Perks of Being a Digital Nomad

What is a Digital Nomad?

A digital nomad is a term for people who work remotely from foreign countries, coffee shops, public libraries, co-working spaces, or recreational vehicles. (Wikipedia, paraphrased).

Benefits of Being a Digital Nomad

There are a lot of benefits to being a digital nomad. Firstly, you have flexibility in time. You get to decide when and how you will work on your job/task without being dictated by anyone. Those are just among the other things. Below, I posted the advantages and disadvantages of being a digital nomad.

Advantages

✓ Flexible schedule/time
✓ No direct supervisor
✓ Work from home set-up
✓ No office politics and drama
✓ You can work at home if you don’t feel like going outside (No need to commute to the office every day)
✓ You can travel anytime
✓ No middle man (Some remote companies have Project Managers)
✓ You have no direct boss to report to
✓ Work/project ownership

Disadvantages (No)

✗ Benefits such as HMO, gym membership, etc.
✗ Office training/events (Some companies offer training to their remote workers, better ask your client 🙂
✗ Job security (This is for sure)
✗ Stability
✗ Sometimes you work on your own

Great for

• Travellers/Lakwatsera(o)
• Married professionals

Not great for

• Employees that must be in the office
• People who look for company benefits
• Folks who seek job security

In short, being a digital nomad is not for everyone. This requires not just hard work but also smart work and a lot of motivation and patience. You must be ready anytime due to its nature that in a blink of an eye, a client might end his business engagement with you or worse, ghost you!

Personal Advice

I don’t recommend those fresh graduates to transition to full time digital nomadic lifestyle. Similarly, if you don’t have an emergency fund, don’t choose this path yet. An emergency fund is a 3 to 6 month worth of money in case you would lose a job, etc. Be wise and realistic.

Before diving into becoming a digital nomad, create a well-thought-out plan how you’re going to pull this thing off and be able to transition to full time digital nomadic lifestyle. In addition to that, compute your monthly expenses in order to determine the exact amount of the emergency fund that you need to save.

It is also better to let your family know about your plans. If you’re married, it is important to set expectations with your spouse. If you’re single, it’s much easier! But if you are a single person and a family breadwinner at the same time, this is a bit risky. It is recommended to have at least 2 quality clients that are in for the long term. Otherwise, don’t jump ship yet. Try to manage your time while having a full-time job and look for a freelance job on the side. After your day job, you can do your freelance job for at least 2 hours a day. It’s all about time management 🙂

Conclusion

So that’s it for today! Thinking of becoming a digital nomad? Let me know your thoughts and I might be able to answer some of your questions 🙂

Additional Reading

Read here my post when I went to New Zealand on work and vacation trip.