Hi all,

I’m an American living in Brazil. I work in AI at a Brazilian firm on a Brazilian contract.

So here’s the thing: Before I accepted this current work contract it was a real struggle for me. I was thinking to myself, “Hey, wouldn’t it be great if I was earning in US Dollars down here, that would surely give me an advantage.” I tried applying for US jobs but there simply not a lot of firms that want to hire an employee living in Brazil. I tried following a bunch of digital nomads on Instagram and they keep talking about how easy it is to make passive income digital marketing or on PInterest, or some other site, I just can’t understand how I could get involved with something like that. I tried freelancing on Upwork in my area and couldn’t find many opportunities. I tried looking on remoteok and other digital nomad sites where programmers could get hired. There were barely any postings that went to AI. And most of them went to very senior front end developers with LOTS of years if experience. Finally I applied to local jobs down here and got an offer.

Which brings me to my question, how exactly do you guys make money as digital nomads? It seems like everyone but me has a get rich quick scheme going on or some digitial marketing thing and I just can’t get it. Are people lying and just getting some money on the side from their parents or something?

  • ReflexPoint@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    The people on social media telling you about all the money they are making working from a beach on their laptops make their money by selling courses on how to make money working on a beach from your laptop.

    • TheRealDynamitri@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      Yeah a lot of those course gurus telling you how to make money on X really make money on selling you courses on how to make money on X.

      Quite often those courses are absolutely abysmal, they might also even have terrible advice - but if you’ve bought a pig in the poke, you can’t really get your money back. Even those who claim “100% satisfaction guaranteed!” always have some fine print in the T&Cs they try to exercise and claim you were not eligible because…, and then your only way is to chargeback via a CC.