First and foremost, we hope that everyone is staying safe, well and calm during these unusual times. Due to the pandemic, we decided to focus our content on information related to dealing with this uncertainty. To make this content easy to discover and access, make sure to bookmark our coronavirus page.

With the current COVID-19 pandemic unfolding we are seeing major economies entering in recession territory (with significant financial market declines, unemployment rising (US unemployment data) + many small and medium-size businesses forced to close), international borders closing to foreigners (airport border data) and everyone going back to basics (by staying at home + practicing social distancing to “flatten the curve”).

No one saw this coming for 2020 and like many others, we had to throw our plans for the year out the window. Everyone is going through their unique challenges during this time. For us, as nomads, it’s dealing with the challenge of where to live and keeping our expenses low. Although it feels uneasy to not have a proper place to call home during this time, we do have flexibility working in our favor so we can explore a few options. We will review both our nomadic and financial plans and share how our nomadic lifestyle still gives us options even in such unprecedented times.

Our nomadic plan

Before COVID-19

Our original nomadic plan for 2020 was to stay in Asia until end of April, then visit Mrs. NN’s family in California for 2 months before spending the Summer in Europe and closing the year in Southeast Asia. It’s hard to believe in this new reality that we had so much travel planned! And as of 3 weeks ago, we thought we would be moving forward with most of this plan. Oh how things have changed.

Jan to Mar(3 months)Apr(1 month)May to Jun(2 months)Jul to Oct(4 months)Nov to Dec(2 months)
Southeast AsiaJapanUSA (California)Europe (Italy, Poland, France, Georgia)Southeast Asia (Thailand)

Once COVID-19 became a pandemic, we left Indonesia and decided to wait things out in Taiwan (Check out how we managed to exit Bali during the pandemic and what it’s like to go through a mandatory home quarantine in Taipei for more details). Upon arrival at the airport, we received a 3 months visa right before the country closed its border to foreigners and we feel very grateful to be able to stay in a country that is currently managing this pandemic very well. Since the country is not issuing any more visas, the government has granted all foreigners a 30 days extension which gives us the ability to legally stay here until mid-July. 

All travelers who entered Taiwan on or before March 21, 2020 on a visitor visa or landing visa or through a visa-waiver program will be granted an automatic 30-day extension, with the exception of overstayers

Source: the Bureau of Consular Affairs (BOCA)

As we are witnessing the situation developing in both Europe and the USA, for the foreseeable future, Taiwan is where we will be staying. 

 When we look out the window of our building, it shows business as usual. Since our home quarantining has been going pretty well, hopefully, we can finally go outside soon. We can’t wait!

Life outside of our AirBnB in Taipei seems like COVID-19 isn’t here

Of course, we will follow the local practices to keep the virus away and focus on enjoying the simple things in life we took for granted (like breathing fresh air, walking in the park and even going on a hike in nature). 

It’s extremely difficult to plan very far in advance and so we are mostly taking things week by week. We used to have plans booked out 3-5 months in advance but we only feel comfortable booking 1 month in advance at this point. However, we did discuss some scenarios so that we are prepared with some options. Here are the two major scenarios:

Scenario A: Taiwan until mid-July, USA until end of year

In this scenario, the situation doesn’t improve and most countries are still in lockdown. In this situation, we would stay in Taiwan until our visa runs out. We would then go back to the US to be with Mrs. NN’s family. Also practically speaking, it would be the only country that both of us would be able to stay without limitations.

After catching up with Mrs. NN’s family, we would then use domestic geo-arbitrage to find a pleasant place to live for the rest of the year. As much as we like our former hometown of San Francisco, it financially does not make sense for us to live there due to the high cost of living.

This scenario would look like this:

Jan/Mid-Mar
(2.5 mo)
Mid-Mar/Jun
(3.5 mo)
Jul to end of COVID
(up to 6 mo)
After COVID
Southeast AsiaTaiwanUSAFrance

Scenario B: Taiwan until end of May, USA for June to August, France for September-October, TBD Nov-Dec

In this fairly optimistic scenario, we are expecting the travel ban to be lifted for much of the world by the end of July. We would remain cautious for the remainder of the year and prioritize spending time with family and limit our actual travel. After Taiwan, we would spend 3 months back in California with Mrs. NN’s family and 2 months with my family in France. At that point, we will have to decide where we want to go from there but would be very happy if we get that opportunity to spend that much family time.

This optimistic scenario would look like this:

Jan/Mid-MarMid-Mar/MayJune/AugSep/OctNov/Dec
Southeast AsiaTaiwanCaliforniaFranceTBD

Now that we discussed our nomadic plan, let’s look at our financial plan.

Our financial plan

If you’ve been following us for a while, you know that we managed to slow travel the world on $30K / year. As we planned 2020 back in January we decided to allocate the same budget of 30K for our yearly living expense, so our financial projection for 2020 was looking like this:

Since we fund our living expenses from passive income sources (financial market + real estate) that are likely to be affected in the short term by the pandemic, we decided to be very conservative by reducing our living expenses to $20K.

Our updated financial plan for 2020 looks like this:  

Our updated financial plan for 2020

Going from $30K to $20K in living expenses is a 33% reduction of our lifestyle. Knowing that most of the year is likely to be spent in two higher cost of living countries (USA + Taiwan) how will we be able to pull this off? 

First, we would like to remind you how our living expenses have been split during our first year of nomadic travel (which was from 7/1/2018 until 6/31/2019). 

Breakdown of our yearly expenses during our first year of nomadic travel

We can see that Accomodation & Groceries accounted for half (50% / $9K) of our spending. One fifth (20% / 5.5K) of our spending went to Dining out + Entertainment

The remaining 30% are divided between local/international Transportation (12% / $4K), Travel gear (10% / $3K), Living expenses (2% / $600), Health care (2% / $550), Gifts (2% / $500), Snacks (1% / $350) and Health Insurance premiums (<1% / $8).

Note: We only paid $8 in health care premium during our first year of nomadic travel. This represented only 4 months of coverage that we received through purchasing a Bronze Plan. Because we qualified for a $733 monthly premium tax credit ($733 / month), our total out of pocket was $2 / month (this is a $9K in health care premium savings over an entire year).

Scenario A (worst case scenario)

Jan/Mid-Mar
(3.5 mo)
Mid-Mar/Jun
(2.5 mo)
Jul to end of COVID
(up to 6 mo)
After COVID
Southeast AsiaTaiwanUSAFrance

In this case here is how much we expect to spend in each spending category for 2020:

  • Accommodation
    We already spent $750 / month for the first four-month of 2020 and we are looking to stay under a $1,000 / monthly accommodation budget in both Taiwan and in the USA. We also expect to get at least one month of “free” rent by staying with Mrs. NN’s parents. Project total: ~$10K.
  • Groceries
    We spent $150 / month for the first two months of 2020, expect to spend $300 / month in Taiwan and about $500 / month once back in the USA. Projected total: ~4.5K.
  • Dining out + Entertainment
    We will likely cut our entertainment budget and spend about $200 / month on dining out. Projected total: ~$2.5K.
  • Transportation
    We spent $50 / month for the first three months of 2020 on local transportation and based on projection we expect to spend $300 / month once in the USA (this would assume that we can still borrow a car from our family). We will keep using travel rewards to purchase our international flights to get us from Taiwan to California. Projected total: ~$2K. 
  • Living expense
    This would mostly be to cover our Google FI plan. Projected total: $0.5K.
  • Health Insurance premiums
    We will stick to our ACA / Bronze plan in California and not renew our world expat insurance with IMG (that expires in June 2020). Projected total: $24.
  • Health care
    Expecting the same amount. Projected total: $0.5K.
  • We also don’t expect to spend anything significant in the following categories for the rest of 2020: Travel gear, Gifts.

Projected 2020 budget: $20K

How are we keeping our accommodation budget to only $1,000 a month in the USA? Since we don’t need to or particularly want to stay in major cities, we will be able to stay in lower-cost cities. Also, AirBnB’s around the country are reducing their price significantly (usually by at least 50%) in an effort to lower their high vacancy rates as much as possible. While the pandemic is still around (which is Plan A), we expect to be able to find lower rental prices. (This is actually what our nomadic friends Kristy & Bryce plan on doing as they are stuck back home in expensive Toronto).

Check out our ultimate guide to AirBnB.

Scenario B (best case scenario)

Jan/Mid-Mar
(3.5 mo)
Mid-Mar /May
(2.5 mo)
June/Aug
(3 mo)
Sep/Oct
(2 mo)
No/Dec
(2 mo)
Southeast AsiaTaiwanCaliforniaFranceTBD

In this case, here is how much we expect to spend in each spending category for 2020:

  • Accommodation
    We already spent $750 / month for the first four months of 2020 and we are looking to stay under a $1,000 / monthly accommodation budget in Taiwan. Our intention is to spend a lot of time with family and we would fortunately also have places to stay in both California and France. We would then expect to spend about $750 / month for the remaining 2 months of the year depending on where we go. Project total: ~$7.5K.
  • Groceries
    We spent $150 / month for the first two months of 2020, expect to spend $300 / month in Taiwan and about $500 / month in the USA, $350 / month in Europe and $200 / month TBD . Projected total: ~3.5K
  • Dining out + Entertainment
    We will likely cut our entertainment budget and spend about $200 / month on dining out. Projected total: ~$2.5K
  • Transportation
    We spent $50 / month for the first three months of 2020 on local transportation and based on projection we expect to spend $300 / month once in the USA (this would assume that we can still borrow a car from our family). We will keep using travel rewards to purchase our international flights to get us from Taiwan to California. Projected total: ~$2K. 
  • Living expense
    This would mostly be to cover our Google FI plan. Projected total: $0.5K
  • Health Insurance premiums
    We will keep to our ACA / Bronze plan in California (12x$2=$24) but also renew our world expat insurance in June (~$3K) for another year. Projected total: $3K
  • Health care
    Expecting the same amount. Projected total: $0.5K.
  • We also don’t expect to spend anything significant in the following categories for the rest of 2020: Travel gear, Gifts.

Projected 2020 budget: $19.5

Where to live on 20K a year in normal times? 

In normal times, reducing our budget from $30K to $20K would have been much easier thanks to geo-arbitrage.

We’ve been tracking our spending and providing detailed cost of living reports of all the places we’ve visited since July 2018. In summer 2019, we created a free online travel tool where you can access this information as well as track your own nomadic expenses.

In a world where we can freely travel to every country, here would have been the place where we could have easily stayed under our $20K budget.

Data: Nomad Numbers – Place we’ve been living where the yearly cost of living is under $20K

While we wouldn’t be able to stay 12 months in a row in any of these given cities due to visa restrictions, it would have been fine to go from one to another or do a visa run to extend our visa for an extended period of time. 

Our Bottom line

While no one knows how long this situation will last, we are keeping a positive attitude and focusing on what we can control. By projecting our expenses and identifying homebase options for the likely scenarios, we feel comfortable we will be able to reduce our living expenses and be able to wait things out – which we recognize is a privilege.

We are fortunate to have a visa that allows us to stay in Taiwan for 4 months, which will give us plenty of time to assess where we should go once our visa is up. We hope to be able to visit our respective families once the situation back home will become safer for us to do so. Once we all get through this, we are looking forward to resuming our nomadic travel although we will approach it differently as many people will likely approach life in general differently. 

What about you? What major changes did you have to make for the rest of the year? Are you optimistic about what is ahead of us in the year to come?


Mr. Nomad Numbers

We are a couple who travel the world and want to inspire people to think differently about the life they can design for themselves through our journey.

27 Comments

NurseFILife · March 30, 2020 at 5:40 pm

That 4 month visa sounds awesome. You’re in a great place to wait this out as they sound like they have the situation well managed. Your plan to cut back on expenses is great! Too many people have been ramping up their spending recently, and are now paying the price. You guys retired at about the worst time possible.

I am wondering, do you guys have the ability to go back to work? You were in tech from what I remember. Would remote be an option? If not, what were you basing your spending assumptions on to begin with?

    Mr. Nomad Numbers · March 31, 2020 at 2:31 am

    Thanks, NurseFILife for stopping by! We should be able to find remote jobs if we need to make money. However, we don’t think we have to worry about that for a while since we kept a few years of living expenses as cash before retiring early. We totally agree with your point of lifestyle inflation because even though we have the money to keep our lifestyle as it has been, we are in times of uncertainties and being conservative looks like the wise approach to take. This 20K target will also be a good test to see how far we can stretch our yearly budget. Now, let’s hope the situation back in the USA will get better soon so we can safely return back home and see my wife’s family and later my family back in France.

Carmen · March 30, 2020 at 6:39 pm

Glad to hear things are working out for you both. I”m optimistic that things will return back to “normal” by the end of the year. It will certainly be a different lifestyle once states allow people to go back to work, but I’m sure things going forward will be different to prevent this from occurring again. Stay safe and healthy!

    Mr. Nomad Numbers · March 31, 2020 at 2:31 am

    Hi Carmen. Thank you for your kind words. Yeah it’s still hard to imagine what our new “normal” will be but as you said, it will definitely be different.

Eric @ BonusNachos.com · March 31, 2020 at 4:07 am

We originally had a flight back to the US in April, but we’ve decided to avoid the US for the foreseeable future. No US health insurance (and no short term policy would cover this pandemic) means that we can’t take the risk. Our current plan is to get our visa extended here in Vietnam for 3 more months. Then go wherever will have us. Maybe Taiwan! I don’t think we’re leaving Asia this year now. Like you guys, we also had grand plans of travel, but I don’t see how that’s going to happen anytime soon.

    Mr. Nomad Numbers · April 6, 2020 at 9:41 am

    Hi Eric. Healthcare in the US is definitely a concern (even though we would have basic coverage via a Kaiser plan we purchase through the ACA). We hope that by the end of our visa here in Taipei (mid-July) the spread back home would have been under control. Do you think that is too optimistic? What will you guys plan on doing after your 3 months extension in Vietnam? Can you extend further by then (assuming the situation doesn’t improve much)? Stay healthy!

Michelle @ FrugalityandFreedom · March 31, 2020 at 4:13 am

Not long until you get to enjoy some of Taiwan’s outdoors. Sending a hello from a fellow self-isolator with nomadic plans this year thrown out the window.

I like how you’ve laid out your Scenario A & B. Sounds like you’ve got some good plans in order. Those $20k figures are for both of you combined, right? Impressive. Looking forward to following more of your updates.

    Mr. Nomad Numbers · March 31, 2020 at 4:44 am

    Hello Michelle! Love following your daily twitter update about your self-quarantine at home and seeing the nice treats you are getting. As for us, $20K would be for the two of us (we usually spend $30K in a normal year of nomadic travel).

Joe · March 31, 2020 at 2:46 pm

You guys are in a good spot to wait this out. Taiwan seems to be doing quite well. Do they have any social distancing there? Stores and restaurants are still open?
IMO, Asian countries have a bit more distance already, culturally. In Thailand, no handshakes, kissing, and minimal touching. European countries have to change a lot more.
France doesn’t sound good right now. Good luck!

    Mr. Nomad Numbers · April 1, 2020 at 7:10 am

    Hi Joe. We just got out today for the first time as we got cleared from our 14 days self-quarantine last night. Going out for a walk was really refreshing (both physically and literally). There isn’t any social distancing here is place. Most people are wearing masks in the streets but not when walking in the parks or inside restaurants. We actually went out for lunch at a restaurant and it was like COVID-19 isn’t here. Of course, people will ask for you to clean your hand before entering the place. So yeah, we seems to be in a good spot here to wait this out.

David @iretiredyoung · April 1, 2020 at 4:06 pm

It was interesting to read your thought processes and then follow that through into how you plan to make the budgets work for you.
I was particularly intrigued to see how $20,000 p.a. works in Grenoble as that was the one that stood out as being differently geographically than the other examples you gave, but the view details link didn’t work for me – not sure if it’s my computer or a problem with the link in your post?

    Mr. Nomad Numbers · April 2, 2020 at 9:06 am

    Hi David. What do you get when you follow the link to our travel tool? Can you access the app and get to a similar view that the screenshot from this post?

Nicole · April 1, 2020 at 11:29 pm

Hi, new follower here. 🙂 I love to see travel budgets, it’s so motivational. Taiwan sounds like a good option to wait things out for a bit.

My plans have similarly been thrown into a tailspin – I was supposed to be leaving Barbados this week to go back to London, then onto southeast Asia for a couple of months before spending the summer in Toronto. I’m staying in Barbados for a few more months – seems like a better option than lockdown in London!

    Mr. Nomad Numbers · April 2, 2020 at 9:04 am

    Hi Nicole and thanks for stopping by.
    How is the situation in Barbados and how would you compare it to London? Would you feel safe if the virus hit there and you still can’t go back home? We didn’t felt comfortable staying in beautiful Bali 3 weeks ago for that reason and got extremely lucky that we landed in Taiwan (in retrospective). Stay safe!

Maria · April 2, 2020 at 3:37 pm

Thanks for sharing your scenario-planning! Your flexibilty and agility is a key strength always, but even more notably during times like this. My husband and I canceled trips to Mexico, Canada, and Europe. We decided to stay in FL through the pandemic since the weather is nice and we can stay active by exercising outside. Its hard to know when it will be responsible to get on planes and travel. We discussed going to Peru for October or November, but are in wait and see mode. Curious when you two and others plan to purchase flights; or are you doing so now with cancellation insurance? Stay safe and well and enjoy Tawain (once you are able)!

    Mr. Nomad Numbers · April 3, 2020 at 12:14 pm

    Hi Maria. At I am writing this comment we aren’t planning on booking anything for the time being. We are just extending our AirBnB here in Taipei on a monthly basis.

    It’s hard to predict when things will get back to “normal” in the USA, as the situation is still accelerating in many part of the country. Let’s hope for life to get back to the “new normal” before the end of the summer and from there hopefully international travel should resume. This might re quite much more monitoring of travelers to ensure people aren’t carrying the virus with them. What’s your take on what that “new normal” will look like?

Backpack Finance · April 3, 2020 at 10:40 am

Great reading how nomads are dealing with this current crisis.

I was planning on starting my nomad journey during May in Koh Phangan, then Chiang Mai and then slow traveling across SEA. With how the current situation is progressing I have my doubts that international travel will resume by July.

Best of luck to you guys.

Cheers and stay safe.

    Mr. Nomad Numbers · April 3, 2020 at 12:10 pm

    Hey Backpack Finance! Thanks for stopping by. Where are you currently located? For the USA we were discussing with some Taiwanese while hiking today in the mountains surrounding Taipei and they think it will take at least until July/August for the situation to get back to normal in the USA. Seems super far so time will tell if they are right or wrong on that.

    As for your travel plan, we secrète hope that International travel can resume by July (since our visa will expire by then and we will have to leave Taiwan) but we also think it’s still too early to tell.

      Backpack Finance · April 3, 2020 at 8:22 pm

      I live in Malta but actually stuck in Israel now. Trying without success to get back home. The airport in Malta is closed off completetly except for special cargo and repatriation flights. If this ends towards July/August it will be a real treat, I’m hearing different things in Europe.

        Mr. Nomad Numbers · April 5, 2020 at 1:47 am

        Hi Backpack Finance. How is life in Israel? Are you staying there under a tourist visa? How far can you stay?

          Backpack Finance · April 6, 2020 at 10:38 am

          I’m actually an Israeli citizen so no issues for me here. It’s still a bit of a hassle because I don’t actually live here but I guess it could have been worse. Fortunately I’m stuck in the right place 🙂

          Mr. Nomad Numbers · April 7, 2020 at 12:28 am

          That’s great to hear!

Brad · April 3, 2020 at 5:58 pm

Great detail. Thanks for putting this together & sharing. Do you require a separate space to work (from Mrs NN)? We’re full-time travelers living in AirBnBs (currently Houston). One AirBnB criterion we have is that there be a separate space so that I can write/podcast. I often do this early morning / late at night. So no studios for us. Which jacks up cost significantly. Keep up great work!

    Mr. Nomad Numbers · April 5, 2020 at 1:46 am

    Hi Brad! Thanks for stopping by 🙂 Hope everything is well in Houston/Texas! As for your question, we totally agree with the need to have dedicated space to work on specific projects as well as having our own space when staying inside. As I’m writing this in our kitchen area, overlooking the city of Taipei while Mrs. NN is working from our living/bedroom area. We usually get rentals with plenty of space but sometimes we need to be creative, especially when space is more of a large studio (like it is often the case here in Taipei and in other parts of Asia). Alternatively, we don’t mind also “working” for coworking spaces of coffee, depending on the level of privacy we need to get our work done.

    NurseFILife · April 6, 2020 at 11:09 pm

    Hey Brad,

    Have you looked into running your podcast as a business? If you have dedicated office space for your business you could deduct the cost of the square footage used for your office (within IRS guidelines). Depending on your tax bracket it could cover a large part of the costs.

      Brad · April 8, 2020 at 3:10 am

      Hey Nurse, I haven’t thought about an office space deduction since I had an office (pre-FIRE). I’ll ask my accountant what he thinks about carving out some of the square footage (errr…meters) out of our monthly AirBnB’s for deduction. Thank you for suggestion!

9 months Stuck in Taiwan during the pandemic - Did we break the bank? — Nomad Numbers · December 8, 2020 at 10:17 am

[…] the pandemic hit, we were really nervous financially and set ourselves a budget of $1,500 a month that we did not accomplish although it’s doable in Taiwan. In the end, we did not have to worry […]

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