Unlocking US Banking & Credit: The Guide for Global Citizens

[Work-in-Progress] – guide will be continuously updated.

This guide is about establishing credit and banking in the US for non-US residents. Basically, if you’re not North Korean, Cuban, Iranian then this guide works for you.

Why? A lot of reasons.

In short, it’s to:

• protect your value

• de-risk from local politics, conflicts, safety, currency devaluation

• get perks like cashback, points for airlines and hotels

• getting 0% float from credit cards

0% float is always a good idea but this is the list we’ll be covering in this guide. With zero filler.

Getting float is a second step in your financial journey. The first step is to actually establish a discipline of saving at least 1/5th of your income (go and do that first before diving into the Third World Freedom series as without discipline of correct behavior it’ll be a problem).

So…

To start reading this guide we have to establish two facts and you have to agree with them:

1. The US is the greatest economy in the world. Why? Population? Yeah, it’s huge. Military carriers? Yea, for sure! Most important factor though? Accessible credit. Average American has $30,000 in credit limit on personal credit cards (source: Forbes). Need I remind you that median yearly global income per individual is around $10,000? It means, that 3 years of an average worker’s life is available as debt to an average American. Need I remind you what average American is? I’ll refrain.

2. Internet erased borders. We live in two realities. One is where we stare at pictures from Chinese influencers, African mime artists, American rappers, Indonesian tourists. The other is where governments control the borders, tell you what to do and what not to do. The smart mind manages to get the best and avoid the worst from both sides.

Our task in this guide is to take advantage of both of these facts with a practical know-how of implementing the system, right habits, and possibly changing your mindset.

This is what this guide and the series about. If you agree with the statements above and want to dive head first, carry on. If not, then I don’t know what to tell you other than don’t waste your time and go do something else.

Hmm…okay. You’re still here.

Seriously, if you come from a developing country your reality is likely this:

• interest rates are very high (10-25%) – they are high because everyone knows that currency is not stable

• inflation is higher than 10% – currency is getting less valuable and central bank declares it officially

• currency devalues every other year – it’s obvious looking back

• politicians are pursuing their own interests (what, this is universal, why am I putting this here?)

This is a chart of USD/KZT currency pair. KZT is a Kazakhstani tenge, currency of the country where I grew up. 1 USD was equal to 5 KZT when the country declared independence in 1991. In 2023 it’s more than 470 KZT to get same 1 USD (which lost a lot in value too).

The bottom line

• your country getting poorer

• wealth gets extracted by the banks and power that be

• your labour gets devalued (which ultimately means that typical worker needs to exchange more of their limited life for same amount of money, which gets devaluated over time due to inflation)

• you become stressed (and stress kills)

Yeah, every point sucks but the last one is really what’s this all about.

We don’t live forever. Stress kills us, it’s backed by science (and really we all know that, who needs some professor to tell them that?).

Most families get ruined because of the financial burden. (Source)

People die younger when they are stressed. (Source)

Children don’t see their parents.

It’s truly rough out there and all very sad if you think about it.

So, what can be done about it? The system appears kind of rigged.

The Solution

Building a fortress of solitude and becoming a king of it.

Before taking on bigger endeavours, we need to get into a right state of mind. For that to happen, we need to manage thinking on a longer timeframe with daily habits that correct your course of action.

It’s easier said than done (I know) but it always comes down to buying more time so that other laws of nature could have enough time to kick in for the compound effect to work.

So, what’s the breakdown Kaz? Let’s get on with it. (I hear you say). Show me the solution:

• interest rates are very high (10-25%) — a big problem, especially with a stop of zero interest rate policy environment but ultimately it means you have to escape your environment (currency, country) and bank elsewhere

• inflation is higher than 10% — use other currency that keeps more value than your home country’s currency

• currency devalues every other year — covered by two steps above (in a positive scenario you’ll get more value for the same units in a country where currency devalues)

• politicians are pursuing their own interests — (eh, can’t be done, sorry)

Questions and vague answers

So, how to bank elsewhere? How to use other currency? How to avoid local nastiness?

First, open a bank account that is insured and has USD/EUR/GBP/SGD support.

Second, open credit cards, start with a low limit of $2000. Slowly but surely grow it to $50,000 and then $100,000. Get 0% loans with introduction 0% APRs.

Credit cards even give your perks like:

• flying business class on points

• staying at network hotels for points

• getting upgrades, free breakfasts, late checkout/early check-ins at hotels

Third, read other books in the series to take advantage of brokerage accounts, international business practices.

The goal is simple:

• Save value we create using our labour and assets

• Avoid local risks of politics, currencies to ensure safety for you and your family

• Get an X, Y, Z plan in order to save your ass when something bad happens (it eventually will, it always does)

We are where we are

Now, I don’t know why your country/city/state is in dire state. Maybe it’s because wealth tends to concentrate and your location is not where it happened.

There are many possible reasons as to why that happens. We don’t need to know why. We know the consequences of it and it’s more than enough. Strong kills the weak, laws of nature, you get it.

Globalization processes, geopolitics, corruption, lack of institutions, etc. Who knows, could be a sum of these factors or none of them. I don’t have enough expertise to explain it but what I can do is to share a few tools to help you assemble an evacuation plan by giving you these tools. The only way is through. So, if you start today then tomorrow becomes a slightly better situation and that’s more than enough to get going.

Our goal is simple — to protect our lives.

We’ll build a financial bridge for you to have that. It’s simple.

Money, money, money

It’s important to understand that money is not valuable by itself.

Money is only a tool for transferring wealth because money is debt.

True wealth are goods that are actually helpful to you. Classical example of this notion is:

“not even a billion US dollars in cash can help you if you are on an uninhabited island” (other than setting it on fire as an SOS maybe).

With that said, a little caution here — anything you read further relies on your self-discipline and it comes with a lot of responsibility. It's essential to understand that. Going bankrupt is not part of this guide. Tread carefully.

Armed with the knowledge gained from this guide, you’ll be better equipped to embark on your journey of building a ”safety, peace of mind“ setup. Embrace it but always remember the responsibilities that come with that knowledge.

Wanna know how they did it? Credit.
— “The Story of O.J.“, Jay-Z

This book is part of the “Third World Freedom” series which is for people who got their start in developing countries. For those who want to escape local limits—be it economy, culture, lack of development, or simply their mindset.

Series introduces ideas and concepts that increase chances for realizing your potential.

Third World Freedom is arguably a wack name. Third World is something that liberal crowd in the Western world considers to be an outdated term. It may be so. My reason for choosing this name is simple—my conscious teenage years were spent on dreaming and scheming about getting access to greener pastures.

This book is written for my teenage/young adult self. The goal is to explain how you can start escaping local limits by:

• establishing business

• going global from day one

• interacting with individuals from developed economics with more stable economy and law practices than the country you’re operating from

• building credit worldwide

• ultimately gaining freedom through financial and bureaucratic means

Most importantly, the goal of this book is to demonstrate how you can build leverage and have access to it when it’s not available locally.

Recent events on European continent and ongoing struggle in many other places clearly demonstrate that tomorrow is never promised. You can be more cautious, you can diversify your life.

About me, I’m an immigrant myself. I was born in Kazakhstan which is in Central Asia. I have traveled to 30+ countries. At this point in time I live on Vancouver Island in Canada.

Unlike most books and guides you can find online, Third World Freedom provides nuanced cultural ideas and insights specifically tailored for people in the developing world. Most books I’ve found are targeted toward Americans, Canadians, Europeans who rarely have a reason to immigrate. Most expatriates (note: that is how they call themselves, not immigrants) do it for lifestyle reasons if not for optimizing fiscal responsibility.

I’m 30. Looking back to my younger years, I can tell you that my life was shaped by three things:

• early Internet access

• English ability

• positive outlook

Let me be clear. This book is not about becoming rich. It is about acquiring a tool for more flexibility and establishing a responsible behavior.

What I explain in the series are the methods of setting up yourself for success using foreign markets.

Ideas like location-independence, digital nomad-ism, offshores, international banking, financial instruments, global credit, optimized travel perks are all elements that you can incorporate in your life one by one.

I’m not going to go into too much detail. The point of every short book in the series is to introduce reader to a certain topic with various terms and concepts for further research. I set my goal to 5k of words per guide in the series. No filler. Value, value.

If you never thought of moving abroad, working with foreign companies, speaking a different language then this is not a book for you. It’s still a good source of composed information, and you’ll likely get a few ideas out of it but you are not a direct audience.

It is not tailored for you.

This book and series in general are tailored my younger self — for someone who’s been looking for ways and insights on how to get ahead and leave their brutalist Soviet building. Someone whose goal was to build leverage, skills, niche knowledge and expertise that would be applicable everywhere, be it Melbourne, Fukuoka or Toronto.

It’s for someone whose patience is running thin. For someone who wants to start getting ahead today.

This book might do it but I shall ask you to take a step back. You’ll have think and question the culture you come from, the ideas you have been carrying with you. Your life is one of many, many experiences this world offers. I’m here to share with you how one thinks when the origin country’s hivemind condition is “tomorrow isn’t guaranteed”.

Enjoy!