Retire Overseas Part-Time

Keep It Simple...Take A Trip

Nov. 3, 2010, Panama City, Panama: Retiring overseas doesn’t have to be all or nothing. You could retire overseas part-time, for example.

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Dear Live and Invest Overseas Reader,

This doesn't have to be all or nothing. You could "retire overseas" and still spend part or even lots of your time back home.

I make the point in case it hadn't occurred to you already. The idea of moving to a new country, full stop, full time, can be intimidating. Selling your current home...off-loading your car, your furniture, your lawn-care equipment...flying off to a new country where you know no one and where everyone you meet speaks another language? Boiled down like that, this retire overseas agenda can seem foolish, even terrifying.

So don't sell your home. Keep your car if you like it. Lock the lawn mower in the garage. Pack a few bags and head off to someplace that's got your attention for, say, a month or two. Don't even think about buying a house or anything else. Rent small and modest. Or arrange an extended stay in a B&B or guesthouse. Keep it low key and low pressure.

Because this doesn't have to be like jumping off a cliff. You can ease into the idea. Then, if you find the place you take for a test spin disappointing in some way, you can return home (remember, your car's waiting for you in the driveway)...and begin planning your next "retire overseas" holiday. Give someplace else a chance.

You could continue like this for years. You'd be enjoying some of the benefits of a new life in a new country (a maybe dramatically reduced cost of living, better weather, cheap medical care, new friends, grand adventures, plus little luxuries you probably can't afford now--full-time household help, for example), but you'd have a safety net. What you'll find is that, with each retire overseas foray, your confidence will build. And your plan will evolve.

Next step, maybe extend the length of each retire overseas vacation. You could spend three or even up to six months at a time in each new place, depending on the jurisdiction's residency restrictions, thereby avoiding the visa issue.

You could begin renting out your place back home when you're not using it. This income would help to subsidize the expense of your retire overseas wanderings.

You could, eventually, invest in new digs in a place you decide you like well enough to want to return to regularly. Again, rent out this apartment or beach house when you're elsewhere to further supplement your retirement income.

Maybe, eventually, you find you're ready to sell your place back home, because, as time passes, your connection there seems less and less important. More interesting are the new places you're discovering, the new friends you're making, the new adventures you're having.

Take it one step at a time and let your retire overseas plan develop organically. Just as there's no one-size-fits-all overseas retirement haven, neither is there a retire-overseas plan that suits everyone. This idea is infinitely customizable.

Earlier this year, Lief and I began offering a Live Overseas Personal Consulting service. Already, I'm struck by the diversity of situations among our clients. One is looking for a place at the beach where he can spend two or three months at a time...then return home to his wife who continues to work and isn't ready to make a move. Another is looking to build a portfolio of second homes to which he could escape now and then but that, important to him, would generate good yields over time. One is interested in snow-birding it in the Tropics. And another wants to clean-slate it, to sell everything she owns right now and to start over, full time, someplace new and exciting.

Each agenda makes sense in context. And none might make sense for you.

My point is that you don't need to make that determination now or before you set out.

Keep it simple. Take a trip.

Kathleen Peddicord

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