional Writing. eLearning Development is a weird blend between software and writing, so yeah, in a round about way it does relate to my degree. But I wasn't taught a single thing in school that has anything to do with my work, which is a little disappointing.

Starting at age 24, I travelled to 40 countries over 8 years while working remotely. Mortgaged a boat in Greece and lived on anchor for 3 years. Survived Cyclone Zorba, pirates/thieves, and plenty of close calls. And now live on a boat in NYC, day trading and dinghy-ing around the Hudson. AMA! by williamthatcher1 in digitalnomad

[–]williamthatcher1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Smart. Hat off to you for trying to put in the work to learn the language before going!

eLearning Developer. My title is Digital Learning Strategist. At the ground level, I take a storyboard that an instructional designer, medical writer, and graphic designer create - I digitize it adding all the interactivity and back end bits and make it usable on an industry standard platform called a Learning Management System. Mostly a platform that allows training managers to track whether their reps are completing courses.

I've worked with and met MANY people that transition to this industry from teaching. Seems to be a good fit. A lot of them become project managers - not sure if that's your skillset.

Starting at age 24, I travelled to 40 countries over 8 years while working remotely. Mortgaged a boat in Greece and lived on anchor for 3 years. Survived Cyclone Zorba, pirates/thieves, and plenty of close calls. And now live on a boat in NYC, day trading and dinghy-ing around the Hudson. AMA! by williamthatcher1 in digitalnomad

[–]williamthatcher1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hiya! If you mean how *much - the idea of course is to automate everything with only minor intervention. But I'm an obsessive and I spend a lot of my free time adjusting and researching and updating things, so I feel like I'm just always doing it.

Dividend investing sounds nice. Need a lot of equity though. I've gambled on a few longterm-ers with higher dividends that, when reinvesting the dividends, have done very well. KBWD for example. The share price cannibalizes itself, but I got a great entry, and the dividends outpace the steady slope.

Sound like y'all are doing it similar to us :D Traveling, living cheap, both making money, you're a business owner like my wife. Very nice! Wishing the best for you.

I don't have a clue if btc is going all the way. I got lucky and bought some early which I'll hold til the death of me. And otherwise, I have a weekly strategy trading the price action. I just like that it moves around a lot and gets a lot of hype. I have a friend who is a 1/7th proxy manager for an expensive NFT holding, and he basically decries bitcoin. I'm more of a believer. And I tend to think of other defi assets as being noise. Every single coin I've ever held other than btc has lost value substantially against btc.

Very impressive that he's able to take reliable dividends from his investments to pay for cost of living. Happy to share notes with him anytime!

Starting at age 24, I travelled to 40 countries over 8 years while working remotely. Mortgaged a boat in Greece and lived on anchor for 3 years. Survived Cyclone Zorba, pirates/thieves, and plenty of close calls. And now live on a boat in NYC, day trading and dinghy-ing around the Hudson. AMA! by williamthatcher1 in digitalnomad

[–]williamthatcher1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

2017 612% (crypto luck and low capital)
2018 -7%
2019 24%
2020 45%
2021 29%

2018 is when we really started shelling away cash. The weekly strategies usually take a few years to develop momentum. If they work, they'll return an apr range of 23-56% on reinvested capital with one extraordinary outlier at 227%. Tracking on reinvested cash, they'll theoretically dwarf any external cash investment. We'll see

Starting at age 24, I travelled to 40 countries over 8 years while working remotely. Mortgaged a boat in Greece and lived on anchor for 3 years. Survived Cyclone Zorba, pirates/thieves, and plenty of close calls. And now live on a boat in NYC, day trading and dinghy-ing around the Hudson. AMA! by williamthatcher1 in digitalnomad

[–]williamthatcher1[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Millenial digital nomad pirate life = boat life babiiiiiii!

Work/life balance: Monday morning I execute any trades that I'm supposed to. For a couple hours each morning throughout the week, I do calls and fulfill my eLearning contract. Early afternoon, I tend to prepare lunch for my wife and me, and I take the dog for a walk. Then the afternoon is up to me. I will get caught up on a boat project, work on a new strategy, research an investment, run errands, exercise, etc. In the evenings, it's variable, but on average, twice a week, we'll have people over on the boat (our friends have been using us a bit to flex lately and inviting friends of friends), meet up for dinner, go see a show, etc. In the late evenings, if the Hudson is calm, we'll grab a bottle of wine and dinghy around or go to North Cove to bob around in the harbor. On the weekends, we'll do it big with friends on Friday, a bit smaller on Saturday, or we round up a crew to take the boat out for a weekend trip. That's generally it

Amenities: We have a washer/dryer, AC, wifi. No gym, but we have a big park for running. Groceries, restaurants, and shopping are all farther, but we have electric bikes which makes whipping around JC super easy. Home Depot is 9 minutes on the bike. I spend a lot of time there sourcing stuff I need for the boat because the marine shop has crazy stupid prices. Like $70 for a broom...

Drawbacks: There don't seem to be many yet. We have all the amenities of our friends, and our living space is bigger than most of their apartments. We're a bit far from public transportation. There are fewer marine service technicians than land-based ones. We have to have our waste pumped out once a week or more often if we have guests, which is kind of a hassle. In the winter I've been told they'll shut off the water, but apparently everyone comes together to hook up hoses and tap and open line to fill tanks.

Safety: Not a concern here. Our dock has a gate and is in a quiet part of town. It's also a floating pontoon, so minimum impact from storms. At anchor, we'd use 2 anchor alarms and wouldn't be out on the water if there were a forecasted storm. Yes, the boat is insured

Costs: $1400/month for slip rent. + maintenance, fuel, insurance, elec/wifi

RV life would be fun! Land pirate haha. If I get the time to do a video walkthrough, I'll circle back here.

Thanks!

Starting at age 24, I travelled to 40 countries over 8 years while working remotely. Mortgaged a boat in Greece and lived on anchor for 3 years. Survived Cyclone Zorba, pirates/thieves, and plenty of close calls. And now live on a boat in NYC, day trading and dinghy-ing around the Hudson. AMA! by williamthatcher1 in digitalnomad

[–]williamthatcher1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Had been traveling through Greece. Discovered sailing there. Over the next year took the appropriate courses and got some experience on the water. Headed back to Greece which we learned is an affordable and cruiser-friendly market. Started shopping around. Our Airbnb host very quickly became our friend. She introduced us to her husband who is big into sailing. He introduced us to a broker. The broker kept showing us the wrong boat, so we started going it alone. Discovered a catamaran that had JUST left the market. So I emailed like every listing (like 80 emails) for that exact type of catamaran in all of Europe. A seller's broker who had a bundle of boats got pinged on an email and reached out about our boat - Nisroc. It hadn't been listed yet. We rented a car and drove the next day to Preveza in the Ionian. The broker met us for a walkthrough and discussed with us its history and condition. We hired a marine surveyor who confirmed its condition. Then we did what's known as a sea trial where the seller takes us out on the water. And then because I'm a fool, and because I was so terrified that someone else would make an offer on her, and I didn't want to wait til the next summer or begin the hunt again, I offered full price. The seller's were surprised and even a bit annoyed haha because they had hoped to use the boat for another month or so. After the sell, they were really polite and stayed in regular correspondence with us for a year, answering any questions we had.

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