Today I’m proud to release the first episode of The Foreigner’s Finances Podcast!
This will be a weekly podcast with each episode bringing in a new guest to discuss a variety of personal finance and travel topics.
Episode 1 features Forest Parks from the personal finance site Frugal Zeitgeist.
Forest currently lives in Egypt with his partner who is pursuing her graduate degree at American University in Cairo. During the day he works as a graphic designer when he’s not working on his site.
In this episode we talk about moving from the UK to Canada to Egypt, his life in Egypt including the difficulty of pricing items, and why students refer to him as David Beckham. We also discuss the evolution of Frugal Zeitgeist and how minimalism can positively affect your finances
You can also listen to the podcast on iTunes or you steam it below. You can also click the download link under the player to download the file and do with it as you please.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
If you’d like to subscribe to The Foreigner’s Finances Podcast you can through the podcast’s RSS feed.
There are some minor sound issues that I’ll fix over time, but I’m really excited to get these podcasts up every week and any suggestions or critiques would be helpful. Leave your words of wisdom in the comments below.
Foreigner’s Finances Podcast Ep. 1
[00:00] – Introduction to the 1st Foreigner’s Finances Podcast
[01:05] – Welcome Forest Parks from FrugalZeitgeist.com
[02:00] – How Forest got from London to Montreal to Cairo
[03:50] – His expectations of Egypt and how it lived up to it
[08:00] – The living situation in a suburb of Cairo
[11:00] – Forest misses the pubs
[11:40] – How he received a visa even though he works online
[19:10] – His goals for Frugal Zeitgeist
[21:10] – Money and the price of goods in Egypt
[24:15] – Forest’s Insanity workout
[29:00] – Spending on things you love
[30:40] – The benefits of a minimalist lifestyle
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Hey Austin thanks for the opportunity…. I don’t like my own voice much but had fun doing this :)…. If any one has any questions about Egypt, just shoot….
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Austin Reply:
June 8th, 2010 at 10:16 pm
You have the perfect accent for videos/podcasts. Speaking of, how about some Frugal Zeitgeist videos soon? Huh, huh…?
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Money Funk Reply:
June 9th, 2010 at 4:43 am
Austin, I know I talk fast too. But you need to slow your talk down just a tad. ;-)
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Money Funk Reply:
June 9th, 2010 at 4:59 am
Oh..never mind. It was just your intro that was really quick.
Great podcast to you and Forest! I would definitely miss going to a pub, too. :)
I was surprised to find Cairo is a very safe place. Not that i would not think it is, but it is a place completely unfamilar to me. Nice info to know.
Nice pic, too.
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Austin @ Foreigner's Finances Reply:
June 9th, 2010 at 7:26 am
Thanks for the feedback. Audio/recording is a different language so it’ll take me some time to get the different rates and bits under control.
I totally agree about Cairo. All I knew before was pyramids and Africa. I guess that means it was a good choice for a guest.
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Forest Reply:
June 10th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Hey Christine, I wasn’t too surprised about how safe Cairo was but a lot here has surprised me… The sheer friendliness of the general people in rich and poor areas is amazing…. You have to love Egyptians for that :)
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Okay, Forest, your accent sounds completely improbable. I’ve totally been reading your posts and comments with an American accent. YES, I knew you were British: don’t trouble me with the facts.
Great podcast! I learned so much about Cairo. Makes me want to visit:)
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Forest Reply:
June 10th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
Ha ha ha, I won’t talk about the facts. My accent has been slightly Canadianised… Feel free to ask any questions about Egypt… I don’t have all the answers but I have a lot of opinions :)
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went to egypt (cairo, aswan, luxor) for 9 days during the may holiday~ it totally kicked my butt. just being out and about wore me out so much.
actually austin, it had a lot of the crummy elements of china (hello people, dirty, dusty, too many shop clerks, haggling, bathrooms in the train just being holes in the floor, being stared at) without any of the fun parts. haggling was fun in china but in egypt, to my surprise, i dreaded shopping for anything.
plus, people will right out ask you for a tip for any little thing (i didn’t oblige the undeserving like many of the typical bus tourists that were around practically paying people to get away from them). there were grown men fighting me to carry my bag from the train because they wanted the tip.
when we got to singapore on our 17 hour layover i was so relieved not to deal with tips or being hassled.
pyramids and tut and temples and tombs and paintings were definitely amazing, but i don’t think i’ll be going back to egypt anytime soon. power to forest and his partner for putting up with that on a daily basis. are you guys used to it by now? every time i thought i was used to it something else happened to make me upset, and goodness knows i am not prissy.
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Forest Reply:
June 10th, 2010 at 9:08 pm
Hey S!J,
You know this is the problem of being a “Tourist”. You get dragged along the tourist route and never actually see Egypt. If you don’t get out of this then I can see how it can be pretty wearing.
When I arrived I refused to do tourist things for a while and I just went walking, I discovered so many places and people and mostly avoided the behaviour you are talking of…. Honestly the real Egypt has a little annoyance but not to the level you encountered.
Everything you say, I have seen happen and much has happened to me but it’s by far not every day at all. Kindness and compassion are far more common things to come across :)
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s!j Reply:
June 13th, 2010 at 7:46 am
yeah I guess it’s probably different for people who can avoid the touristy areas~ and I’m sure it’s also very different for people who pay $250+ a day for their all-inclusive tours who get whisked from place to place by big air-conditioned buses and just have to worry about buying souvenirs. We spent about $25 a day (per person, not including train) on average, doing all travel arrangements ourselves. Having a lot on the itinerary meant lots of taxi-haggling and dealing with typical tourist-targeted hassling at all of the sights and walking from place to place.
I did get the impression that Egyptians are quite friendly and care immensely about their friends and family. Unfortunately though, as a temporary visitor the majority of people who a tourist has the opportunity to interact with are people who want something, people who make a living off tourists. Perhaps if you spread out the touristy things over a long period time it wouldn’t be so bad, but it was just constant badgering for us as we tried to fit everything into the time we had.
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Forest Reply:
June 13th, 2010 at 9:48 pm
I think maybe you are right about the Intensity…. I do have the luck of spreading tourist activities over time and now knowing a little Arabic to help me.
The bottom line is sadly there are A LOT of poor people here and 80% of the economy comes from Tourism so sadly we are seen as money machines…. but not to get rich, to survive.
Often if you show disgust at their beahaviour or anger they change their tune quite quickly. Just takes showing them you are a human I guess and not a walking dollar!
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