00:00What if I told you that for the last two years we traveled to over 10 different countries,
00:05moved across continents with our daughter, and did it all without having a bank account?
00:12This is something we honestly didn't think was possible a couple of years ago, but after doing
00:16this for over two years now, we're going to share with you how we're able to do it and how
00:21we managed
00:21to live our lives as full-time travelers and digital nomads with just one travel card and
00:27no bank account. And when I tell people this, they always ask me, how do you get paid? How do
00:32you
00:33transfer money? How do you use hotels, hire cars? How do you travel to all of these different countries
00:40without using a bank account? And more importantly, they ask me why. And the truth is this wasn't a
00:45decision we made ourselves. It sort of chose us. So this all started when we moved to Bali back in
00:522021. We were using a traditional bank card from Australia, which was marketed as a travel money
00:59card. We notified our bank that we would be traveling in Indonesia for approximately six to
01:0412 months. However, randomly, every now and then we would get a notification that our card had been
01:11shut off or frozen due to suspicious activity, which meant using Skype or some type of international
01:17calling card from Bali to call our bank, sit on the phone for about 45 minutes and explain to them
01:23that this was us using the card, whether it was at just a random shop in Bali or booking a
01:30hotel online.
01:31It was always something super simple. And don't get me wrong. I appreciate the fact that banks do have
01:37security systems, but when you're doing this every two, three, four weeks, it gets really annoying.
01:42And the time and also the money it costs to do this and call the bank and explain yourself really
01:48starts to add up. But honestly, we figured we didn't really have any choice. This was our only
01:52option. We had a travel money card and we had our regular debit cards. So we left Bali, we traveled
01:57to
01:57Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, and then over to Mexico. And this kept happening
02:05wherever we were, despite the fact that we kept telling our bank we were still traveling overseas.
02:10Mexico was probably one of the worst times for this to happen. It happened after we'd just both gotten a
02:16massage at this local spa and we went to pay and our card was declined. And the owner looked at
02:23me
02:23like, are you trying to get out of paying here? Like what's going on? And then I said, no, no,
02:28no worries.
02:29It might just be your machine. So I walked to an ATM. He followed me. We went to three different
02:34ATMs.
02:35None of them worked. And he basically wouldn't let me go. I told Mandy to just go home. I would
02:39get it
02:39figured out. And I had to sit there and call my bank while I'm at this spa in Mexico in
02:46Playa del
02:46Carmen with this guy looking over my shoulder, like I'm some kind of a criminal and explain to them
02:51like, Hey, my travel card isn't working anywhere. I can't get money out. I can't pay for this service
02:56that I've just had. What's going on? And they told me there was suspicious activity on your account.
03:01And I said, well, that's fine, but I never got a notification. I didn't get an email. I didn't get
03:05a notification in my app that it was shut off. So I had no idea and was basically just left
03:10in the
03:10dark. Then we traveled in our RV in North America. And just as we were about to leave the RV
03:17and head
03:18to Thailand, I'd actually switched at this point to a frequent flyer card because I was sick of this
03:24traditional bank card who I won't name. And we started using this frequent flyer card thinking we're
03:29going to get points. And this is going to be the greatest system ever because it's a frequent flyer card.
03:33Of course, it's going to work everywhere. It operates just like a credit card, only with your
03:37own money until the point where I put basically everything we had onto this card and the money
03:43just disappeared. It literally was gone. I rang the bank. They said, yep, we've sent the money.
03:47But I rang the company who I had the frequent flyer card with, and they told me they were looking
03:52into it. And this went on for about seven days. So for about seven days, we had no idea where
03:58close to
03:59$10,000 had gone. That all got sorted. And then this was the final straw. We were in Sri Lanka
04:06and
04:06we had just gone on a tuk-tuk tour and we had to pay the driver. Now, this was the
04:12first day we had
04:14arrived in Sri Lanka. I hadn't been into the ATM yet. I didn't have any cash on me. And whatever
04:18I
04:19brought in and exchanged, I'd already spent. The tour finished at about nine o'clock at night. So it was
04:25pretty late. It was dark in Colombo, the capital city, and we stopped past probably three ATMs and
04:31none of them worked. I rang my bank. They told me there was no problem. Nothing had been shut off.
04:37So I had to walk around Colombo in the middle of the night just to find an ATM that would
04:43work
04:43using this card, which if you know anything about the capital city of Sri Lanka, it's actually kind of
04:49a scary place, especially at night. And that was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back.
04:53So that night we made a decision. We were done with traditional banks. We had tried a bank in
04:59Australia. We had tried a bank in Canada, where Mandy's from, and we had tried a frequent flyer
05:04card. None of them seemed to work. So when we got to Thailand, which is where we settled for about
05:08two years, we decided to get a WISE card sent to us in Thailand, which was actually super simple to
05:15do. I opened up a WISE account. I got it sent to my mum's address and she forwarded it to
05:20me using
05:20registered mail and I got it within a week. And this changed the way we do everything as far as
05:27online banking and payments go. Once I started using the WISE card, I realized we weren't getting
05:32any of these problems with it getting frozen. In fact, you can actually use the app to freeze the
05:37card yourself if you suspect any suspicious activity. And lo and behold, we went to a bunch of different
05:42countries. We went to Vietnam while we were in Thailand. We went and visited family in Bali. We did
05:48a ton of traveling and never, ever had any issues, never had to contact WISE, none of that stuff.
05:54So we decided from that point on, let's try and use only WISE. Let's ditch our bank accounts and see
06:01how long we can travel only using WISE. And I'm talking about receiving money from our business,
06:07sending money to contractors or people that are working for us, paying for hotels, paying for hire
06:13cars, everything. We tried only using WISE for the past two years. And honestly, there wasn't much
06:18risk because if it failed, we could have just started using our bank accounts again. So I'm here
06:23to tell you now, after two years, it is possible to travel full time only using the WISE card. It
06:28sort
06:28of became our global bank account without actually using a bank. Here's how the system actually works
06:33for us. Number one, we get paid into WISE. So you can set up WISE to have individual bank accounts
06:39in different currencies. We hold multiple currencies like AUD, USD, TAIBA, Indonesian Rupiah,
06:47Japanese Yen, etc. You can open up a ton of different currencies. We convert our money instantly
06:52at real rates when we need it. So I don't waste time converting any money that we don't actually
06:58need. I only convert small amounts at a time. So we're not losing any money on exchange rates. And
07:04we withdraw from anywhere we go at pretty much any ATM, whether it's in Vietnam, Thailand, we've used
07:10it in Japan, Canada, America, Mexico, everywhere. I also use Apple Pay. So I'm able to upload my WISE
07:18card to my Apple Pay account. And I don't even have to take the card with me. If I go
07:22out, I just
07:23simply double click and use Apple Pay pretty much anywhere it's available. And if anybody we're working
07:28with or that we're spending time with and we need to transfer money to has WISE, we're able to transfer
07:34to them instantly, like within seconds. We actually did this recently in Bali and we had a monthly stay
07:41and we were able to transfer directly to their WISE account. So they received the money into their
07:46account within minutes and there was no confusion at all. But look, there are some limitations. This
07:50obviously works for us because we're traveling full time. Without having a bank account, you're probably
07:56not going to be able to get a loan from the bank. You're not going to be able to get
07:58a mortgage.
07:59You're not going to be able to get car finance. But for people in our situation, this works really
08:04well. Honestly, we didn't plan on living without a bank account, but because of all the issues we've
08:09ran into, we decided to run this experiment. And I'm just sharing it with you guys that it's worked
08:14perfectly for us. So if you've never used WISE before and you're thinking about it and you want to
08:18maybe replace your bank account, even if it's just for 90% of the transactions you do use, because
08:24honestly, traditional bank accounts hit you with foreign exchange rates and hidden fees,
08:29which WISE never does. Everything is completely transparent. If you've never used WISE, we'll
08:34leave a link down below in the description for you to check them out. And if you use that link,
08:39it is an affiliate link. So you will be helping out the channel as well. Let us know what you
08:42think
08:43in the comments. Would you replace your bank account with just a WISE card? Or do you think that's
08:47a silly idea? Thanks again for watching and we'll see you in the next video. Cheers.
