Mastering Financial Freedom: Michael Kim's Journey to Digital Nomadism and Money Mindset Shifts

Hey Nomads, welcome to Digital Nomad Stories, the podcast. My name is Anna Claessen and, together with my co-host, kendra Hasse, we interview digital nomads. Why? Because we want to share stories of how they did it. We talk about remote work, online business, location and dependency, freelancing, travel and, of course, the digital nomad lifestyle. Do you want to know more about us and access all previous episodes? Visit digitalnomadsdoriesco. Alright, let's go into today's episode. Hey, hey, nomads, welcome to a brand new episode. Today I'm here with Michael Kim. He is a personal finance coach, cpa, digital nomad and Tarek speaker. I'm really excited to have him on the podcast today and to learn more about his digital nomad life, of course, but I also want to know all the personal finance stuff. I love personal finance and I think, especially for nomads, I think our personal finances look a little bit different from when you just have a lot of fixed expenses. So I am so excited, michael, to hear your tips and tricks for us. But first of all, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me here, Ann.

Of course. So can you tell me a little bit more about where you are now and kind of what life looks like?

So I am currently in Toronto. This is where I was born and raised. I'm still here, kind of from the holidays. I've been here ever since December. Right now we're in February because I had my TED talk, or TEDx talk, recently, just like last weekend on Saturday. So I had to stay in Toronto for that, and I started my nomad journey back in 2023, when I went to Mexico for the first time and it was amazing. It was everything that I ever dreamed of. And I'm going on my second nomad trip next week to Southeast Asia and I'll be there for around four to five months.

Amazing and that is so exciting. It's the best reason ever, I think, to be somewhere for a TEDx talk. That is so cool. How did it go?

It went amazing. It was my first in-person event ever, because I started my business back in 2020 when everything was remote and I'm just used to zoom calls and virtual calls and doing everything virtually. But the TEDx talk was the first time. It was in Toronto. There was about 100 to 200 people there and I think my nerves and the energy that I got just from being in person just made me more emotive and more expressionate during the presentation. So it actually went better than the rehearsals, so it was a really, really great experience.

Very cool. That sounds amazing and yeah, what an experience for sure. So, apart from being a TEDx speaker, of course, you're a personal finance coach, but you're also a CPA. Can you tell me a little bit more about what your work days looked like Like? Kind of, what do you do, how much personal finance coaching do you do, and kind of like, what's the typical week for you?

So I went full-time in my business in 2023, my personal finance coaching business and so this is where I meet up with clients. I primarily just do one-on-one coaching, so I meet up with them virtually and I teach them everything on how to make, save and invest their money. And the whole purpose is that I want to help young professionals have control over their money and their lives, because a lot of people they feel that they aren't in control of their life, they don't feel that they're able to become a digital nomad, or they don't feel that they're able to be able to buy a house or live the lifestyle that they want, and it's all because they don't know how to use the tool of money. And so I want to help people learn how to use money so that they can create their ideal lives and live lives that they're actually happy with and fulfilled.

I love that you call money a tool to live the life that you want to live, because I think it's really important to see it that way. Actually, you know a lot of people, especially on the internet. You know a lot of people are talking about I just want more money and more money and millions, and I want to be a millionaire, but what I think is that it's way more important to have enough money to do what you want like exactly what you were saying. So can you tell us a little bit more about your top advice for people to do that?

There are many, many things that you can do to have control over your finances. I guess I'll break it down into two different things. The first thing is that you have to really be aware of your mindset when it comes to money. A lot of us grow up in an environment where we're told like money is bad, money is evil, and that you know you shouldn't be wanting money. And it's these thoughts that actually really prevent us from learning about money and having more money. Because if we believe that money is super bad and like if we have money we're going to be evil, then subconsciously, as a good person, we're going to not want to have money and we're going to do everything in our power subconsciously to repel money. And so it's so important to be aware of your mindset when it comes to money so that you can take the required actions to actually learn more about money and to take the required actions to become and attract more money into your life.

Yeah, I think, amazing tip, absolutely. So if you are in that situation where you're like, oh yeah, actually I do see money as something that is very low to you know, I feel like it's a bad thing or just I don't know uncomfortable about the topic, maybe and I want to go to that mindset where I'm interested in money, I'm excited about it Do you have any tool that we can use or a resource or any great tip that you see work really well for your clients?

Yeah, the best thing that I would do when you're first starting off with your money mindset, is to look as to why you believe this and where do these beliefs come from. Oftentimes, these beliefs about, or these negative beliefs about, money comes from our parents, because they're the people that raised us and we acquire whatever beliefs and thoughts that they have about money. And so once you figure it out and you're aware of where your current beliefs come from, then you get to choose from here. You get to choose whether you want to believe that or if you don't want to believe that. And that's really empowering, right, because you can believe, like, oh, money is evil, or you can believe that money is not evil and money is a tool that allows me to help even more people.

And so, in order to change that belief, the best way, I would say, is to create more evidence of this new belief. For example, if you have a lot of evidence of, like, all of these bad people who, like, are rich and they use money badly and they're super greedy, then that's what you're going to believe. But instead, if you want to believe something else that money is good and that money is a tool then create evidence of people maybe that you know, or people that are like famous, like celebrities that's what I do who are actually doing good things with money and that will help you to be like, oh like. These people are so generous. These people have started nonprofit organizations to help other people you know, with so many, with world hunger and helping people who are not as privileged as them, and then that will help you to change your beliefs about money.

I love that, that focus on the positive sides of it and it's literally where you focus right, Making a conscious decision to change it, and then focus on the good things and that's what you'll see. I think that is great, actionable advice. Thank you so much for that. How does digital nomad life fit into your personal finance situation or just your career in general? Like, where did this come in? Where you're like, you know what I think I want to quit my job, start a business and become a digital nomad. Was that all one decision or yeah? Can you kind of walk us through what happened there?

Sure. So my digital nomad story really starts from childhood, when I was a kid, because of our financial situation as a family, we didn't really travel that much, because we couldn't afford it. Like I'm Chinese and Korean and I never went to Asia and I never went back to where my parents lived for a very, very long time, because we just couldn't afford to go back home and then so the only place that I would travel as a kid was Canada and the US. So I had no idea what Europe was. I had no idea what Asia was. The only thing that I knew was Canada and the US.

And so the first time I decided to go traveling was in 2015, on an internship to Poland Zezif, poland, which is two hours south of Warsaw. And people always ask me like why did you choose Poland? I didn't really choose Poland because I was like, oh, I want to go to Poland. I chose Poland because I had no idea what was the difference between Italy and Poland, or like the UK and Poland. It was just like Europe was just a big, like dark cloud, dark landmass, and I didn't really know what was the difference.

And so I just threw a dart and I landed up in Poland. And that's when everything changed. I was like, oh my gosh, I love traveling, I love meeting new people, I loved the different culture and trying different foods and learning about the history and just the completely different perspective change that you get from a living somewhere else. And so from that moment I was like, oh my gosh, I want to become a digital nomad where I can travel the world, because the world is such a beautiful place and there's so many amazing people all around the world.

That's so cool. So you already knew about digital nomads and the whole concept of nomadism and lifestyle. You already knew about that before you went on your first trip.

No, not before I went on my first trip. It was after my first trip I was like, oh my gosh, this is why people like traveling, because before then I didn't even know why people like traveling. I was part of this organization where we would promote these international exchange programs in university, and so I was part of the marketing team where we would be promoting people be like, hey, you should go abroad, and you should go abroad. And they're like, okay, but have you been abroad?

And I was like no, I haven't, but you should, and so I didn't think it was that ethical for me to be promoting this program that I never experienced myself, and so that's the reason why I decided to go on to Poland on that exchange program, so that I could experience what is the benefit of traveling, and I learned that traveling is one of the greatest personal development activities that you could do. It teaches you so much about yourself, and I learned so much about life and grew so much and matured so much just from that one trip. Oh, absolutely.

I absolutely agree with you. Every trip you learn so much, and even if it's just literally geography right, like if Europe is just one dark cloud and you have no idea what there is to see, actually, I mean, I think the best way to learn about it is just to go there and experience it yourself.

And you'll probably never forget right what the difference is between Poland and Italy when you've seen it with your own eyes and you've experienced it and you met people there. So I think that is such a cool experience but also just to develop more of a sense of what cultures look like, what countries look like, how people interact and learning all of that. So that is awesome, and I love that you found out about digital nomad life and that that was a way for you to then also travel more. How did you go about that? Once you learned about the digital nomad lifestyle and you were like, okay, this is what I want to do. What actions did you take?

Yeah. So once I realized that I wanted to have the freedom to work and travel anywhere in the world, I set that as my goal and I was like, okay, this is what I want to do, and currently I'm not there, so how do I get there? And so, at the time, I was studying accounting and finance in university, and so I graduated school in 2019, started working in corporate finance, and this is when I got a job at Deloitte, and Deloitte and typical accounting and finance jobs at the time were not remote. They were all in person and you had to be physically there. There's like no traveling.

And so I was like, okay, I'm in this very location dependent job and my goal is that I want to be location independent, where I can work and travel anywhere in the world. And so at the time, I was like, okay, well, I can't do it through an accounting and finance career, like a very typical accounting and finance career. And so that's the reason why I decided to start my side business, which is my personal finance coaching business. So, while working at Deloitte, I was building up my business on the side, where I was coaching people young professionals on how they could better manage their money, and so I was building this company for literally three years and I'm still building it now until I was able to make enough money in order to go full time into my business, which is what I did in 2023.

Awesome, that's so cool. So then in 2023, you went full-time in your business and then also left on your first trip, right and on your first nomad trip. Can you tell me a little bit more of how that was? You know like, how, how was it? And then finally start traveling and take your business on the road. You know, build, keep building the business and also travel. How was that?

This is a roller coaster of a question. So, as you, as I said, so I started in 2020, my business and I went full-time in 2023. So it took me a full three years to actually take the leap, to actually go full-time. And the reason why I think it took me so long was because I was, yes, building my business, so like my business to make a certain amount of income, but at the same time, I was focused on my personal finances as well. I wanted to build a large enough investment portfolio. I wanted a six-figure investment portfolio, so I wanted at least $100,000 in my investment portfolio before I quit my job. I also wanted a certain amount of money in my emergency fund about $20,000 in my emergency fund and then I essentially wanted all of these things like my business to be making a certain amount, lots of money in my investments, which, looking back, I probably didn't need. All of those things Like this was kind of overcompensating.

I come from a very risk adverse type of mindset and I think I took that a little bit too much to the extreme, where I was like, okay, I need to have all of these things in place before I can quit my job and go full-time, and so that's the reason why it took me so long, and the reason why I ended up taking the leap actually wasn't because of my finances. It was because of my health. Essentially, in 2022, I started getting all of these very mysterious health issues where I had, like chronic inflammation, chronic eczema and really bad skin and just really bad digestive issues, and I was living at home and stuck at my job and I was just really suffering. I was suffering and, like I had to essentially pause my business for a few months. I was really underperforming at my nine to five job because of all of these health issues, because I could hardly even function.

And so, essentially, in 2023, I decided that I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't run my business and I couldn't manage this full-time job, and I was even debating like whether I should even travel, like am I even healthy enough to travel? And then my friend told me something very interesting. He was like, well, you're suffering now at home, you might as well be suffering somewhere else, on a beach, like somewhere that's beautiful and somewhere that's nice. And so that's the reason why, in 2023, I was like, like effort, I am going to go to Mexico and work from Mexico, go full-time in my business and just see how things go and then, literally within a few weeks in Mexico, all of like 90% of my health issues went away, and that was my journey on how I became a digital nomad.

That's insane. But on the other hand, I don't know if I am really surprised, because I think that stress has such a huge effect on our bodies, right, and I have personally experienced that so many times. So I think your body was probably just pushing you to make the leap right Because you have been trying that for so long. So I loved it here that you just took the leap and went to Mexico and that that was the thing that then also made your health improve, or at least it did improve once you were in Mexico. You know, you're never sure if it will that, of course, but it sounds like it had a great effect on your health. Actually to just make the leap go, do the thing that you wanted to do not have two jobs at the same time, because having a full time job and building a business as a side hustle, I mean that is a lot. That is a lot of hours that you have to put into that, especially a job and consulting. Yeah, that's, that's a really cool, cool story to hear. Actually, that's awesome.

Yeah, I always tell people that they want to become a digital nomad, that, yes, it's good to have your finances in order, like, I'm a personal finance coach, so of course, you need your finances in order, you want to make sure that you are able to cover your finances. But no, even if, like, your finances are perfect and everything is ready, you probably will never feel ready to go become a digital nomad. Like, you'll never be 100% ready. Sometimes you just have to take the leap, even when you aren't entirely sure, and this is what life is and the joys of life. Sometimes you just have to jump off the cliff and see where you land.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think, as a digital nomad and as a business owner, a great motto to have is we'll make it work, and I think that has been my motto, maybe a little bit too off, but I've made it work. So I for context, michael, I did exactly the opposite of what you did. I was in university and I was finishing my second masters. I studied long and hard and I finished that masters with a severe burnout.

Like it was so bad, I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I was so stressed all the time I couldn't do anything. So I was like I don't know what to do. Like I applied to some jobs but I was not excited about them and they did not hire me. I don't blame them. And I actually had a job as a lawyer lined up, but I cancelled that because I didn't want to be a lawyer. So that was the situation.

And then I also had an effort moment where I was like you know what? I'm just going to travel and we'll see, we'll figure it out, we'll make it work. So I saved a tiny, tiny amount of money, went backpacking, spent all of that, had nothing, and then started my business because I just literally had to make money to pay for hostels and food that were there. You know, yeah, so that's how I did it and I think that is the Aura Extreme. I would definitely not recommend that. But yeah, I think somewhere in between, our situation is probably a good place to start and at some point you just have to do it and make it work.

I love that our listeners now have the two extremes of what you did and then what I did, and so you guys can choose what's in the middle.

Exactly Love that. How was it for you to start traveling and still running your business and you know newly full time business owner kind of like how? How was the balance between travel, work, relaxing, recovering from your health issues? Can you tell me a little bit more of like what life looked like in Mexico for you?

So I went to Puerto Escondido, mexico, and I was listening to a lot of podcasts like digital nomad podcasts about like how to balance being an entrepreneur and traveling and enjoying life, and kind of what I got from there is that a lot of people who do like the backpacking where they're like moving every few days or every few weeks to a different country or a different city, find it very, very difficult to balance life and work. And so for me, considering my health issues at the time, as well as running a business and all of these things, I was like okay, well, instead of like traveling and backpacking across Mexico, I'm just going to choose one place, settle there and use that place as a home base and in order to build my business and to also take care of my health, so I could implement the healthy habits. And so that's the reason why I chose Porto Escondido. I wanted somewhere that was I had a beautiful beach, a nice digital nomad community, but also wasn't too touristy like Playa or like Porto Vallarta. And so I went to Porto Escondido and it was amazing.

I like woke up. Okay, I have like really bad sleep patterns back in Toronto, I'm like an insomniac, but then over in Porto Escondido. I would go to sleep at like nine or 10pm and then I would wake up at 6am. I would go walk along the beach for like two to three hours, go for a swim and then come back home, do some work for a few hours, grab lunch, go do a little bit more work and then hang out with friends in the evening. And that was my life in Porto Escondido. And let me tell you I was way more productive there than at home when I was like struggling with all of these health issues and like not getting quality sleep.

I love that. It sounds like a really good life, not a bad lifestyle, for sure. Can we also talk a little bit about finances, because I can imagine that life in Porto Escondido is probably more affordable than life in Toronto. Is that right?

Yes a lot more affordable. For example, rent in Porto Escondido is like you can get a pretty decent place for like 500, 600 USD per month, and in Toronto the rent is going to be like close to $2,000 a month. So just by living somewhere else you're literally saving $1,500 that can go directly into savings or investments.

That's insane. Was that also something that you realized or I mean, you probably already knew this before going, but was that also something that you were? Like? You know what? I'm just going to continue building the business also for that reason, so that I can work towards those goals that you had as well.

Yeah, I think a lot of people think that traveling and living abroad is so much more expensive than living at home. But in reality, depending on where you go and if you choose specific countries in specific places, you could actually be saving a lot more money by traveling. And this is something called geographic arbitrage, where you choose specific places to live that has a lower cost of living so that you can save more money. And so Toronto has a very high cost of living, where food and rent and taxes and all of these things are very, very high, and so, as a digital nomad, you have the flexibility to choose certain places that have a lower cost of living, like Mexico and like where I'm going, which is Southeast Asia, like Vietnam and Thailand and Philippines and Indonesia. Those places have a lot lower quality not quality of life, lower cost of living, so that you can save and achieve your financial goals a lot faster than if you were to stay at home.

Exactly. I think that's honestly a really good hack for people who are starting a business or building a business is to just go to one of the places that you mentioned, a place with a lower cost of living than where you currently are, because you're literally buying yourself time to make it work. And that's what I did. I went to Southeast Asia to build my business from scratch and I do think that that had a huge effect on kind of that. I could make it work because, if I would have, I'm originally from the Netherlands, so in the Netherlands I would just had to make so much more money from my business immediately to make it work, and now it was probably one fourth or even less than that. So yeah, huge, huge life hack as a digital nomad and as a digital nomad, you can actually do this, which is just still insane to me after five years of doing this life, but you can just do that.

One thing that digital nomads experience a lot in my experience is that costs vary so much month to month. Do you have any tips for digital nomads who are like one month they're in Vietnam and they might only spend maybe $600 in that month, but then the month after that they travel a lot more. Maybe they travel faster, maybe they travel to a completely different country they go to from Vietnam to Japan and cost of living is way more there. Like how, how to handle that? Do you have any tips for us?

Yeah, so when it comes to figuring out, essentially, a balance between spending and saving money, this is really important, especially as digital nomads, because we are living this life, because we want to and we want to experience the beautiful place that we're currently staying at, and so we want to be able to spend money and enjoy life, but then, at the same time, we also want to be able to save money so that we can achieve our future goals and save save money for the future.

And so the best way in order to create a balance between these spending and saving money is that you really need to have a financial plan, and a financial plan is essentially like a GPS that tells you how to get from point A to point B, where your point A is your current financial situation and your point B are your financial goals.

And the beauty of this financial plan is that it will actually tell you how much money you should be saving every single month and year, and so that means, as a digital nomad, as long as you're hitting that saving goal, that means any money left over can be used on spending and enjoying life. And so, going back to your example, if you're, for example, traveling in Vietnam for a month, as long as you're hitting that goal, that you're saving goal of, let's say, $1,000 a month. Let's say you're hitting that goal, then you can spend whatever money is left over. And if you're going to somewhere more expensive, as long as you're hitting that savings goal, you can still spend as much as you want in that place. And if you have any money left over, then that can go into more savings or you can spend it however you want.

Yeah, I think that's actually a great advice just have a plan and know when you're also reaching your goals, as in monthly or yearly savings goals or investing goals or whatever it looks like for you.

But I think because the other extreme can also be like oh I could just live in a little hut on its high beach, so let me just spend the least amount possible, which could be really cool actually for a while, and maybe you don't have to it's just still reach your goals.

You know, maybe you can also do more activities or, I don't know, eat the food that you want to eat, or have a daily five dollar latte if you want to, because you might still be able to reach your goals if you know what your goals are. So I think that's actually a really good tip to just be super clear and make conscious decisions. When I started nomadding, like I'm, five years ago, someone gave me a really good tip that I've been using in my nomad career and would like to share it here as well. The number one personal finance tip that I got when I started nomadding was actually a really good one, and that's, instead of looking at monthly budgets, to look at a yearly budget, because months can vary so much. But then if you have a budget for the year, you will make sure that you can go to more passive countries if you also go to more affordable countries in another month.

And what I would also say is that planning your trips beforehand, and like planning your budget, is also very, very helpful as well, because the last thing that you want to do is that you arrive in this beautiful country and you're like super scared about spending money and you're like, oh, should I be going out to this restaurant or should I be spending money on this experience? You want to have the freedom to spend money and enjoy your time there, and so what I do before I go to a country, for example, like Vietnam, I plan out approximately how much I'm able to spend and how much I'm budgeting for rent, for all of these activities, and that allows me the freedom to be like okay, this is how much I'm spending and I can. As long as I spend within this approximate budget, then I can enjoy whatever life or whatever experiences that I come across in Vietnam, and so I don't have to constantly be worrying about, oh my gosh, I'm spending too much money or I should be saving more money.

Exactly. I think that's a really yeah, really good advice as well. Absolutely, Do you see any kind of mistakes that digital know-hands make with their money?

I think the most common mistake that digital know-hands make with their money is just not being aware of their finances. I think when you arrive in a new country, it takes a while to adjust to how much things cost, and you might spend a lot more than you might think like for going out for food or on living expenses, and so, as a digital nomad, it's so much more important to be aware of your finances, of how much money that you're spending, how much money that you're making, as well as how much money that you're saving and putting away for your future financial goals. I think it's very easy to live in the moment and to just enjoy life and focus on the present, but if you want to be happy in the future and if you want to be able to hit your financial goals, you have to also consciously aware of your future plan and how much money you're putting away so that you can enjoy your future as well.

Exactly, make it sustainable for a long term as well, not just seeing this as a big vacation because something it is very easy to do that, especially when you're in more holiday destinations, it is very easy to just go with the flow of everyone who is on vacation. Yeah, so I think that that's definitely good advice. Thank you so much. Final question for you, michael what have you learned in your first year as a digital nomad?

Oh, that is a big question.

Or maybe something that was just different than what you expected.

I think the thing that I learned about my first year as a nomad is that I think, at the end of the day, you know what you want, but there's going to be so many people's opinions and so many things that are going to try to convince you that this is not the life that you want and this is like you shouldn't be doing this.

But at the end of the day, you are living your own life and you have to choose what sort of life is going to make you happy and you have to do everything in your power to make that happen and not to worry about other people's opinions of what you should or should not be doing. And so, when it came to becoming a digital nomad, there's so many people that were just like don't do it, and like my health was like, oh, like messing up and all of these different opinions. And at the end of the day, I was like I know that I want to become a digital nomad so that I can travel and experience the life that I want to create for myself. And when I decided to choose that, everything else aligned, everything else worked out, the health worked out, the business worked out, the money worked out, and so at the end of the day, just sometimes, you just have to take the leap, even though you don't know everything, and just do it.

Yeah, you just make it work.

Yeah, make it work.

That's the lesson you make it work. That's a good one, Awesome. I'm excited for you that you'll be going to Asia soon. Where are you going first in your Asia trip?

I'm going to Singapore. So I have a few business friends in Singapore, so I'll be just there for a few days so to meet up with them and network in person. And then I'll be going to Vietnam for a few months and then Thailand and then potentially Bali, indonesia.

Sounds very, very good. Amazing, michael. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge here on the podcast today. It was so good to hear about your digital nomad story and how your health improved by nomadding. I don't know if that's true, but let's just call it that. I do think it had a positive effect. For sure, it definitely did yeah.

Exactly so. That's so good to hear, and I love that you made it work, that you're doing the thing and that you have such an exciting trip ahead of you, so enjoy Asia and Singapore, vietnam, thailand, maybe Bali. Before I let you go, though, can you please tell us where people can find you online?

Sure, if you guys want to learn more about personal finance investing, saving, making money, all of that stuff then you guys can follow me on Instagram at Michael Kim, michael Kim or. I'm also on YouTube as well, so I have a lot of personal finance videos there and travel videos, so it's the same handle. So, michael, you can, I'll give you the links so that you can put in the show notes. Ann.

Yep, we'll do Yep. So if you're listening, you can go to the show notes. Take the links there. Thank you, michael, for being here today. Thank you for listening and see you in the next one.

Thank you very much.

And that's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate it very, very much. I would appreciate it even more if you could leave a review on Apple Podcasts for me. That way, more people can find this podcast, more people can hear the inspiring stories that we're sharing, and the more people we can impact for the better. So, thank you so much if you are going to leave a review. I really appreciate you and I will see you in the next episode.