Tuesday, April 8, 2008

From China to Montenegro in one post!


For us, our income in Dominica will come from a variety of sources, which is why we can make this move as we are not reliant, as in Europe, on having one/two large salaries coming in to support us all. The cost of living is cheaper and ultimately the biggest expense of rent/mortgage will not apply to us in the longterm. This means we can concentrate, hopefully, on options that we enjoy, have an interest in or just want to try out but we definitely need to work. One of these is an import business of a product that should be successful in Dominica, from our research to date. Today I sent US$120 to China for 3 samples so I am excited about these arriving. We can then decide whether we raise US$16,000 to turn this into a business in conjunction with our builder, Oliver, and anyone else who may be interested. However, importing into a country with only 70,000 people in is probably not as good an idea as trying to export something from there.

Another source of income for us will be our apartment in Montenegro - like Dominica a lot of people haven't heard of there either! For those who don't know, it was previously called Yugoslavia. We bought off plan 3 years ago - all we saw was the field and the view but we felt confident it would turn out well. We had spent about a year researching all the 'emerging markets' to try and spot the next hotspot and felt confident Montenegro fitted the bill. Now, all this time later, we are finally seeing our investment at the end of the month and staying there for a week. During this week, we will complete the furnishings and meet our agent who will be looking after our guests. I have advertised the apartment and we already have 4 bookings for this season so I am hoping for the best this year and a fully booked season next - ever the optimist!

Anyway, here's the view from our balcony in Montenegro.

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