For a change of pace today, I thought I’d share with you some YouTube videos about expats and their new homes. A quick YouTube search of “expat” turns up over 4,000 videos. As you’d expect, some are good, some are terrible and most are in between. Some are slick, commercially produced efforts, most are not. The ones I find most interesting are individuals who shares specifics about their new homes.

I’ve chosen 14 videos worth a look. We’ll come back to this from time to time, so please don’t think I’m ignoring large chunks of the world.

Latin America

1. Retire Early in Mexico

2. Live, work and retire in Mexico. This video looks specifically at Merida, on the Yucatan Peninsula.
3. Living in Mexico, Moving to Mexico and Retiring in Mexico. An American couple moves to San Miguel de Allende.
4. A Retirement in Panama: Everything Under the Sun. This is a professionally created video by International Living.
5. Ecuador – One Man’s Dream
6. To Live in Cuenca, Ecuador
7. Cuenca Day and Night
8. Costa Rica Expat interviews w/Wayne

Asia

1. The Expat Life: Dumpling 101 An adventure in Chinese cooking. This is a really cute video of a US expat in China trying to make Chinese dumplings, to his daughter’s disapproval.

2. Life in Korea. The first month’s of a young American teacher’s adventures in Korea.
3. Life as an Expat in Thailand: Getting a Job
4. How to Live and Work as a Teacher in Thailand
5. Why Malaysia? A British expat explains his reasons.
6. Expat Women in Hong Kong Society. This video gives a glimpse of the down side of expatriation — what do you know when the society you’re living in doesn’t want to mingle with you?

Can you recommend other online videos worth watching about expats and expat destinations? Add your comment to share!

photo by unoguy on Flickr

As future expats, most of us will need to earn a living overseas. Writing, photography, teaching English and art are all eminently portable.

Coaching is also a portable profession: most coaches conduct their sessions over the phone, making them location independent.

Here’s a little bit about what it takes.

Qualifications

I asked our six coaches first what background and qualifications do you need to be a coach?

There are no formal requirements. Anyone can call himself a coach. However, there are certification programs, and if you’re considering coaching as a career you should go through a recognized program.

In the US, the ICF (International Coach Federation) is the top dog. You can learn about their credentialing program here.

Louise belongs to the UK-based Association for Coaching.

Margarita pointed out that there are many accredited coaching schools to choose from, so you need to find one with the best fit for you.

If you can’t access a coaching school nearby, some offer classes by phone teleconference.

CTI, Coaches Training Institute was recommend by Margarita and Emmanuelle, and Coach U by Evelyn.

How Did You Become Interested in Coaching?

I asked each of the coaches how they became interested in coaching as a career.

After ten years in the corporate world, Emmanuelle was tired of office politics and wanted to go into business for herself. She wanted to contribute to her clients’ lives and successes. Since she travels and moves frequently, “coaching seemed a perfect fit for a portable career.”

Anne also came out of the corporate world — over 20 years worth. She, too, wanted a portable career, and she likes “helping others thrive no matter what they do or where they live.”

Heather “fell entirely in love with the positive growth coaching has for both clients and coaches.”

Throughout her adult life in investment banking and then as an expat accompanying partner, Evelyn found herself drawn to helping others in similar situations. “Eventually, as I learned more about coaching, the realisation that this was the profession for me dawned and I really haven’t looked back.”

Margarita had to find a portable career when she started traveling with her husband with the US Foreign Service. Along the way, she met a life coach. She began training and loved it, “and I was hooked.”

Each of them found they had a strong connection with other expats, so the niche of expat coaching was a natural evolution.

Where Do You Find Clients?

Anne, Heather and Emmanuelle have been positioned to find clients through word of mouth and in-person meetings at conferences and workshops, as well as online.

The internet is also a great source of clients for all six coaches. Margarita states that most of her clients find her through her blog or social media — Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Since Anne moved to Brussels, most of her clients come from LinkedIn.

Louise finds clients exclusively through the internet, although she plans to develop a local presence when she moves to mainland Portugal in the fall.

How Do You Get Paid

Since many of their clients are in different countries, I was curious about how the coaches get paid!

PayPal is the venue of choice — it’s cost effective and anyone can use it. Emmannuelle also takes checks (actually, since she’s in Canada she takes checques) and credit cards.

What Advice Would You Give Someone Who’s Interested in Becoming a Coach?

Heather told me:

“It’s a gift, but also a lot of hard work — both getting certified and hard personally as you get to know parts of yourself you may not like! And getting clients — if you have the love for coaching, and the ambition to be aggressive about handling various aspects of a business, this is for you! Also, make sure to attend different intro sessions for the programs out there — understand what you want out of the coaching (certification, accreditation, just fun…) And i’d recommend a program that offers in person and telephone coaching.”

Louise pointed out a sobering statistic:

“Talk to coaches about their careers. Investigate whether you want to work in a company as a coach or start your own business.

If you want to start your own business consider all the issues involved in starting a business – cost, investment and think carefully about the coaching niche you will position yourself in. Don’t think you can become a coach and then people will just come to you. It is reported by Dan Bradbury in the UK that 95% of UK coaches don’t make an adequate living from coaching. Now he is marketing to exactly these people so perhaps take this figure with a pinch of salt but even if it were only 70% – it still is a lot of people struggling to make a living!”

Evelyn pointed out:

“You’re going to need two types of skills: coaching skills, and business skills. You can be the most gifted, most dedicated coach in the world – but if you don’t know how to market your services and sell yourself, you won’t stay in business for very long. So take the time to craft a solid business plan and a well thought-out marketing strategy, to ensure that your coaching business thrives.”

Emmanuelle stated:

“Make sure that it’s really what you want to do as its hard to coach people on finding their inner truth if you’re not living your own. Coach U offers a short course called Becoming a Coach if you think it might be for you.”

Margarita emphasized the need for business savvy:

“Know how to run a business. Marketing and being out there for clients to find you takes a lot of effort, time, and energy and, as a coach, you must be prepared to spend a significant amount of hours on that.”

Anne made an interesting suggestion:

“Get a mentor coach to figure out what are your motives, understand what it takes to run a small business, marketing strategies, what is best cost effective training for you (it can be quite expensive,around $3,000-5,000)”

Want to discuss coaching as a career? Add a comment below or “like” Future Expats on Facebook to join the discussion.

Recently I asked the question:

Health Care Abroad: are we writing

• Just the right amount

• Too much
• Not enough

The results are in — and I wish more of you had responded.

A whopping eighty-three percent of respondents clicked “just the right amount.” Thanks, guys!

Seventeen percent said there’s not enough health care coverage.

And nobody indicated there was too much.

So I guess we’re doing okay on this topic! Thanks so much for your feedback.

Watch for more posts about health care, coming soon.

This is the second part of a series on life coaching for expats. If you missed the first, you can read it here. In Part I I introduced the six coaches who contributed to this discussion, and reviewed what life coaching is and how expat coaching differs from general life coaching.

What Are the Benefits of Expat Coaching?

Coaching can help an expat thrive. With coaching, the new expat can adjust more easily to the new culture, get over homesickness more quickly, make friends and become part of the new community.

Louise also pointed out that a coach offers unqualified support, a focused and objective approach to creating a successful life in the new community, and better performance.

Emmannuelle shared three benefits her clients report:

• Reaching their goals faster

• Increased focus and motivation
• Increased confidence

Evelyn works primarily with accompanying partners — the significant others of people whose companies send them on assignments overseas. She discussed a raft of benefits.

“Often when families move overseas, the impetus is one partner’s career and many times the other partner either puts their career on hold or takes a detour from their career path to accommodate the move.

“For those clients, the key issues are working though their sense of loss of identity and independence and guiding them to a way of life which gives them purpose and fulfillment. In addition, any accompanying partner can feel lost as they embark on life in an unfamiliar country and culture without their support systems of family and friends. Their partners go off to work their children go to school and there they are in a sea of boxes with no friends.

“Even a trip to the grocery store can seem intimidating, which is a horrible feeling for a person who is used to being independent and self-sufficient.

“Coaching can help those clients to renegotiate their relationships with partners, friends and family, it can give them the confidence to engage in the challenges of their new lives and perhaps most importantly it can help them to re-establish their identity and even discover new facets of their identity.”

The expat experience, added Margarita, “while being one of the most amazing things life can offer you, can also be among the most challenging. And so the benefits of having an expat coach is to have someone who can support you through all the ups and downs that the lifestyle brings with it and to help you have the best expatriate experience of your life.”

Expat Coaching: Who Can Benefit?

Heather feels anyone who will relocate in the future or has already done so can benefit from working with a coach.

Emmannuelle and Evelyn both commented that, although new expats are the most obvious group to benefit from coaching, any expat who is experiencing a challenge or who feels stuck can benefit. For example, Evelyn says, an expat who is about to become a parent overseas can really use a coach!

What sorts of issues, problems or concerns can an expat receive help with? The coaches provided a long list of issues, including:

• Work-life balance.

• Handling culture shock
• Relocation decision
• Preparation for the move
• Overwhelm
• Cross cultural understanding
• Coping with children and their relocation and adaptation issues
• Career/job search
• Starting a business
• Family issues
• Transition issues
• Self-esteem
• Identity crisis

How long does a coaching program last?

Depending on the results you’re looking for, it can be as short as three sessions or as many as 12, replies Anne.

Heather feels a decision to relocate might only take one or two sessions, where other issues can take longer.

The longest program Louise offers is eight sessions.

Emmanuelle agrees that more complex issues might require up to eight sessions.

Margarita generally recommends a three-month program.

Evelyn’s programs are completely tailored to the individual coachee.

Tips from the Coaches

Here are a few extra tips the coaches passed along.

To receive the most benefit from coaching, you must be willing to take responsibility for your own actions and your results. It works “when you are ready to change and have time to invest in yourself,” Anne states.

Louise adds, “Coaching is not about being told what to do in any way!” Instead, coaching is all about helping the coachee “overcome limiting beliefs about what they are capable of doing and make change that creates the life that they want.”

Anne warns prospective coaching clients to always check the coach’s credentials. Being an expat doesn’t make you a coach – you need formal training.

Heather suggests starting your coaching program before you move for best results.

Margarita pointed out that you don’t have to do everything yourself as an expat – help from a coach is just a phone call away.

Evelyn said most coaches offer a free trial session to see if you and the coach will be a good fit. Don’t be afraid to ask for one!

Emmanuelle summarized nicely: “Bring an open mind and a willingness to take responsibility for your own success overseas, and there are no limits to what you can achieve with your coach’s support!”



Have you worked with a coach? Was it helpful? What were the biggest benefits for you?

If you plan to start a business overseas — and most of you indicated you’ll have to generate some income to finance your overseas lifestyle — Panama is the country to look at. According to Kathleen Peddicord, publisher of the Overseas Retirement Letter, the country’s friendliness to business is why she and her real estate developer husband moved from Paris to Panama two years ago.

Kathleen explains:

“In the past few months, since my How to Retire Overseas book was published, I’ve been interviewed by at least two dozen members of the media…and every one of them has wondered:

” ‘You moved from Paris to Panama two years ago? Why would you do that?’

“Here’s the truth. If we had no children, no business, and no agenda beyond pursuing the best possible quality of life, we’d have stayed put in Paris. For us, the City of Light (from which I write you today…we’re here for the month of July) is the best place in the world to call home.

“However, about 2 ½ years ago, I did have another agenda. Having sold out my participation in the International Living group, where I’d been publisher for more than 23 years, I decided I wasn’t ready for retirement. What I wanted to do, I realized, was to start over…to build a new business from the ground up.

“France, I knew from experience, was not the place for this. The French are not the nasty, rude people many Americans imagine them to be, but one French stereotype is real: They have little tolerance for the entrepreneurial imagination. The red tape, the bureaucracy, the taxes, and the labor law in this country make it one of the least appealing places on earth to start or operate a business.

“Lief and I knew we’d have to relocate if I wanted to make a real go of a new business venture. But where?

“We took stock of our previous entrepreneurial adventures. By that time, we’d run businesses in the United States, Ireland, France, Nicaragua, Honduras, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Panama.

“When deciding where to base a business, you want to consider five things: the labor pool (how educated and at what cost); the infrastructure; relevant tax rates; the doing-business climate; and local labor law. Considering the world map and taking into account our own experiences, we concluded that, all things considered, Panama is the top choice worldwide if you’re in the market for a place to launch the kind of business I was in the market to launch.

“No place in the world is as entrepreneur-friendly as the United States when it comes to labor law. Nowhere else, for example, can you fire at will (without incurring costly consequences). The rest of the world favors the employee over the employer. We used to joke in France and Ireland that employees were for life. You hired a new one understanding that you were taking a big risk and incurring a long-term liability.

“This is much less true in Panama, but, still, sometimes, we miss the good old days in the States when we could ask an employee to leave on the spot — without written notices, without witnessed warnings, without the calling of tribunals — if his performance warranted it.

“That aside, Panama checks every box you want checked when you set out to start a business. We’ve been delighted by the eclectic pool of labor we’ve been able to tap into in Panama City. In our downtown office today, we have a Romanian, a German, two Russians, three Americans, and four Panamanians. All are educated and hard-working.

“In our high-rise office, we have high-speed wireless Internet, a VOIP phone system, and a telephone number that’s toll-free when dialed from the United States. As we’ve grown, we’ve been able to source bigger and more sophisticated IT and web-support systems, including an American IT pro in the city who responds immediately to our calls for help.

“Panama business taxes? We aren’t liable for any. Structure your business in this country properly, and you won’t be either. Depending where and how your revenues are sourced and, again, how your company is set up, you can operate corporate tax-free.

“The doing-business climate? Panama’s current President Ricardo Martinelli, a successful businessman himself, couldn’t be more pro-entrepreneur. Martinelli has made it his administration’s mission to make Panama the most business-friendly jurisdiction in the hemisphere, and he’s making good progress.

“At a recent American Chamber of Commerce meeting I attended, the Vice Minister of Commerce reported to the assembled group on his ministry’s efforts to attract mega multi-national companies to Panama. They’ve signed on more than 40 big-time international operations to date. Their goal is 100 by year-end.

“What’s getting the attention of the presidents and CEOs of some of the world’s biggest companies?

“They’re looking at the same things I looked at 2 ½ years ago–the labor pool, the tax situation, the infrastructure, and the doing-business climate.

“For them the stakes are much bigger. For my part, I can tell you that our little operation is thriving.”

Photo by Elizabeth Buie

Lots of people today work with life coaches to help them with their careers and personal lives, and expats are no exception. A coach’s objective is to help the “coachee” reach his or her full potential.

I interviewed six experts recently to find out more about expat coaching. Each has professional coaching training and are expats themselves.

I gathered a wealth of information, which I’ll break down into several posts. But first, let’s introduce you to the coaches.

Emmanuelle Archer is French and lives currently in Vancouver, Canada. She’s the president if Winning Away, where she offers coaching to help you thrive in your life abroad. She also blogs about the expat life and coaching here. Emmannuelle speaks French and English.

Anne Egros had 20 years experience in business management with Fortune 500 companies where she trained and managed employees in 20 countries. She has relocated 11 times, and currently lives in Brussels. She offers coaching services for international small business owners, expat executives and managers. Anne is a native French speaker and coaches in English as well.

Heather Markel is a “culture transition specialist.” She helps expats and their families feel at home anywhere in the world. A native of the USA, she has lived in England, France and Switzerland and traveled extensively throughout the rest of the world. She coaches in both English and French. Heather has just introduced a new online program to help expats develop their social networks overseas more easily.

Evelyn Simpson describes herself as a 20-year serial expat. A native of Scotland, she’s moved six times, living in several European countries, a couple of Asian countries and the US. She currently lives in Belgium. Evelyn specializes in pre-move consulting and coaching accompanying partners.

Margarita Gokun Silver offers individual coaching, helping expats manage culture shock and cope with the frustrations and learning required to live successfully in a new culture. She also works with organizations and companies to help their expat staffs deal with communication and cultural issues. She was born in the Soviet Union and has lived in the US, Argentina, Italy, Austria, Poland, and Uzbekistan. She is tri-lingual (English, Spanish and Russian).

Louise Wiles works with people who are considering an overseas move but aren’t sure it’s the right move for them, and with expats who are finding it difficult to build happy, successful and fulfilled lives abroad. Louise hails from the UK and lives in Portugal.

So What Is Expat Coaching Anyway?

Coaching is not psychotherapy or counseling, and is completely results driven. Expat coaches use their expertise to help expats achieve their full potential in their lives abroad and the coaching is all results driven.

Louise points out that an expat coach often focuses on the cross-cultural issues of living and working abroad. That requires an understanding of cultural differences and “learning how to apply that understanding to help achieve personal or work related objectives.” Margarita adds, “Expat coaching is coaching in a niche that’s built around expatriates and the experience of expatriation.”

That doesn’t mean that every aspect of the coaching is concerned with cultural issues. According to Evelyn, “a coach leads a client through a process of personal development and growth.” This can include:

• “Helping the client to identify goals which are consistent with her or his needs and values
• Providing the client with the tools and structure and motivation to accomplish more than would be accomplished working alone
• Encouraging a commitment to action and the development of lasting personal growth
• Holding the client accountable for commitments made, thereby maintaining momentum towards goals”

Click here to see an article titled “What is Coaching” by Louise.

How Is Expat Coaching Different from Other Types of Coaching?

“The foundation principles are the same” with all types of coaching, Heather explains. “At the base of any type of coaching are life and career and relationship challenges. But expat coaching is related to the specific set of challenges that are associated with relocating overseas.”

Louise explains:

“There are a lot of similarities and parallels. The expat coach adds an

• Understanding/knowledge of the challenges involved in working and living in cross cultural or multi-cultural environments. Helping clients to develop a personal awareness of the differences and how they can best operate cross culturally.
• Understanding/knowledge of the issues involved in making big life transitions, likely adaptation issues such as culture shock, initial loneliness and overwhelm.
• Recognition of the uncertain nature of expatriate life for people on assignment and how this can cause additional pressure and frustration.”

“Expat coaches know where you’re coming from, because they have first-hand experience of living overseas. They specialize in dealing with your main concerns as an expat: job search, culture shock, changes in your lifestyle, personal relationships, etc.” Emmannuelle states.

Margarita clarifies that the coaching tools and strategies are no different, but the niche is distinctive.

In the next post in this series, we’ll discuss the benefits of expat coaching and who can use the service.

If you would like to get a reminder in your inbox about the next part of this series on expat coaching, click here to sign up for the RSS feed.

Photo by Catherine Perkins

Guest Post by Barbara Diggs

Lucky is the expat that has no lingering guilt associated with his or her decision to live abroad. But, I think, rare is that expat also.

Maybe you feel a bit guilty about how living abroad will affect your children, or you worry about the feelings of loved ones left behind. You might even have conflicted feelings about preferring another country over your own.

For me, as excited as I was to move to Paris nine years ago, I felt terribly guilty about leaving my mother behind.

At the time of my decision to move, my father had died only sixteen months earlier and my mother was still adjusting to her new life. Even though my brother and sister lived in the same city as she – and I didn’t – I fretted that I was bailing out at a time that she needed me.



Moreover, I knew that even without the complicating factor of my father’s death, she wouldn’t really understand or appreciate my desire to live in another country. This was a woman who lived (and still lives) five minutes away from where she was born, grew up, married, divorced and married again. Although she’d visited many U.S. states, she had never left the country and nor expressed any desire to, save a vague wish to visit the Caribbean.

I knew she would see my wish to live in Paris as evidence of my so-called “wildness” (she thought me “wild” because I did things like go skiing, parasailing, and make trips down the coast of California alone), and because she’d consider the move to be “wild” and strange, it would worry her.

There was no particular point at which I broke the news to her. I had decided to move to Paris after visiting a friend there on the back end of one of my “wild” ski trips in the French Alps. I was leaning out the windows of my friend’s apartment on rue du Bac, watching ordinary scenes of Parisian life below, when I became gripped with the notion that I had to live in Paris. I didn’t want to be another fly-by-night tourist exclaiming, “I feel like I’m in a movie!” when wandering down Parisian streets. I wanted to have a real relationship with the city.

Still looking out the window, I called my boyfriend (now husband) in New York and said,“Let’s move to Paris,” and he said, “Let’s do it.”

When I returned to the U.S., I was bursting with the news, like a girl in love. My mother heard the news of our decision along with the rest of my family and friends, but other than getting a queer deer-in-the-headlights look on her face when I talked about it, she didn’t say much. She probably didn’t take me seriously since there were few people less equipped to move to Paris than me: I couldn’t speak a word of French, nor was I qualified to practice law in France, and I was too saddled with student loans wait tables or teach English.

It was only when I got a lead on a law job in Paris it dawned on her that I was determined to make the move happen. When I told her about the potential job, a pained expression crossed her face and she wailed: “Can’t you wait until I’m dead?” I shot back: “I have to wait that long? You’re only sixty-five!” But even as I hugged her and told her not to be silly and to think of all the great trips she would take, guilt grabbed my heart and twisted it with both hands.

Fifteen months after I made that fateful call to my boyfriend, he and I moved to Paris. (How we both managed to get jobs is another story.)

A full year later, my mother made her first trip across the Atlantic Ocean. I cannot describe the pleasure it gave me to see my homebody mother sitting in Parisian café (fanning her hands against the smoke, it’s true), savoring a chausson aux pommes, or gasping with delight upon seeing the Eiffel Tower or Sacre Coeur.

As she visited more and more over the years, I marveled that this woman who had only been on an airplane two or three times before I moved, had grown so comfortable with international travel that once when her plane was diverted to Lyon because of fog in Paris, she hardly turned a hair (while I was freaking out with worry). When she safely arrived in Paris she mused that next time she would like to actually see Lyon.

My husband and I have been living in Paris for over nine years now, and my mother comes over two or three times a year. She walks down Parisian streets and handles basic transactions with an ease that makes me swell with pride.

While I still have rushes of guilt about living abroad, a year or two ago, she said something that assured me that I made the right decision. She was at lunch with a friend and other people she didn’t know very well, when the conversation turned to Paris and London. “It made me feel so good that I’d actually visited these places and was able to join the conversation,” she told me later. “I probably knew Paris better than anyone there!”

I realized then that my expat journey has been a journey for her as well — an enlightening, confidence-building journey in which she has discovered the fun of being “wild,” and the pleasure of having an intimate relationship with a city that most people only dream of.

Isn’t it lucky, then, that I didn’t “wait until she was dead” to move to Paris? Sure, she misses me … but if I hadn’t moved, there are other things she would have missed as well.

Barbara Diggs is a lawyer-turned-freelance writer living in Paris. She blogs about her expat life at International Mama.

How has your family influenced your choices? Click the Comment link below.

A few months ago I reviewed How to Retire Overseas: Everything You Need to Know to Live Well (for Less) Abroad by Kathleen Peddicord.

Kathleen is the publisher of Live and Invest Overseas, which publishes a free daily e-letter as well as a monthly magazine and other resources for expats and would-be expats.

Today, Live and Invest Overseas announced that the book is now the #1 international best seller. And when I took a look on Amazon, I found it is also the #1 bestseller in the retirement category (hardcover) and #3 as well (Kindle edition).

There’s a good reason for its success. How to Retire Overseas is a must-read for anyone considering making the leap to a new country.

Click here to read my review.

The book is available in hardcover, paperback and Kindle e-reader versions. Click here to order it from Amazon.

In recent months, we’ve explored writing, photography, art, running a B&B, teaching English as a foreign language and other options for supporting yourself in your new overseas life. Some – running a B&B and teaching – require you to be in a specific place. Others – writing and photography – allow you to move around and get paid almost anywhere.

Another location-independent avenue for creating income is by establishing an online business represented by a website or blog. The good news is, you no longer have to be a tech-savvy coder or programmer to set it up yourself!
As long as you have an internet connection, you’re in business.

Click here and here for some information on the quickest and easiest way to get a website up and running.



This is an extremely broad topic, so I’ll just give you the rough outline here, and get into more specifics in future posts.

There are three basic ways to earn money through a website:

1. Sell a service
2. Sell a product
3. Earn commissions and fees by selling someone else’s product or service

Sell a Service

If you want to develop a location-independent lifestyle, you probably don’t want to promote your services as a plumber, dog walker or anything else that ties you to one spot.

However, there are many services you can offer “in the cloud.” Anything internet-related falls into this category – programming, writing, video editing, creating Power Point presentations and recording voiceovers are just a few examples.

With the ease and inexpensive cost of communication services like Skype, webinars and podcasting, your choice of service offerings is greatly expanded.

Some examples of non-internet services might include:

• Consulting (as long as you don’t have to do it in person!)
• Teaching
• Coaching
• Putting together guided tours

Sell a Product

The first product-based business I think of for an expat is import/export. If you live in a country that’s known for its textiles, or pottery, or silver jewelry, buying and selling those items is a relatively easy business to start. You can set up a website to display your wares and take orders for them.

If you’re a photographer, you can market your fine-art prints through a website.

E-books and courses are also popular to sell online. You can create your own, or sell someone else’s.

Sell Someone Else’s Product or Service

If you don’t already have some retail experience or if you don’t want to deal with physical inventory, packing and shipping, you can set up a website and collect commissions for selling someone else’s stuff.

Affiliate Programs

Most companies with any significant internet presence today offer affiliate programs, where you receive a commission when a visitor to your website clicks on a link to that company’s product.

For example, at the end of every book and movie review on this site, I include a link to buy that book or that DVD from Amazon. If you purchase the item from one of those links, I receive a few cents. It’s not much, but if hundreds of you do so, it adds up. (You can click here and scroll to the end of the review to see an example.)

Some people receive a nice income each month by creating websites that sell hundreds of products through affiliate links.

If you want to go this route, you should be aware that some companies insist their affiliates be US residents, so watch for this as you investigate becoming an affiliate.

Advertising

Once you’ve developed a website with a reasonable amount of traffic, you can sell advertising. You can do this indirectly, by allowing Google to display its ads on your pages, for example, or by selling space directly to individual advertisers.

The Hybrid Approach

There’s no reason you can’t combine the different methods. On this site I use affiliate links, and I run a couple of ads in the right-hand sidebar. I also promote my own services as a writer and WordPress guru.

OK, I’m Interested. Where Do I Learn How?

There are plenty of resources available to help you learn everything from the mechanics of putting together a website or blog to how to monetize it. Here’s a partial list:

• How to Write Your Own Money-Making Websites.This program teaches you how to start from scratch, decide on a profitable niche, and build a site very quickly. Author Nick Usborne makes an extra $4,000/month or so from just one of his sites.
• Inside the Third Tribe: Internet Marketing Strategies that Work (Without Being Obnoxious).
  The name says it all. This is a membership site put together by four of the best bloggers in the business. As a member, you’ll have access to all of the seminars and instructional materials. Best of all, you’ll be able to join the discussions in the member forums where you can interact directly with the founders, your peers, and with a bunch of bloggers who know a lot more than you do and who will happily share their advice and expertise.
• ProBlogger: 31 Days to Build a Better Blog
  Darren Rowse, author of ProBlogger.net, has designed a 31-day program for blog improvement that really works.
• BlogMaster’s Club.
  Six-figure blogger David Risley’s coaching program to help you build and develop your blog and your income from blogging.
• Inner Circle.
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• AWAI.These folks publish multiple programs that can help you learn how to set up a site and how to make money from it as a writer, photographer or graphic artist.

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I’m a big fan of Kathleen Peddicord’s website, Live and Invest Overseas. I get her Overseas Opportunity Letter, and look forward to it hitting my inbox every day. I even subscribe to her Overseas Retirement Letter.

Most of the time, I think she and her writers are completely on target. Once in a while, not so much.

Paul Terhorst is a regular columnist, writing about investments and his own personal experiences of living abroad as a semi-retired person since the age of 35.

“Read almost any article in the mainstream press about retiring overseas, and the writer almost invariably starts by evaluating the local health care situation. ‘Country A offers high-quality, low-cost health care…Country B allows expats to buy into the national health plan.’

“I’ve long been puzzled by this emphasis on health care.”

He then went on to discuss the risks of seeking medical treatment and compared it to the risks we find in everyday life — crossing a street, riding in an airplane, just living.

“I decided that, to the extent possible, I’d remain in charge. Whether Doc happened to be from Mexico or some other country made little difference, I figured. What made a difference was me. I’d ask others I trusted to recommend a doctor or hospital. I’d look over the clinic, find out if Doc spoke my language, pay attention to the way he conducted himself, and look at how he charged.”

All perfectly true, logical and sensible — and totally unrelated to why Americans like this one are panicking about health care.

Having been an expat for so long, Paul doesn’t understand what’s driving American future expats’ preoccupation with health care overseas.

It’s not the risk, Paul. We’re all grownups. We know that choosing a doctor is just as risky –- maybe even more risky –- at home in the US than it will be overseas.

It’s the money and the stress.

You’ve had the good fortune to live for years in countries of your choice where costs for medical procedures are reasonable. As residents of the US, we’ve lived for years with costs running completely amok, insurance covering less and less of those costs, and the likelihood of bankruptcy if we have the temerity to fall ill.

The last job I had (which melted away with the financial crisis 15 months ago), my employer covered my health insurance. Even so, I paid thousands of dollars every year in copays. And that was just for me. To add my husband to the policy would have cost over $1200 each month, and another $300 for my daughter, so they went without insurance.

The cost of insurance to cover our family of three right now is roughly three times the size of our modest mortgage. It’s also impossible.

So when I ask questions and stress over health care overseas, it’s not the medical risk I’m concerned about, it’s the financial exposure.

I just want to feel secure that if I get sick I won’t lose the few resources I have left. I don’t want to worry that a small hospitalization will cost me the roof over my head and my ability to put a meal on the table.

People wonder why Americans are getting sicker and sicker. For many of us, it’s the quality of medical care (or lack thereof) and the knowledge that, if we avail ourselves of it, we’ll lose everything we’ve worked our whole lives for.

It’s enough to make anyone sick.

Is health care driving you overseas? Share your thoughts by clicking the Comment link below.