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How a Programmer Gets By On $16K/Yr: He Moves to Malaysia

Posted by timothy on from the wouldn't-be-for-everyone dept.

An anonymous reader writes "If you can make $10 and hour doing remote work, you can afford to live in Malysia. Make it $15 or $20, you can work 30 hours a week. Real money? Make it ten. This article talks about how John Hunter did it." Malaysia's not the only destination for self-motivated ex-pat programmers, of course. If you've considered doing this kind of sabbatical, or actually have, please explain in the comments the from-where-to-where details and reasons.

3 of 523 comments (clear)

  1. Ubatuba, SP Brasil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Graduated with my Masters in EE/CS at 23. Got a job that allowed for remote working. Saved up the required $50K to apply for a permanent resident visa as a foreign investor. Opened a shop and hired some local Brasilians to do contract programming work for US firms. Learned Portuguese and became a Brasilian citizen. Quit my job and renounced my US citizenship once I was making enough on my Brasil business. Ignored letter from IRS demanding "exit" tax.

    Now do contract work for US firm at US labor rates via sales office in the US, and the money comes to Brasil where it goes farther, and I live on a beach in a Pousada. I don't even speak English well anymore. I'm not even 40 and I could quit work today but the money is too good.

  2. Have done this for 3 years in the US. by bhoult · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have been doing this for about three years now in the United States. Basically, bought property ($6000), built small dome to live in ($3000), went half time at work (4 hours a day doing low stress programming). I make about $17,000 a year and live pretty comfortably on that. The key is having no debts, eliminating as many recurring payments as possible (I pay about $300/mo for all utilities and phone), drive as little as possible and don't eat out much.

    I even wrote a blog about it. http://www.minimalintentions.com/search/label/Geodesic%20Dome

    My plan was that when I had all this free time I could work on my own projects (of which I have many). Unfortunately turns out that I am pretty lazy so instead I sit in a hammock and read books more... ah well... I still plan to get motivated at some point... eventually.

    (repost since I was logged out the first time)

  3. Re:What article by tlhIngan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I know Malaysia well (even though I live in the UK). I first went there in '97 and married a Malaysian-born woman. Some observations:
      They really like and respect white people.
    They don't particularly like Chinese people (my wife is half Chinese so I see rampant discrimination against this large minority - about 25% of Malaysia's population - all the time).
    The weather is great (although sometimes a little too humid).
    Kuala Lumpur is a very advanced city that can compare to anything in the West.
    Broadband speeds are so-so according to my cousin-in-law.
    There appears to be a demand for good engineers (according to another cousin-in-law, a Chinese who studied IT in England). So, assuming you can get a visa, getting some interesting work shouldn't be too hard.
    The political situation there is... interesting. But I get the impression that if you don't cause trouble you will be left alone - especially if you are white.

    HTH

    The reason is that after the war or so, the first people to start running businesses and such were Chinese (most likely chased out from Singapore by the Japanese), and they got very rich doing so.

    The government exploits the fact that a lot of Malaysians are jealous of the Chinese for being successful (which happens because they worked hard at building businesses and such) , so they put up huge campaigns of national identity and such to encourage hatred of the Chinese. However, they government doesn't really do anything about it (they can't - said Chinese businesses pay a good amount of tax and employ a lot of Malays). So basically the Chinese are demonized for being successful and "exploiting" Malays

    If you're white, you're usually a tourist or an investor, so you're treated well to get at your $$$. If you're a Chinese investor with $$$, everyone eyes you like you're going to enslave them.

    The government feeds off this sentiment and basically just fans the flames. There's no real democracy (there is voting, but the opposition is usually highly discredited, or even arrested if they have a chance of winning - being a Muslim state, there are plenty of "crimes" that one can accuse the Opposition of).