How to Make Money as a Snowbird

April 4, 2020

How to make money as a snowbird – this is the burning question everyone has. In How to Make Money as a Snowbird, the third blog post in our series How to Become Snowbirds by Age 30, we will be answering this critical question. No mystery, no scam – just real answers how you can make money as a snowbird and live your best life.

Surprisingly, how to make money as a snowbird is simple. There are three ways we will be talking about.

Make Money Option 1: Save Your Pennies

The first option in how to make money as a snowbird is simple: save enough money to pay all your bills as a snowbird. However, it might not be as simple to execute and is definitely an overwhelming concept. Let’s break it down into manageable steps.

Step 1: Calculate Your Expenses

First things first, you need to know how much to save. Constantly saving your money with no end game is not the point of this. In order to live your snowbird life, you need to have a SMART goal – specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely.

Go grab our handy Interactive Cost Comparison Tool. This will be your starting point.

Free Worksheet

After you calculate how much your monthly expenses will be, multiple that value by how many months you plan to live as a snowbird – could be three, six, twelve, or more months.

For example if your monthly expenses are going to $1500 to live in Mexico for 12 months:

$1500/month x 12 months = $18,000

Based on the calculated amount, you may also want to add contingency. This is a percentage that you add on top of your calculated amount for costs you may not have considered or extras that pop up. It is always a good idea to have extra socked away for emergencies.

Step 2: Write Down Your SMART Goal

Using your goal amount of savings, write down the rest of your SMART goal. Post this goal somewhere you will see it daily. Focus on your goal and manifest it!

Goal: Save $18,000 by the end of 2021 by saving 20% of take home pay and freelancing.

Step 3: Execute Your Goal

The hard part is executing saving the money.

The practice that we use (and that any financial advisor will tell you) is live below your means. That means spending less money than you bring in every month.

Some other ways to execute your make money goal are:

Lower your cost of living
Get a higher paying job
Work more
Freelance to bring in extra income
Sell possessions / buy less

Your first make money option involves a lot of discipline and hard work upfront. It can be challenging to save the entire amount you need to live your snowbird life. This first option is what traditional snowbirds – retirees – would be doing, but there is no reason you can’t do it as a snowbird before the age of 30. However, unless you win the lottery, you will likely need to return to normal life or look at our second option in order to make more money when you run out.

Make Money Option 2: Work Remotely

The second option in how to make money as a snowbird is to continue working, but to do so remotely. (You could also work in your perfect location if you obtain the necessary visas.)

The benefit of working remotely or working in your perfect location, is that you probably have the luxury of working less than you are currently working. This is because your monthly expenses are probably lower than they are in your regular life.

If you calculated your new monthly expenses using our Interactive Cost Comparison Tool then you can see exactly how much cheaper you will be living.

Free Worksheet

Making money while working remotely is a great option to maintain the feeling of normalcy. Working can bring a sense of purpose to your day.

Now we can’t tell you exactly how to work remotely. But you can look at your skills and think up creative ways to use those skills with remote positions. Jenn has had a lot of success on Upwork. Another site is Fiverr; we have not personally created profiles on Fiverr, but it might be an option for you!

Our suggestion with working remotely is to start sooner rather than later! Start picking up freelance gigs or developing your remote business long before you take off as a snowbird. It can take longer than expected to transition to remote and build up the necessary cash flow. The bonus is that you will be bringing in extra cash which can be saved!

There are hundreds of methods to make money remotely. One we see all the time is to have a blog. To be completely honest, we don’t make any money off of this blog – so I would not consider it as a make money quick method. It is more for fun and maybe one day (fingers crossed) we will be able to monetize it.

Make Money Option 3: Combination of Option 1 and 2

This final make money option as a snowbird is what we will be doing!

Since planning to live as snowbirds last summer (summer 2019), we have been diligent about saving our pennies. As we both have comfortable careers and practice living below our means, this has been easier than it will be for some. Knowing we are leaving, we have been selling possessions (Jenn sold her vehicle last year as well) and saving that cash.

We will both work while we are living as snowbirds. Jenn will work a more regular schedule. She will be working doing freelance work on a contract basis. She been doing freelance work for several months when my work schedule is slower as well.

Kendall will continue to work seasonally. In his industry there are periods of the year that have fast paced, all hands on deck seasons. Until he finds something he loves to do online/remote, he will have these opportunities. There are many people he works with now who have the same work practices so it is an industry norm.

For us, being snowbirds isn’t about retiring and not working. It is about living on the beach, being stress free, and living an easy going lifestyle. The biggest temptation is the opportunity to live in the sun and spend time together.

So there you have it! Three ways to make money while living the snowbird life. Drop us a line below about how you plan to make money or how you do make money living as a snowbird.

Make sure you subscribe so you don’t the next post in our series How to Become Snowbirds by Age 30.

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