Comments: Best Financial Tips from FMF Readers, Part 7: Retire Overseas

Here's a comment someone made to my post titled Best Financial Tips from FMF Readers, Part 7: Retire Overseas which was part of the Best Financial Tips from FMF Readers series:

There is a huge crisis looming for America.  It is 76 million baby boomers beginning to retire in 2011.  I've wondered how these people are going to make it through the next 10, 20, 30 years of their life if Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and quite possibly, the Stock Market fails them. The only obvious avenue is for them to relocate to a cheaper cost of living country.

I had the pleasure of visiting Cancun a few years back and ran into a man who had ex-patriated there.  He made less than half the amount of money that I did but lived an entirely different lifestyle.  He had:

• A full time nanny/cook for his kids
• A full time driver for his wife and kids
• A full time cleaning person
• A part time gardner for his garden
• All their clothes was sent out to be laundered
• His children all went to private schools
• His wife didn't work and spent her days shopping. 

How much did this guy make?  About 50k/year.

I've encountered similar ex-pats in places like the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica.  People live like Kings there while they would live like paupers here.  Of course, some people could never adjust to a different culture or language so they won't move but it is certainly worthwhile looking into if you haven't already.

Wow. I never really considered this as an option, but it could be a great solution for many people. What do you think?

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Comments

[Terri W.]

My in-laws retired down to Mexico and while everything he says above is true, there are also some other serious issues to consider.

For example, my FIL has gotten an amoeba. Twice. And after they came to visit our first child when she was three months old, they had to call us a bit later and say, "Oh, whoops, we may have exposed your baby to typhoid."

Mind you, they don't live in some wild outback -- they live in an established expat community in Aijijic.

Additionally, they have quite a bit of trouble with people breaking into their home fairly often. They finally had to put razor wire at the top of the walls around their house.

You get the picture. But even given all that, they're pretty happy down there and aren't moving any time soon. Your
mileage may vary.

[Dezza]

Greetings from China. Yes, there are risks to retire abroad in a developing country. I think I'd do it as long as there was first world health care very close by.

I'd also like to ask, why not take it a step further..instead of retiring overseas, why not spend your working years overseas on a nice expat package, save more money and retire earlier? You may be able to save enough to retire in your home country. This is definitely my plan working/living in Hong Kong where income taxes are low and there are no capital gains taxes!

[Terry]

Question:

I am an unskilled worker earning my state minimum wage. Are there other countries to which I could relocate and work and enjoy a better standard of living?