Retiring abroad! It’s like tacking a dragon’s tail onto the withered hindquarters of that 9-to-5 life you led for 40 years.
See, you say to your kids, I still thirst for adventure. See, I’m willing to negotiate back alleys in a tropical city where no one speaks my language, just to eat at a little boîte where you suck the marrow out of nutria bones, which is a delicacy here. Look, your mom and I spent a night in a hostel, and slept in a room with some overly pierced Dutch hipsters and a girl who just got out of the Israeli army.
Certainly, some people retire abroad because they crave new experiences. But the more likely reason why America’s olds are pulling up stakes and making friends in exotic lands is this: they can’t afford to live in the United States. The Center for Retirement Research (citing the Federal Reserve’s 2010 Survey of Consumer Finances) says “median 401(k)/IRA balances for households approaching retirement were only $120,000.”
And Wells Fargo’s 2011 Retirement Survey found this even more alarming fact: “Three in ten people (29%) in their 60s have saved less than $25,000 for retirement.”
So, yes, almost a third of all Americans in their 60s are headed into decades of retirement—or are there already—with not quite enough money to buy a 2010 Subaru Legacy.
Thankfully, most of them will or do get some income from Social Security…but it’s probably not enough to live on in the U.S. Also thankfully, they can live on it in other countries, and every year the magazine International Living tells us the best foreign locales to live out our penurious lives.
The winners are mostly in the southern latitudes (although France made the list): for the fifth year in a row, Ecuador is declared the world’s best “retirement haven.” And little wonder: “Out-of-pocket expenses for doctor visits, procedures, and drugs are a fraction of what you would pay in the U.S….You’ll have dinner out for $2.50, an hour-long massage for $25…a beer costs $0.85 and I know couples living on less than $900 a month excluding rent.”
Given that the average monthly Social Security payment is almost $1,200 a month, that sounds like it might work. If you never come home again. If you have a little more cash to throw around, you could try Malaysia, where it is possible to “rent a sea-view apartment for $1,000 a month…eat out five nights a week, keep a small sailboat,” and spend just $1,719 a month.
So actually, not so bad. These places (apparently) have cheap, good health care. They have cheap, good food. They are reasonably safe. And warm. And you can bet you’ll find other people like yourself. It makes virtually any other choice seem peculiar.
Except for Naples. I hear Naples—either Florida or Italy—is fun.
Photo: “Sunset Beach,” Playa de Mompiche, Ecuador, by Dr. Carlos Costales Terán, via Wikimedia Commons.
