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Why I Love Mondays: and Why I'm hoping for the Economy to Crash

It's 8am monday morning and i'm the only one at the office. I don't have a boss that would know or care if I wasn't here, and I don't need to work as hard as I do...but i'm on a roll and unlike my previous life, I actually love what I do for work.

Here are some of the tips and tricks on being productive, crushing it, and why I'm trying to save up as much money as I can in hopes that the U.S. economy will someday crash. Who knows if it'll happen or not but I'd rather be prepared!

mondays
Mondays: It's what you make of it.

I love Bonus Day:

One reason why I love morning mornings is since I'm based in Thailand, it's still Sunday evening in the U.S. which is where most of my customers are, which means, no one expects me to be working or return emails.  

This allows me to do whatever I like, and this morning, I feel like writing a blog post. Some mondays I start a new project, edit funny videos, write a chapter, or do other things that normally get put off because we get busy putting out fires or responding to people. 

Email App Hack: I use the Gmail app Boomerang which allows me to schedule emails to send whenever I wish. For most important emails I just send normally, but for customer service emails it seems like people love responding back and forth on Sunday nights from their phones while they watch TV, so instead, I schedule it to send Monday morning their time at 7am.



Empty Office:

It's now 8:40 and i've had my cup of coffee, uploaded a new video case study for my new course and am halfway through this blog post and still no one's here.  Even though I really enjoy surrounding myself with other entrepreneurs the fact is, most digital nomads are closer to backpackers (budget travelers) than they are trying to make enough to fly business class or even strive towards flying private one day.

It's not their fault, the charm of living the 4-hour workweek is what brought most of us here in the first place, so I understand. But I have bigger plans, and that involves building multiple streams of income and putting in the work.

Productivity Hack: I love taking advantage of zero input on monday mornings. This is why I haven't opened my email, facebook, messages, and muted all notifications. Try it, instead of opening your email and having your messages (both good and bad) dictate how you start your day and your week. Instead, do something creative, like writing a blog post first thing Monday morning and  write whatever comes to mind.


8:45am Monday Morning and I'm still the only laptop here

No Laptop Sundays:

Another reason why I love mondays, is because I know i'll have a full inbox, both personal and business wise, since I don't open my laptop on Sundays. Even though I can technically work what days I want I keep a normal 8-4 M-F work week. Sometimes on Saturdays I'll work for a bit in the mornings, but I always do something fun and relaxing the rest of the weekend.

The reason why I don't check my phone, facebook or email on Sundays is because I need a full day to unplug which is why I often go on a full day hike, or an overnight trek to really unplug. This weekend, I went to a full day Yoga retreat, which started at 9am and ended after dinner at 8:30. One of the coolest things about Chiang Mai is that there is always something to do. 

Smart Phone Hack: Turn off all notifications except for phone calls/text message, especially on Sundays. I leave them off permanently. That way I don't get facebook notifications or new email alerts and only check them when I'm at my computer and ready to respond.


johnny yoga


The Master Plan:

If you're curious on why I'm not just skating by working 4 hours a week and living off of my semi-passive income, it's because I'm thinking about what I want in the future.  If I wanted to stay single, travel on the cheap, and just have fun living a simple life, I'd do just that. But now that I'm 33 and really want to be able to have a family and be able to afford things like buying a house and a car back in the U.S. I want to up my income.

It's hard because normally if you make a six figure salary you can easily buy a house, have a big fancy wedding and have a car for each of you, in reality, that is all mortgaged and bought on debt.

The hard part about being an entrepreneur is not knowing what my income will be 5 years from now, which means I can't sign a 36 or 60 month car payment, and a 30 year mortgage on a home and I can't simply pay off a big wedding after I get back from the honeymoon. Instead, I should just buy everything in cash, which means I'll need a lot more of it.



Betting on the Economy:

I have a feeling that the U.S. Economy will crash in the next few years. Most people are scared of it happening, but I'm kind of hoping for it. My goal is to have enough liquid cash saved up so I can buy up a ton of U.S. stock when it crashes and hold onto it until it goes back up.

After a lot of reading, and skyping with friends far richer and smarter than me, I've been putting $3,000 a month into the Vanguard Total Stock index (VTI) which basically buys the entire stock market while having super low fees.  I'm buying the same amount on the same day every month to average out the cost of my shares while keeping the rest of my income in cash so if it crashes I can buy as much as I can afford up at a discount. This involves having liquid cash, low expenses, and enough of backup so I can hold onto the stocks for up to 10 years that it might take for the economy to recover.

Here's the math:

$50,000 in savings as a buffer to get me through the downturn in economy. 

$50,000 in savings to buy as much discounted index funds as possible.

The good news about being an entrepreneur is that i'm 100% sure that I will always have some sort of income as I have so many various sources and have built up so many skills over the years.  The best thing about being a digital nomad is that I have learned to be comfortable living for less than $1,500 a month and being able to do it from anywhere, which would give me more than 2.5 years as a buffer to rebuild.

The goal is to have a lot more than the 50/50 above and who knows, the U.S. has so much control and the economy is so crazy that it may never happen, but that's the plan!

So enjoy your Monday and get to work!

P.S. Great, news it's now 9:28am and the coworking space is full! People here to crush it!
Time to check my email and see what has been happening while I was asleep and doing Yoga all day.

-Johnny

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  1. I'm reading this Sunday night but you got me excited for Monday morning!

    I found you two weeks ago. I've already listened to over 20 of your podcasts.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Awesome Mike! Glad you are excited for Monday morning and glad you are enjoying the podcasts! If you have a sec, leave a review of it on the iTunes store as it'll help a ton! Thanks!

      Delete
  2. One of the major rules of investing is Don't time the market. Some people have been waiting for a crash since 2010.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Definitely spot on with this. No one knows if it'll ever happen or when, which is why I'm still putting money in every month, just keeping a side pot just in case.

      Delete
  3. BTW, VTI is a great choice. I think I was the first one to mention it to you (at least on this blog) when I posted my asset allocation with all the Vanguard Index Funds.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for that. It took me a few people mentioning VTI for me to finally invest, but now i'm all in with it as it makes the most common sense.

      Delete
    2. Yes, but you should have some investment in the international market too. Just to be further diversified. VXUS is a good one. At your age, you should have about 20 to 25% in VXUS.

      Delete
  4. What makes you think the economy will crash?

    ReplyDelete
  5. whats up Johnny
    When I came out to the retreat i definitely noticed that ur like the only hard working dude at punspace. A lot of those backpackers are just getting by but you followed the DSL course exactly and now ur stacking cash...let them show up late - you're laughing to the bank!
    Max

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. haha thanks Max. I guess I was like that the first few years I was traveling as well, happy to just be getting by. But my priorities are different now and I'm all about building profits and stacking it! Hope to see you at the DSL retreat in Krabi this year!

      Delete

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