5.10 | Currency Hacking Without Being a Colonizer

> Isha Vela:

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Waking Up Wealthy podcast. And today we are talking about currency hacking and geo arbitrage. So they’re, they’re both the same thing and what it is is maximizing your money by living in parts of the world that have a lower cost of living and where your home currency just goes a longer way. And this can be an example of this is earning US Dollars online and then living in places like Thailand or Mexico or Portugal or wherever the cost of living is lower. And the reason why, I wanted to have this conversation is because I am now living in a place where a lot of people are currency hacking. I am meeting a lot of families that practice currency hacking and I have seen recently somebody posted something about, hey, this is a great way to maximize your dollars. And there is just no conversation about how to do this in a way that isn’t harmful because it is very, very, a very harmful practice, if done in an unconscious and non mindful way, without recognizing the privilege that it involves and the responsibility that it involves as well. I really want to focus today on this episode on the cultural and economic aspects of geo arbitrage or currency hacking. I just want to start by talking about two reasons why middle class folks move abroad. then I want to go into some of the problematic pieces like how to do it or the impact it has and how problematic currency, hacking can be, and then end with how you can do it in a responsible way. So I name the problem and I offer solutions. So first, the two main reasons middle class folks move abroad, besides getting a job somewhere else. I know that a lot of people, unlike when other people move to the United States, for example, some people, immigrate because they’re seeking asylum. That’s not the case with middle class families who are usually the people who are moving abroad. So one of them I have actually I, know families who are moving because of the political climate and safety. and that was part of the reason why I moved as well. Obviously things are, really ugly politically right now in the United States, they’re dangerous for some people, for some groups of people, mainly immigrants and trans kids for example. and I have met parents who are concerned about their queer and trans children m people. The government is removing rights for them and barring access to life saving hormone treatments. And it’s just creating an incredibly hostile culture. It was already hostile and it’s getting even more hostile. And the way kids internalize that, they internalize that and then they wan to harm themselves. And so people, parents are basically trying to prevent their children suicide by moving abroad. And while my situation wasn’t as intense or dire, I am also concerned about my children’s mental health. Just being in an environment where the news they see is about trans people’s rights being removed. They were already naming for me how threatened they feel in most environments. So that was a no for me. I’m not doing that. and then a lot of people have also spoken about the political climate in the United States as being so binary and divisive that there isn’t really room for complexity or nuance. it is essentially the anticipus of peace. Right? Just living in a place where who you voted for can spark an intense rageful argument within a family or separation or this divisiveness. So we don’t honor complexity as a nation. We’re not there yet. We’re very immature in that way spiritually and just like our nervous systems are just very polarized. And then there’s the aspect of gun violence. We don’t hear it on the news every day, but pretty much once a week there is some form of mass shooting. We only hear about the really, really big ones. So that is a huge problem for a lot of families. They don’t safe with their kids just being on the street or being out at night. and then that’s even more so if you have a, a black boy, or someone who is of color but mostly black boys. The second reason is geo arbitrage, cost of living and the quality of life. So this has obvious relevance right now with a lot of people feeling the squeeze of capitalism and a lot of people are choosing to move abroad because they just get to have a better life living somewhere else other than the United States because their dollars just go further. They have more cash flow, they have more discretionary income to do things, to live life, to experience and that a lot of people value that. I want to talk about the squeeze of capitalism and I want to let the numbers do the talking. From 2020-24, the All Food Consumer Price Index rose by 23.6%. It surpassed the overall inflation rate of 21% during the same period. So rents have risen approximately 24% between 2020 and 2024, averaging an annual growth rate of about 5%. So food prices went up 23.6% and that was over the inflation rate. And then the rents also increased 24.2%. And that was an average annual growth rate of about 5%. And then let’s see, as of early 2025, the median asking rent across the 50 largest US metropolitan areas is $1,691. And that’s a 14.4% increase over five years. That’s huge. So for example, let’s say Arizona, the average Arizona experienced the highest rent surge at 84%. Florida, the average rent increased about 45.77%, reaching $2,128 in 2023. That’s crazy. Colorado was huge. Pittsburgh, New York City, modest rent increase of, $160. Well, I’m glad to hear that because the rents were already sky high. So what about income has that gone up to? So median household income, and these are inflation adjusted rates. 2019, it was 81,000 do. and that was in $2023. In 2020 it was 78,000 2021. So it went down. The median household income went down in 2020, stayed down in 2021, went down a little bit more in 2022, and then went up to 80,000 do in 2023, which was still lower than it was in 2019. So in 2023, the median household income increased by 4% from the previous year, which is the first real inflation adjusted gain since 2019. But it’s still was lower than 2019. Oay. So that means that incomes have not increased while rents have increased while food has increased. And then let’s talk about the impact of inflation. So high inflation rates in 2021 and 2022 eroded purchasing power, right? So the same amount of dollars just goes less far right. That’s leading to a decline in real incomes despite nominal wage increases. A lot of people, including myself, weren’t even noticing this until about 2023. And I started like, oh, I started noticing this when supposedly incomes were beginning to recover. And I started noticing it in the supermarket and feeling kind of angry, like what the actual fuck costs like this piece of cheese or this yogurt. Right? That kind of stuff. So basically everything’s gotten more expensive. You haven’t been getting Paid more. And even if you’ve been getting paid more, your purchasing power has gone down because of inflation. So between those real, macroeconomic factors, the pinch you are feeling is real. The way this impacts your day to day is obvious, is that you’re doing more and working harder for the same pay. And that same pay has diminishing results, which is incredibly stressful and frustrating to say the least. And of course it creates the conditions for resentment, dissatisfaction, disillusionment, because people don’t feel like they’re getting ahead. And we are very much a culture that is about getting ahead. We’re not about staying the same. We have to be great. This is something that we’ve been conditioned into. Getting better, doing better, more great progress that leads obviously to burnout, mental health problems. And all of those can lead to violence via, unprocessed, righteous, in my opinion, rage. So you’re not seeing results. You’re not getting ahead. You’re feeling down on yourself, you’re feeling frustrated. You want to take it out on somebody, right? If it’s not yourself. Some people take it out on themselves in lots of different ways. And some people take it out on other people. So that gets like, somebody cuts you off in traffic and you’re like, fuck you, right? That’s the kind of stuff that I see happening. And because people have been feeling crushed both emotionally and financially under that squeeze, they’ve been looking to other countries where their dollar goes a lot further. And I recognize, and I hope you do as well, the tremendous amount of privilege that goes along with making a decision like that. Only if you work online would you be able to do something like that. Or if you have a business system where you orchestrate the business but you don’t have necessarily like direct contact with clients, you have a staff, with the direct contacted clients, or you have stocks, you’ve invested in stocks and can pull money from that money, or you can pull money from those stocks rather, or you sell a business and you decide to take a gap year and travel with your family. So there’s a lot of privilege that goes along with being able to make a decision like that. And a lot of people, if they don’t have the economic privilege to do so, they certainly have the white privilege of doing so. Many people can’t leave. Many people can’t leave. And that’s from different circumstances. They can’t leave because of, family ties. family depends on them and they work. They’re not just providing for their children. They’re providing for other family members as well. So they have to, can take that into consideration. Some people can’t leave because they have an ex partner in the United States. And that was certainly one of the reasons why I couldn’t leave, financial circumstances as well. So I know what it feels like not to be able to leave or having to delay the. Delay your desire. And it is incredibly frustrating and draining to say the least. So there is a conversation, right, we need to talk about. Like I’m sort of jumping into, let’s talk about colonialism right now. So we talk about privilege. And so let’s talk about how that privilege then translates into a colonial dynamic. Because white supremacy culture has a history of going to places and taking. It has a history of extracting. and there is this assumption that you get to have, that you get to just take whatever you need because you get to take it. It’s yours, it’s already yours in your brain. So this is a form of soft colonization. This modern form of colonization just takes on this kind of softer, maybe less, immediately violent form. But it is violent in its own way. And it often brings wealth to a few white displaced locals. and it destroys ecosystems and it reshapes cultural identity and land access. So I wanted to just name a couple of places around the world where this is happening. So that have been already deeply impacted by this practice and even taken over by a lot of European, white, European and American tourism. So in Tulum, Mexico, it used to be a quiet beach town with a deep Mayan history, and now it’s an overpriced Instagram hotspot with boutique resorts, yoga enclaves, spiritual tourism. you know, I cannot count the cacao ceremonies that you will find there. And I know that indigenous communities are indeed displaced and sacred sites have been turned into luxury attractions. And I know also that, trash has become a really huge problem, right? Just like plastic trash. And locals are being priced out of, marketed as an eco paradise. And it is an eco paradise. it’s become dominated by US and Canadian expats and tourist developers. there’s a lot of gentrification of beach towns like Nosada and Tamarindo. a lot of Tico families have been displaced. I, talked to a couple of Tico, families who were talk, I was talking about land with them about like, oh, they’re selling their famil’s plot to an American developer. And I was like, but then you don’t have this legacy to leave behind. And they kind of shrugged and they were just like, yeah, but we need the money now. So it’s like in this desperation to get money now to do I don’t know whatnot, they sell their family legacy. Like land is so hugely important when you think about food sovereignty and yeah, just being able to feed yourself and being able to steward land. So there’s that whole dynamic happening. I would say like most of the, most of the lands that are being sold are being bought up by gentrification, right? By American and Canadian and European, expatriates. So there’s a greenwashing that also happens like, you know, when these places are bought up by let’s say a European, developer, it’s turned into a retreat center. So it’s like it’s this eco retreat. And so it feels very like oh, but it’s like it’s eco, right? And there’s a whole greenwashing, right? It S like it’s whitewashing and then on top of it it’s like a greenwashing. It masks what’s actually happening under the surface, right? It covers it up. Then in Bali here, what I observe is that UUD is like heavyuty, heavy duty greenwashing. A lot of white, extractive, soft colonial, shit going on. I don’t know how else they call it. there’s a lot of digital nomads, there’s a lot of retreat centers, a lot of healing happening. and there’s not a lot of engagement or feeding into the local community. Most of the spaces that you would frequent are of white healers. they’re not necessarily indigenous healers. the cost of living has risen in the last 10 years quite a bit. For the people who have been here a long time, they talk about how much it’s changed. Balinese culture is used, it’s appropriated as like a spiritual branding. Like when you see people on Instagram and they’re just like walking on the beach and like, just kind of like, oh, look at this. It really is using the aspects of Balinese culture to market and attract people into their retreats and things like that. And yeah, like the reality is is that like you do pretty much drink a coconut a day. But it’s not necessarily like there’s a lot of dark side or dark underworld to this beautiful culture that is part of the colonial aspect that is going on. I know that there’s a lot of trash here. there’s a whole lot of pollution. If you want to go into abbud it’s like, oh, it takes an hour from where I live because there’s so much traffic and the pollution that’s caused from that traffic is unbearable sometimes. Like, it really is like disgusting. water, I don’t know about shortages because of the rain, but I know that the infrastructure, like in terms of the traffic is not sustainable. there’environmental degradation because of the construction. There’s so much construction happening. There is burning of construction trash, that’s plastic burning in the environment as well. And that destroys the environment. So all of those pieces are happening here. And obviously there’s like safari tourism in Kenya. There is Santorini and Mykonos where you have the party and the raves and all of that. Kind of like, maybe, what type of tourism is that? That’s like party tourism and maybe even acid tripping, mushroom consuming kind of tourism. but the core patterns that you’ll notice in any kind of currency hacking that is sort of very like colonial is the economic displacements that have the economic displacement that happens. The tourism dollars don’t stay local. They go to foreign owners. And there’s a ton of foreign owners here. Like most places, even though they have Balinese people or Indonesian people as servers. That’s part of the government regulations. Balinese people need to be, or Indonesian people need to be, front facing to the customer. So the boul or the foreigner owner cannot be the person serving or the person interacting. It always needs to be a local. So that’s the way of the government sort of protecting its economy, which I think is really, really good. But the owners of these luxury villas or the owners of these restaurants are still boule or foreigner. So then there’s land dispossession. the locals can’t afford to rent. I know that it is prohibitive. It’s become prohibitive to rent here because the prices are skyrocketing. The people who actually own the villas are taking advantage of the people, the oligarchs that are here. so the locals are not able to afford the rents here. So they’re removed from coastal areas or desirable areas. So not a lot of locals in uud. Then there’s the cultural appropriation piece. The traditional practices are commodified. You see that with cacao ceremonies in Mexico for example, things are watered down. They’re turned into performances. They’re turned into like, yeah, they’re turned into a performance, into a spectacle versus an actual healing experience. there’s spiritual colonialism for sure. The, tourists seek healing experiences. This happens a lot here. I know that it happens in Mexico without understanding the lineage it comes from, without understanding the trauma that is being enacted as they’re seeking their healing. There’s the enactment of colonial trauma happening, or they don’t understand the systems that they’re stepping into, the systems of oppression they’re stepping into, or how, yeah, there’s an extraction, there’s a taking happening and that they’re receiving what has been taken and it’s not been credited to the original owner or to the original culture. Then there’s the ecological damage, the impact. I was just talking about the overdevelopment leading to water shortages, leading to waste, deforestation and pollution for sure. So in this question mark, where, when there is exploration of new territory, think about like Christopher Columbus just to be like, really stupid, simple. there’s an underlying shadow of where is the land and where can I extract? Where can we extract? So we travel. I say we because I am examining this in myself. This is sort of an ongoing exploration for myself in myself, mapping of land, identifying of resources. Right back in the day, it was gold, spices, people, actual people. And nowadays it might be, oh, the weather. Yes, I want to live where it is warm. I want to be able to buy land. I want to access a specific cost of living and determining the strategic value of those things. So even though there are already people living in these places, there are a lot of folks who come in with the idea that they’ve discovered something. Look at this, look at this jewel I discovered. Look at this place that I just found out about. And they’re using it for their own gameain. I have these conversations all the time with people and I have conversations with regular folks all the time. People with solid values, people who are consider themselves progressive. So it’s people like you and me who are doing this. So we need to really, like, look at ourselves and not just point the finger at other people, but pointing the finger at ourselves and examining ourselves. Then there’s the aspect of economic exploitation. Take resources, extract labor and build a wealth for the empire. So let’s talk about, empires for a second. I really believe we need to get out of the mindset of wanting to build an empire. And of course I sometimes use this term kind of like to paint a picture. And when I really get into the nitty gritty of it, there is this culture of this idea of building an empire that is very American, very Eurocentric, capitalistic, where there’s one person or leader at the top. I know that when I was immersed in the online coaching culture, that industry, that was very much the sort of the direction that we were all encouraged to go in. And at some point I realized that moving my business in that direction or scaling my business was about ego. And I just felt like I couldn’t do it anymore and do it with integrity. I really felt like we need to stop thinking this way, we need to stop setting that as the ultimate goal because it’s harmful and it hurts people. And what also happens is that you have. Yeah, I talked about this before about the cost of living going up and then, then locals not being able to afford it anymore. But anyway, I’m just kind of, I’m getting away from myself but really want to stay with the aspect of the economic exploitation piece because it is very much this idea of like I can have something for myself without recognizing the impact that you have on other people around you. Then there’s a piece about cultural domination and assimilation. So in a situation where white people practice geo arbitrage and build businesses, if we don’t adapt ourselves to the host culture, then we are in fact imposing our cultural systems and worldview onto the culture, the culture that is hosting us, that is allowing us to live there, which changes that culture and reshapes the identity of that culture and identity of the people. So for example, by not learning the host language, by not following customs or not bothering to learn about religious practices or common cultural practices and not engaging, choosing not to engage with them because you don’t have to, right? Because are you have privilege or you have some form of dominance, you’re imposing yourself and you’re ignoring context, right? You’re being a dbule, as call, as we say it here. So by not meeting the host culture and, and not being curious and not ask and asking the host culture to meet you instead of you meeting the host culture, you are controlling the dynamic. You are forcing yourself onto the host culture and reshaping it. So you’re essentially bending it to your will. So I’m going to pause here for a second and I want to switch into how to practice this ethically and in a non extractive way. And I know that there are people who go so far saying that we shouldn’t move around at all, that we shouldn’t move places at all. And I absolutely do not believe that. In fact I have had a vision, almost like a future casting or future vision that part of the ways we create world peace is by dissolving borders and by, by allowing people to have movement because people have always been moving. This is, you know, people have always been migrating and to different places. So I don’t want to stop that. And again, we need to do it in a way that is mindful and that is, consider it, and where we examine ourselves in the process and our intentions. So the first step, and I think there’s eight steps here that I’ve devised or come up with. So choose your locations mindfully. I didn’t choose my location mindfully. I chose Bali because Bali chose me. It was the place where, an opportunity opened up to live in a way that I wanted to live, which was, with chosen family. And I could have chosen other places. This was just the place that opened up and that felt like really right to my system. You want to ask yourself, am I going somewhere because it’s cheap or because I respect the culture and want to build a relationship with the land and the people? And I know that this is something that’s an ongoing conversation of how to build. How to build a relationship with the land, how to build relationship with the people. I know that this place, Bali in particular, has been already heavily impacted by overt tourism. So it’s something that we ask ourselves, like, do we want to continue living here? Do we want to continue contributing to that? So that’s something that we’re thinking about. so unless you have community ties and plan to contribute meaningfully, maybe don’t move to places like Lisbon, Bali, Mexico, places like that. Seek out less gentrified areas and learn about the region’s history with colonialism, with displacement, with exploitation. yeah. So, yeah, like I said, it’s an ongoing conversation, like, should we still be here? What are we doing here? when we. I’ll talk a little bit more about engaging with local communities. That’s the second step. So don’t just connect with expat circles. And it’s very tempting because there is the shared experience of living in a foreign culture foreign to you. there is the common experience of, like, the story of how we got here. Right. I love hearing those stories. And, it’s really important to also engage in local communities, even though it involves more work. And I think part of the reason, part of the reason when it becomes harmful is because we don’t think we have to, because we really don’t need to. If we don’t want to, we don’t need to. And that is really, I think that we don’t Recognize how we as white people, it’s appearing people or white acting people lose out, by not connecting to a local community. So you want to ask yourself, am I forming relationships with locals or only with people who look like me, who earn like me, who have the same experiences and I do. So learn the local language, even basic phrases goes a really long way. learn what customs are respectful. For example, like when you give somebody your credit card or where you give them money, you sort of, you give it with your right hand and you touch your right, your right forearm. That happened in Vietnam and in Indonesia. And there’s a reason for that, right? There’s. You want to understand, I also like just understanding the history of certain spiritual practices and the history of colonialism and the Dutch colonialism here and how that affected people and why people are the way they are. Or even in Vietnam learning about the different, like French colonialism and how that affected their Vietnamese identity, for example. So younna attend local events, markets, you wanna volunteer in community programs. With our visas we can’t volunteer. But there’s ways that you can give back and prioritize forming relationships based on mutual respect and reciprocity. This is something that we are like really actively thinking about. Like, okay, how do we do this? How do we create a business that feeds back into or builds awareness into local communities? So well, one thing I wanted to say about that is that we are the people that let’s say, provide services to us. Let’s say whether it’s a cleaning service or some sort of helping service, we really try to integrate them into our family and like support them in instrumental, but also like let’s pay them a good amount or if re. you just caring about them, just like, just treating them, not just treating them kindly, but just be their friend. integrate them into your family. So then there’s contributing to the local economy and doing it responsibly. Are you extracting resources or are you circulating well? And we extract resources wherever we go because we are human and we’re not quite at a place in terms of like we have to reduce our footprint and there’s lots of ways to do that. But just thinking about where you buy, where you buy your fruits and vegetables. We were just having this conversation yesterday about like buy from a fruit stand. Buy from a woman owned fruit stand where her fruits and vegetables come from her garden. Don’t buy at the local supermarket where the prices are hiked up, everything is wrapped in plastic. You get the Idea. Right. and then like renting from local families and from cooperatives rather than foreign owned Airbnbs or eat at locally owned restaurants, or at like Warungs. Here are the Warungs, there’s sort of the street side restaurants. And that’s something that is a little harder for me to do because, of my diet that is limited. but what I have been doing is creating connections with some, local drivers and making sure that somebody who takes care of us is also taken care of by us. So we’ll give business to him. He obviously takes care of us. So just doing little things like that. And maybe, he asked us to invest in his chicken farm and so we might be doing that as well. So just really looking at how you can be helpful, how you can give because you are getting so much and to be aware with how you are receiving. Because oftentimes we just make the assumption, again that I mentioned before of just like, yeah, I just get to receive just because. Well, no, not just because. What about the reciprocity? Ask yourself where you are being reciprocal. and don’t please use the culture as local culture as an aesthetic for your brand or your business without giving context, without respect. and educate yourself on the history of the region so that you’re not playing into an old dynamic. let’s see what else the fifth step would be avoiding contributing to gentrification. This is really hard because it’s like again, you want to live where you feel like is home for you. I’m a big believer in astroc cartography. I know that even though I was born in the United States, born in Puerto Rico, I don’t want to live there. I don’t feel right living there. It’s not my place to live. So I really respect the fact that. Not that you can live and you can feel more at home in places you weren’t born. Because our DNA does call us, right? Ancestral DNA does call us. So I really believe that, you know, it’s up to you to find where is home for you. And that can be somewhere where you weren’t born. But you want to think about, are you driving up the rent? Are you displacing locals just by being there? Right. So it’s kind of. It gets to be tricky. I’m not saying that these are like clear cut solutions. This is something like an ongoing questioning and examination. try to avoid short term Airbnbs in residential neighborhoods where housing is scarce. Pay the fair price, don’t excessively haggle. And I’VE had this experience with haggling. It feels horrible because you know, I know sometimes I’m getting quoted a boulet price and I was like wow, that’s really, really expensive. So you want to haggle, but you also want to give a little extra because you can. So you want to take care of the people and not low vol them, especially if it’s a family run business. And you want to support community efforts that fight displacement or work toward housing justice. So you can just donate money, or just support them by letting people, other people know about them and sharing that information. And you know that when you support a family run business you are often supporting a whole ecosystem or a whole village. So it really goes a long way. And this is where we get into the velocity of money, which is another episode for another day. So number six, step number six for how to not be a colonial asshole. When you’re practicing geo arbitrage is to give back and redistribute wealth. So asking yourself what I said before, are you taking more than you’re giving? Ask yourself that am I giving to this person who is giving to me? Notice when you’re receiving. Because oftentimes we don’t really notice when we’re receiving, we just take it for granted. So you want to donate a portion of your income or your business profits to local mutual aid, land back efforts, indigenous initiatives. And you want to offer maybe your professional skills, language teaching, trauma, informed business guidance, maybe art therapy, in non extractive ways. Maybe you offer a service for free to local people and then you charge other people, foreigners maybe like a set price. Or maybe you have business overflow and you donate a portion to a service, to be of service. Number seven, be transparent about your privilege. Talk about it, recognize it, acknowledge it, celebrate it even because it allows you to do it, allows you to be generous. if you’re sharing about geo arbitrage lifestyle, include the context about privilege. Talk about it, talk about the responsibility, talk about the ethics that it involves. Don’t romanticize poverty or don’t use freedom lifestyle narrative without talking about the systemic implications of it. And if you’re deciding to stay wherever you are, if you’re deciding to stay put, build a relationship with the land, build a relationship with the people. Don’t just do it to escape capitalism in the global north. consider legal paths of residency that don’t fast track you past the local like like investor visas, which I did. that’s something that I want to think about as well. so I’m taking responsibility there. participate in community initiatives and consider how your presence can be regenerative. Yeah. Thinking about how can we build a business that benefits the community both on an ecological and economic level? How does it support in preserving the culture versus extracting from it or degrading it? So again, all of these questions are part of what we’re considering when forming something. So bonus question is for you. What is my sacred reciprocity and responsibility to this place? It can be on a totally spiritual level that you’re asking yourself this question. and how can my money and my body, my energy body be a blessing here? How can I give? You can give even in ways that aren’t financial. You can. And even that aren’t like a service oriented B. But you can give by being present, by being curious, by just sharing like the mutual respect, by being asking questions when you have a conversation with a driver. yeah. So asking yourself, does this relocation support collective liberation or does it just support your comfort? So I’ll leave you with those big whammy of the questions. And again, like, these are not necessarily. I’m not here to provide you with answers. I’m here to provide you with food for thought, with considerations. Because I don’t have all the answers. It really is a matter of examining yourself and asking more questions, I guess. So let me know how this all lands with you. send me an email, let me know in the comment section wherever you’re listening to this. shoot me a text if we know each other personally or a dm. And let me know this lands with you. I love you all and I’ll see you on the next episode.

>> Isha Vela: Thank you for listening to today’s episode. Remember to hit the subscribe button to get notified of new Episodes dropping on the new and full moons of each month. And if you haven’t already, leave us a five star review on itunes to make sure that everyone who needs this transmission receives it. Until the next episode, I’m sending you fierce, fierce love.