#648 – The Expat Files: Plan B, Propane, and Podcasting in Latin America

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:00] South of the border, down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came up to play and now as I wander Hello there all you expat wannabes. I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America The show that tells you just what it's like to live work play and or retire down here in Latin America It's a mix of the good the bad the ugly and the great and it's all right here. So let's get started Wow so many things to talk about not enough time thought I was off that treadmill I guess in a way I'm still on kind of a treadmill though It's a treadmill of my own making and I like it whereas you know just thinking of the word treadmill boy

[00:46] Does that conjure up negative thoughts huh over? There's the good treadmill and the bad treadmill just like there's the good crazy and the bad crazy Hey, I've been called crazy before but I like to think it's the good crazy. How about you? You know when I was in high school I remember my mother once said if on occasion people don't call you crazy whether it's your face or behind your back That means you'll probably always be a lemming and never ever think out of the box Of course way back when when she sprung those little words of wisdom on me No one was using the out-of-the-box cliche yet. It hadn't been invented instead. They used words like eccentric, you know Are you eccentric hey at parties? I'll stick with the eccentric people every time so let's get started with an email from mr B says Johnny I heard you talk about people moving to Latin America with nest eggs of 30,000 to 100 grand or something like that

[01:36] Being from the ghetto myself it took time for us That is me and my family to learn how not to live on government assistance Let alone how to save up for a nest egg couple of questions though down there in Latin America Do any of the house or apartment rentals come with gas lines for ovens? Or how does the natural gas or bottled LP gas system work there by the way when we ordered our plane tickets? We were not obliged to purchase a return ticket So in case when we land there and they asked to see a return plane ticket if they do Could you remind me on where we can rent a plane ticket for a day? We heard you mention this before on your show One more question to Johnny. I listened to your podcast to gain knowledge, of course But do you know of a good news podcast in Central America? That's in Spanish

[02:23] Something I could download and listen to because you know I drive truck and have plenty of time to listen while I'm driving finally my family cooks with gluten-free flour We use a lot of rice flour, too Do you know about the stores down there and selling gluten-free items? Do you know if stores sell rice flour? Looking forward to your next show. Thanks mr. B and family. All right, mr. B Let's take these things one at a time first. We're talking about coming down with a small nest egg But before that let's fill in our listeners a bit on mr. B. He's written before he tried to make the break to Latin America before a couple years ago I think it was Panama and it didn't work out didn't turned out like he thought it would so he headed back to the States and you see when you land in a place like Costa Rica Panama on the gringo tourist trail

[03:10] You're talking about high prices much higher than they are when you're off the gringo tourist trail And the fact that when you're on the trail, there are a lot more taxes government regulations, etc And when you're on the gringo tourist trail, there are a lot more other gringos looking to pick up jobs here and there So there's more of the kind of competition you don't want gringo competition Which is for example why when you're in gringoized areas You'll see so many gringos and gringas working as waiters and waitresses and bartenders basically for tips now Of course, we all come down wanting to live like first-world gringos That's the point right? In fact when it comes to the newest wave of gringo arrivals They'll tell you that they see their standard of living being chipped away. They see the writing on the wall They know it's only gonna get worse. That's why so many gringos are thinking about becoming expats down in Latin America

[04:01] Anyway, mr. B and family are taking another shot at it this time Well off the gringo tourist trail and I applaud them for that So there is one big question on many people's minds that is people who are putting together their plan B right now Like mr. B at least 50% maybe more of people coming down Have to make some money or sooner or later that nest eggs gonna run out and of course depending on what business you are In in the states or what talent knowledge or skills you have? There's a good chance you could transfer those skills down here and make some money too That is if you're so inclined and see a niche to be filled Of course if you hated your job like a lot of us did up in the states You might not want to do that or perhaps you prefer to be the boss and let someone else jump on that trail Treadmill for you or maybe you're such a high achiever you want to get back on that treadmill only click it down a few notches

[04:50] You know smooth it out so that pina colada doesn't spill So as far as gringo job skills, who do you think has the biggest advantage? There are always a certain percentage of people who come down with internet skills or they have an internet business in the states or Europe Whatever Canada and they can transfer right down here and not skip a beat because you can do internet business anywhere Besides that when you're down here, well, they're all those tax benefits that we talked about at the seminar Yeah, and when you mentioned tax benefits to expat Eddie You know what he says the real benefit is not to pay taxes at all Some people don't they don't have to and it's perfectly legal down here. Anyway Now that's one of the topics we talk about in some detail at the expat insider seminars And since one of the big topics of discussion is always how to make money here in Latin America how to run a business

[05:39] How to get a business how to start a business? Even how to continue with the same kind of business you're doing up in the states Which is most easily done if you're online Speaking of learning about how to do business online Got a real treat and a surprise for anyone who's coming down to my July 2017 expat insider seminar I mean talk about one-of-a-kind Opportunities by popular demand we're adding to the doing business in Latin America portion of the seminar with a very special guest lecture I won't tell you his name, but I'll tell you this about him He'll be giving a little segment called making money online Haha I bet you've seen pop-up windows on that till you can't stand them anymore and you'll get all kinds of crap in your spam box About doing business online, right? But this is different. Let me tell you a little about our guest lecturer

[06:27] By the way, he'll be talking about no theoretical junk or pie in the sky crap only about stuff That's really worked for him and it'll work for you, too This is a guy who started selling online in the year 2000 He had an idea for an mp3 website and found great success He was get this Google's number one single person advertiser He's built teams from Los Angeles to Bangalore to Manila and dislocated He's personally generated over a hundred million in top-line revenue sales So he'll be at the seminar discussing the four no BS ways to make money on the internet and nope This is not a sales pitch. He's not selling anything at all. He's just providing the information I never sell or pitch anything at the seminar. You know, it's just total information. That's it

[07:13] So there's another reason to come to the seminar to get some golden tidbits from a man like this So how do we luck out to get him at the seminar? Well, guess what? He's a repeat offender came to one of my previous expat insider seminars liked it so much He's coming again this time. He's offered to share some of his own unique internet experiences So if party your plan B involves making money when you get down here, you'll want in on this party Don't miss the chance to sign up for this seminar Just go to www dot the new expat comm click on Johnny's 2017 seminar link And you'll get all the information and sign up details and by clicking on that link You'll also find out how to kill two birds with one stone That is get your Guatemalan permanent or temporary residency started while you're down at the seminar

[08:01] That'll save you a trip down to Central America in the future So then what if you just can't get boots on the ground right now? My best advice to you is to sign up for my expat essentials course Just go to expat plan B comm to learn the best most efficient ways to get the ducks lined up for your own plan B But back to that email. All right, mr. B wants to know about the natural gas and LP or propane gas Situation here in Latin America. Yep, you'll find almost all middle upper middle class and wealthy people use LP or propane gas For their kitchen stoves and ovens I know that might seem odd because up in the states people only use LP gas for their barbecue pits outside and For camping if they have an RV, however down here in Latin America, you'll see those 25 pound LP canisters everywhere

[08:53] In fact, that's by far the favorite size the 25 pounder So how do you buy those things? Well, you don't get them at the hardware store You call up the LP gas supplier and you pay for the first tank as well as the canister and after that You just trade empties. So if you buy a 25 pounder, you'll pay maybe 25 to 35 bucks for the empty tank but that's a one-time cost at the beginning after that you own the tank and the refills after that well at today's prices around maybe 10 to 15 bucks and how long for a family of four will a 25 pound tank last if you're just cooking Maybe two or three months But though it's the most often used and seen canister in a household. I wouldn't recommend it

[09:39] I say get a hundred pounder and your first time cost to buy the tank is maybe 50 to 75 bucks and A refill at today's prices 40 or 50 bucks now You'll want to store that thing in your garage or in a closet in your garage or a breezeway By the way, they call any kind of storage shed or storage closet a bodega In fact, you know those ubiquitous you storage units you see all over highways up in the states They're called mini bodegas down here mini bodegas makes sense small mini storage unit bodega Yes, Latins have co-opted many of our first world terms like mini as in mini father That's mini skirt or mini. Wevos I'll let you figure that one out and speaking of those you storage units yes

[10:24] They're down here too, and they're very safe and secure so go ahead and use them if you have to but always rent one in A nice neighborhood they look exactly like the you storage units You see up in the states only slightly less expensive to rent and a lot more flexible with what you can do with them Meaning you don't have all those strict rules regs norms and 10 page contracts you have to sign like up in the states But that doesn't mean they're sloppy or badly kept up Or if you rent one of them the guy next door is gonna have a barbecue party or disco going on Saturday night Nope, it's just that down here some people seem to run their businesses out of these you storage units nothing wrong with that In fact one new gringle friend of mine who drove all the way down from Montana stored his Jeep in a you storage unit His immediate next-door neighbor whom he shared a common wall with

[11:11] Was running saws all day and making shelves turns out this guy had contracts from mall stores to make that kind of stuff So day in and day out this guy's hammering and sawing and no one said or did a thing Try getting away with something like that up in the states and for sure they'd kick you out or sue you But I digress as usual so what about natural gas and LP gas here They don't use natural gas here in Latin America There's no natural gas piping to homes no country as the kind of infrastructure or what we all refer to as the gas company And I think it's a good thing too, especially the way Latin's do maintenance I mean look you heard me mentioned in a past show that municipal water that is city water in any small medium large town Whatever run by Latin governments and they always are lose at least 50% of their water

[11:59] Due to underground leaks and just poor maintenance. That's not a good thing But not tragic or fatal, but it could be if municipalities ran gas company monopolies like they do in the states So anyway, most likely you're gonna have a gas stove and it's gonna need some gas, right? So you'll use propane gas bottles and I recommend the hundred pounders Which by the way for a family of four depending how much you cook could last anywhere from six months to a year Now I also mentioned in the past show that most indigenous people and the very poor cook with wood Which is why so many of them have respiratory problems So throughout Latin America depending on how big the indigenous population you've got between 20 and 40 percent of the population Cooking with wood not good Which is why by the way little kids and gardeners and maintenance people and cleaning ladies

[12:49] Occasionally smell like they just came back from a boy scout jamboree meanwhile perhaps 95% of the rest of the Latin population cook with gas though a small percentage of upper middle class and wealthy people use electric stoves Even though electricity is damn expensive down here. Why because they have the dough to go to an upscale kitchen shop Yep, and all the medium and large-sized Latin cities. They've got designer kitchen stores who to thunk, huh? So don't think you can't get the high-end stuff here like sub-zero Kitchenate even even some of the expensive high-end European stuff from Italy France and Germany Just remember one to three percent of Latins make big money and they do buy that stuff for their big beautiful houses And a lot of the coolest looking kitchen stoves and ovens are electric, you know with that flat top corning glass surface

[13:36] That's ridiculously easy to clean because there are no dips valleys or edges Well, those are cool looking but they use a hell of a lot of electricity Now I note if you go into Walmart or any of the appliance stores They also have a low budget section where you'll see on display cheap electric hot plate type burners Most families that cook with wood have one of those tucked away somewhere too in case of emergency Like for example in the rainy season if the wood pile happens to get soaked now at first gringos find it quite inconvenient That they have to buy bottled LP gas Even if you only have to get a refill every six months or a year But really your aim should be to get off the grid, right? It pushes you in that direction So in the end it is pretty cool. I mean look if you have two 100 pound tanks You can be good for a year whereas up in the states if you use natural gas

[14:24] You're a hundred percent dependent on the delivery system, which is gonna fail sooner or later, right? But down here you are the delivery system however, if you're in the big city and you happen to live in one of those Residential towers a lot of nice ones down here thing is in most cases You'll find out they don't allow propane tanks in the building for safety air flow and ventilation reasons, of course So if you live in a high-rise or residential tower, you're almost always stuck with an electric stove again Nothing wrong with that except you're at the mercy of the electric company and very high electric rates Oh and as I mentioned in a previous show very very few people have closed dryers and the people that do almost always have Electric and soon enough they find out they suck a hell of a lot of electricity

[15:11] Which is why there are lots of unused ones sitting in upscale houses Just rotting away and you'll find maids and cleaning ladies are a little afraid of that stuff and would rather hang things on the clothesline Which works quite well except during the rainy season, which is why I suggest you get a clothes dryer Most gringos do but do skip the electric model and get the gas one now You'll find most Latins even upscale lens don't even know that gas dryers exist And when you go to the appliance store You'll find a half dozen brands of electric dryers and only one gas dryer But using a gas one will cost you half as much compared to using an electric model So anyway, even if you don't have a clothes dryer chances are you're gonna have a gas stove and oven So you'll need to buy a propane tanks and refills

[15:57] But don't do like the middle-class Latins do and have that tank stuffed under a counter in your kitchen Could be dangerous In fact every once in a while you'll see in the newspapers or on the 6 o'clock news that one such tank is caught fire Almost always in the kitchen of a middle or lower middle class Latin person's house And it's not that the tanks themselves are dangerous though. Some are so rusted and dented. They sure look it It's just the way the Latins kind of jury-rigged the hookup from the tank to the stove You'll see plastic getting metal hoses and such connected in all kinds of weird and wicked ways Sometimes nothing appears to be standard and that's the problem and that gas tank often It's just stuck in a corner or under a shelf with just a plastic or cloth curtain separating it from the rest of the room

[16:42] Nope, not good, but that's just the way lower middle class and middle class Latins arrange things Which is why it's very important to put your tank outside of the living space or against a wall Behind your house somewhere out of sight and I also recommend you have a nice thick chain to bolt it to the wall Not because it's gonna get stolen if it's on your property, it's probably never gonna happen But in case of the odd earthquake, yep once some years ago I saw a 25 pound tank of propane gas fall off a delivery truck and start rolling down the highway Yep scared the **** out of me. However regarding those propane tanks It's not so much the earthquakes that bother you It's the little guys driving around with two three and four of those stacked to the back of his motorcycle Weaving through traffic not to mention those big flatbed trucks stacked to the ceiling with those things

[17:29] But they're chained down and secure, right? Well Not much which begs the question once you have one or two of those at home. How safe are they really? Well, they're about as safe as the propane tank and the barbecue setup you got in your backyard in Cleveland Even though practically every other house up in the states has one of those you don't hear about accidents there Do you except for maybe the occasional grease fire or burnt weenie? So no worries as long as they're hooked up with the right kind of metallic tubing usually copper So then how do you get the refills? Well, you don't go down to some central Distribution outfit and pick them up yourself. You just dial a hotline number Then one of a half dozen companies you pick the one will come and make a delivery usually within a half an hour I'm not kidding. And of course, they'll take your empty and return

[18:16] But let me tell you you should be there when that happens. Don't let your cleaning lady accept a new batch Because a lot of times those tanks that they're going to give you are so dented and rusty and nasty looking completely unacceptable So you just tell the guy hey, give me a nice one You got a lot of good ones on the truck and they'll do it However, if you leave it to the cleaning lady, she'll make small talk with the guy smile and accept anything So in the end you usually settle on one company That would be the one that rips you off the least because they all rip you off Yeah, you'll see full page ads and even commercials on tv saying they have the precise weight, but they're all lying to you Hey, I've weighed tanks right in front of the delivery guys and they're always three to seven pounds light on a hundred pound tank

[19:02] And yes, I bitched about it and changed companies, but it doesn't do any good. That's latin america for you So don't stress don't blow a gasket in the end. It's still a pretty good deal However, when you first get down here, you'll often break the don't kill the messenger rule Us gringos are good at beating up on the little guy at the bottom end of the food chain After all, it's the delivery guy you're going to get pissed at when you find your new dining room table It's got a big dent in it. So you do get to see the same delivery guys over and over again My gas delivery guy told me i'm the only gringo on his route In fact i'm probably the only gringo he's ever spoken to but he knows the difference between gringos and latins now He says man, those gringos are particular and he's talking from a sample of one, you know He's never once had a latin say I don't like that tank

[19:49] Give me another one and he never once in all the years He's worked at the gas company had a latin person pull out a scale weigh a tank and say nope This is short And you know when you get in a conversation with latin person and they want to know the differences between the first world and the Third world and why there even is such a distinction you could talk about income gdp Education and statistics till you're blue in the face But nothing sinks in or makes a better example Then when I bring up that story about the propane gas company the delivery guy and what gringos will and will not accept Details details, right? So bottom line of the gas thing is I like not having it piped in I'd rather have the tanks You're off the grid and you can stock up for a couple years if you want

[20:34] Just two 100 pound tanks family of four should last you a year of family cooking if you don't use a gas dryer By the way down here in latin america, you can have a whole house water heater too. That will be electric or gas Again, if you go to a hardware store or plumbing supply place You'll find five or six electric ones and maybe one gas model And it costs from two to four hundred bucks the high end being the gas one However, I always say screw that and get yourself a solar hot water heater If you get the largest capacity one, which is around 80 to 100 gallons You'll pay three or four times as much maybe a thousand to twelve hundred bucks But then you've got free hot water for at least 20 years And those things are pretty much maintenance free except you have to go up once in a while and dust them off

[21:23] But so what however many times when you rent or buy an upscale house, they'll have a whole house water heater already installed Now I mentioned in the past show that 90 percent of latin american houses don't have whole house hot water And maybe 50 or 60 percent of latin households have one of those point of use shower head water heaters half of which don't work Anymore Anyway, if you're rendered by a house and you have a whole house hot water heater installed It's probably going to be electric and it's going to use a ton of electricity Even though they use a lot less electricity than those big traditional tank water heaters You probably have in your home in the states problem is the cost of electricity here is so high You want to keep away from appliances that use a lot of electricity if at all possible And it's not as if those old-fashioned big tank water heaters aren't available down here

[22:09] Everything is available down here now, but almost no one uses them though You'll see them once in a while at places like ace hardware and other plumbing shops All right So if you're going to go with all propane gas appliances, you could have a propane stove You could have a propane whole house water heater a propane gas dryer And you could even have a propane refrigerator Now that's what I call getting off the grid and you know, those are available from amazon and online distributors as well as rv stores You know winnabago's and recreational vehicles all have propane gas refrigerator freezers I know I mentioned this some time ago, so I won't go into it again. Well, anyway, mr. B says in his email Johnny we heard you mention a place you could buy a return ticket or rent one. Could you give us that website again?

[23:00] Yes, i'd be glad to it's called flyonward.com. That's www.flyonward.com They let you rent a return ticket for 10 bucks So that when you go to the ticket counter and they say where's your return ticket? You know, you're only allowed to stay in most latin countries 90 days on a tourist visa Well, that won't happen if you pay your 10 bucks and rent a ticket for the day I know it sounds weird, but hear me out when you check in you'll see it's automatically been registered in the computer for that 24-hour period They don't know what the ticket window that you've bought from that service. Does it work? Yeah, just in the last six months I've had a couple expats. Give me the thumbs up on it. They tried it. It worked No problem The only kicker is again You have to buy it within that 24-hour period when you're going to leave though

[23:45] You can buy an extension of another 24 hours for I think it's five bucks Just go to the website and you can read all about it yourself. Now people have asked what's it good for? So I buy my round trip ticket and come back well There are a lot of people coming down to latin america these days with a plan b in action And some are applying for and going through the residency process And being that this is latin america and you can never nail down times and dates exactly Suppose for example your lawyer told you that your appointment is next thursday at the embassy And you've pre-bought your ticket to leave on friday or saturday Then the day before you've got that appointment you get a phone call from your latin lawyer. Oops. They forgot. It's a holiday There's a strike or maybe the country's national soccer team just won against brazil and will be three days of constant partying

[24:36] Well, that's the way it goes here in latin america, you know, we're running on manana time and the government double manana time By the way, what's more important than the national team winning an idiotic soccer game? Well, that would be nothing you'll see that for yourself when you get down here Well, that's why a lot of people are now buying one-way tickets because they don't know the exact date that they're leaving So they buy their one-way ticket and a return ticket from flyonward.com All right, then another question. Mr. B heading his email. He says Johnny Do you know of any individual latin countries that have news radio podcasts that I can download that are in spanish? Well, you know what i'm afraid mr B we've struck out on that one at least it's hit and miss Now you see in every big latin american city and radio market

[25:23] You'll find one or two radio stations to have a very limited talk radio format probably only two or three hours a day As for a 100 latin american talk radio news station I haven't heard or seen of any that have actually lasted any length of time There have been some startups, but they kind of disappear after a few months That's why I think it's going to be difficult to find a podcast you could download on a regular basis However, you'll find whatever big latin city or market you're closest to Will have 10 20 or 30 radio stations and you can just check that out on the internet And they'll tell you what their format is and when they have their talk segments So you can either stream them while you're listening in your car or truck or set up your computer to record those streaming programs That's easy enough to do

[26:09] There are a lot of free programs out there that allow you to record anything that you stream from your computer Then there's that famous latin boob box the tv In every big latin market. They've got pure news stations And if you've got a decent internet connection, you can stream that down and listen And finally we've got mr Bee's question about gluten-free flour and the availability of rice flour Well, mr. Bee and all you health conscious people out there these days There's pretty much nothing you can't get here in latin america They've got organic farms and health food stores practically everywhere In fact when you're talking about guatemala in and around the little city of antigua guatemala There's a couple of organic farms with attached restaurants and their own organic produce stores Any place you find even a handful of gringos soon enough through the grapevine

[26:57] They learn where to find all that kind of stuff and about that rice flour Remember latin america is a land of rice tortillas and beans So I think you'll have no trouble at all finding rice flour And by the way when you get to any latin country You'll find there's always a gringo community that's got a local blog going where people ask questions like that And get their answers posted pretty much right away So then how do you find those active chat sites and blogs? Well, just go on the internet plug in expat blog and a country or city you're interested in You're sure to find a number of knowledgeable expat groups to connect with south of the border This is the expat files living in latin america If you want me to help you out with your own plan b just schedule a one-on-one consult Send me an email the expat files at gmail.com

[27:45] And if you want to learn how to move forward with your own plan b from right up there in the states Go to www.expatplanb.com and check out my three videos. See ya nos vemos