This was an awesome month! It's seriously overwhelming at times how amazing it is being "stuck" here in Sri Lanka during this world wide pandemic. I spent the first half of this previous month surfing in Arugam Bay, then the last two weeks traveling around the East Coast of Sri Lanka making fun travel videos at beach resorts, and even got to go on a super yacht for the night. Best of all, this is all now both a career as well as a dream job come true, all while getting massive support from local Sri Lankans who are happy that foreigners like me are showing how amazing their country is. They are hopeful that Sri Lanka will finally become on the map as a tourist destination once travel reopens again.
Even though this month was an expensive month, staying at nice places, traveling around, eating amazing food, and having my 2013 MacBook Air finally dying on me and needing to be replaced. I am fortunate to have my online business, Youtube revenue, and passive income streams to support me, all while being able to be able to treat out my friends and girlfriend to nice dinners once in a while. And even though there isn't a big tipping culture here in Sri Lanka, I've started making it a point to help out the cleaners, luggage handlers, boatmen, and other low paid staff by giving them a tip whenever I can. It's been a really amazing month and I feel so blessed and fortunate on how things have turned out. So without further delay, here's this month's expensive, income and travel updates.
Where I Lived
After coming back to Arugam Bay to chill out for a month between trips, which turned out to be a fantastic idea. One of my favorite things about staying in a country for 3-6 months is being able to go on a 1-2 week trip somewhere, then spend an entire month in one place to develop good habits, workouts, work routines, as well as local friendships. For us it was Arugam Bay and I'm really glad that we stayed as long as we did as we got to know our hotel-mates really well, and even made some really good friendships both with foreigners and locals a like.
I also got to work on my surfing skills and rode some really incredible waves! The place we stayed was called Crocotopond which has a terrible name, but was actually a really nice place and just two blocks away from the beach. Normally the rooms during high season cost $60 a night, but since there are so few tourists on the island right now, we were able to get the entire month for just $323.43 including WIFI, A/C/ and utilities! It was such an amazing deal that it was hard to want to leave, especially since the waves were so good and there were so few people at the surf breaks. But honestly, after 2 months of being in Arugam Bay, we started to get bored, and Kristina and I decided to leave our little slice of paradise in search of new adventures.
But here's a video tour of both our $323 a month hotel apartment with a swimming pool, as well as a walking tour of the entire strip of Arugam Bay where I show you all of my favorite cafes, restaurants, nightlife, food and things to do.
Where I Traveled
First off, it was really nice being based in Arugam Bay as there were a ton of day trips to visit just locally around there. We even rented a tuk-tuk and strapped a surf board to the top to go camping near by and surf both sunset and sunrise.
If you've been subscribed and following my Youtube channel, I had made so many videos that even releasing them once every two days took until now for me to finally "leave Ella." But in reality I was chilling out back in Arugam Bay since July 20th and taking things easy. I've since started publishing videos everyday to try to catch up and release them all, so hopefully by the time you read this, I'll be back to a 3 day delay from when out was filmed.
However, as of September 1st when I'm writing this, we've already started out around the island trip starting with going up to Pasikuda Beach, Batticaloa, and Trincomalee, all beach towns on the East Coast of the island. We stayed at two incredible resorts in Pasikuda, which I believe has the best swimming beaches in all of Sri Lanka. Then we came up to Trincomalee to board the 84ft (25.6m) Superyacht "Ocean Diamond" which we chartered through Sail Lanka who is offering 40% off right now during this low season. It was an incredible experience, and I can't wait for you to see the video of the epic 2 days we had at sea.
Expenses for August
By far my biggest and most unexpected expense for the month was replacing my MacBook Air that finally died on me after hard use for 7 years straight. The 2013 was still the best computer I've ever owned, and even though I ideally wanted to wait for the new ARM Based Apple Silicon chips to be released later this year, the 2020 MacBook Air at least comes with a nice Retina screen, as well as the new/old more reliable keyboard again. The hard part was finding one to buy without going all the way to Colombo, and not paying a 30% markup and buying it through Singer, Abans, or one of the bigger shops with physical locations. Luckily I found one through a call shop called Life Mobile that was selling it for a fair price and delivered it all the way from Colombo to Arugam bay for without too much issue.
Aside from that my other biggest expenses would have been the 4 and 5 star hotels and yacht we stayed on this month, but luckily for me I was able to trade video work and promotion through my YouTube channel for the stay. I don't like to think of it as getting a free room as an influencer to make a few instagram posts, as the videos I made at these locations were part showing the experience, showing what is available to do in Sri Lanka, as well as the ability to make them as I would have anyway even if I had paid full price to stay at a nearby hotel or resort on my own. The videos ended up being over an hour each in footage, and took a ton of time to edit. So the way I think of it is that I normally would charge $250 an hour for these services, so as long as I'm getting that equivalent amount as a stay, then we're even, and don't need to exchange money.
My plan has been to only stay at places or accept barters for things that I wanted to do anyways and would have happily paid for to do. That way I keep my channel's integrity and make the content that I actually would have wanted to make anyways regardless if I'm paying them $250 or they're paying me that same amount in exchange.
Apartment Rent: $323.43 (Arugam Bay)
Electricity and Utilities: $0 (included)
Netflix: $8.99 (Downgraded from the $12.99 plan)
Cell Phone: $25 (for 4G)
Scooter Rental: $113.10 (Automatic Honda)
Motorcycle Rental: $43.10
Gas for Motorbike: $10
Surf Boards: $24.24 (daily rentals, 2 weeks)
Groceries and Fruit: $85
Restaurants: $542.52
Drinking Water: $5
Coffee and Cakes: $27.10
2020 MacBook Air: $1,195.03
Taxi to Pasikuda: $43
Tuk-Tuks: $40
Visa Extension: $145
Parents Remittance: $1,000
Total Expenses: $3,627.53
This was an increase from $1,476.20 last month mainly due to the laptop purchase and eating out at nice restaurants often. Also not included are business operating costs and other donations I make.
Income for August
It's been another great month working online while traveling as a digital nomad! I've focused almost 100% of my energy on creating videos and growing my Youtube Channel and the hard work has paid off again. This month I shot, edited, uploaded and published 18 total videos to my page. That's like 9x what I normally did in the past and it's paid off.
I was able to hold steady and break the $1,000 a month in revenue mark, I was hoping to for even bigger gains compared to last month, but I can't complain as everything is up, and if I can continue this type of growth it'll be fantastic. Being able to make $1k has mostly paid for my MacBook Air replacement which I've started to use to edit the videos instead of my iPhone. Adding 5,000 subscribers in a month was also pretty cool, so if you haven't subbed yet, you can find my channel at YouTube.com/JohnnyFD and subscribe there.
Aside from my video income, I still have a few other streams of passive and investment income coming in, but my main business would still be my drop shipping stores which have continued to do well, even though it was slightly lower than last month. You can learn how to create a store like mine by following my mentor, Anton at Dropship Lifestyle starting with his webinar that explains what drop shipping is and how his method is ideal for Americans, Europeans and Australians who don't want to sell or ship from China. You can also take my free drop shipping course at DropshipLab.com if you can't afford his, as all of the information you need is in there, but honestly Anton's is much more detailed and better with detailed over the shoulder screen shares, and 1 on 1 help, while mine is an overview designed for those who want to learn and do it on their own.
I really feel fortunate to be able to do what I love from an amazing country such as Sri Lanka during these crazy times. I'm so glad that I'm not in America right now with all that's going on, and even though I wish I had gotten to spend the summer in Europe this year, I'm really fortunate to be able to see so much of Sri Lanka with so few tourists during this time.
I was a bit sad to leave Arugam Bay during the peak of surf season, knowing that I'll never again see so few people at the line up or have that much of the break to myself again, but it was the right move to start traveling again and I'm glad I did. I managed to lose 3kg (6lbs) this month just from surfing again, but we'll see what happens during this next month as I'm not exercising as much as I used to and I've been eating a ton of amazing food at these full board and all inclusive resorts.
The first half of this month was designed to relax and recuperate after the Ella trip into the mountains, but next month will be a whirlwind of traveling up the East Coast, Center, North, then all the way to West Colombo. I have a feeling it'll be both a ton of fun, but also physically exhausting! Lets see what this month has in store for both myself, Kristina, as well as my Youtube channel!
With love from Sri Lanka,
Johnny FD
Please leave a comment if you read this far! I'd love to hear from you!
I enjoy reading your updates Johnny and hearing about your nomadic travelling experiences. But please format your posts with better paragraph spacing mate... its really not easy to read mate, especially on mobile. :)
I'was planning to travel on this month but due to some reason cancil this plan but I've explore some new places and decided to travel. overall thanks for share.
I am privileged to have my online business, YouTube income, and passive revenue streams to provision me, all though existence able to be able to luxury out my friends and sweetheart to nice banquets once in a though. Foreign B2B Marketplace
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Let me know how your month went and if you have any questions!
ReplyDeleteAugust was a record breaker for my FBA business, I hit over $61k sales in total! All while working remotely, totally hands off.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy reading your updates Johnny and hearing about your nomadic travelling experiences. But please format your posts with better paragraph spacing mate... its really not easy to read mate, especially on mobile. :)
ReplyDeleteI'was planning to travel on this month but due to some reason cancil this plan but I've explore some new places and decided to travel. overall thanks for share.
ReplyDeleteThat's awesome Johnny! I'm so excited to follow because my goal is to go nomadic soon.
ReplyDeleteI am privileged to have my online business, YouTube income, and passive revenue streams to provision me, all though existence able to be able to luxury out my friends and sweetheart to nice banquets once in a though. Foreign B2B Marketplace
ReplyDelete