A Possible Solution For Soon-to-be Retirees

With the end of private pension schemes for many employees in the United States and elsewhere, many are facing the prospect of retirement with social security as their only means of income. For someone who is used to a certain standard of living, but craves an end to everyday work the prospect of moving to a rural or less sophisticated part of the country is extremely unappealing.

Twenty-somethings are often presented with different perspectives on retirement. The route that you choose to travel is ultimately dependent on your own goals. I’m just here to present another retirement option to you.Is there another retirement option? Fortunately, the answer is yes. This alternative retirement option is to consider retiring overseas.

Of course it isn’t as easy as picking up and moving abroad like you would from one state to another. You can’t move to just any country. You need to move to a country with a low cost of living, and to a country which allows foreign retirees in.

At this point you’re thinking, but aren’t cheap countries…well, poor? It is true, the more affordable the country, the poorer it is. You’re going to have to do research in this area. Unless you’re the adventurous type, you don’t want to live in a country that has inadequate medical facilities just to save a few bucks. You’ll want one that is modern but cheap. The good news is there are countries out there that offer affordable living in a modern environment. Many of these are located in South America, such as Argentina and Uruguay.

Are there any negatives to this retirement option?

The bad news is these countries are financially unstable. What do I mean by that? They have a tendency to periodically devalue their currencies in order to pay off debts. Is that a bad thing? It can be…for people who have their life savings invested in local banks. But if you are smart and keep your money at home, you’ll avoid virtually all of the pain that comes with devaluation because your money will be in dollars (or Euros, pounds etc.).

Concluding thoughts?

While retiring overseas is a solution for many, the idea that you can retire to an ocean front property and living a western lifestyle overseas for next to nothing is just that…an idea. It is definitely cheaper to retire to a developing country across the board, but to live a wealthy lifestyle for nothing is usually not possible. I view retiring overseas as not completely about saving money, but about maintaining a standard of living. It is probably always cheaper to retire to a rural part of the United States than say beach front Mexico. And if you move abroad you’ll have to pay for healthcare (though private healthcare tends to be very affordable overseas). But if you want to continue to live a sophisticated urban lifestyle well into retirement, take a look at retiring abroad.

The following was a guest post from Rick Todd of Expat Investing- a blog all about working, living, and retiring abroad.