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    How Much Will It Cost You To Live Overseas?

    The only honest answer is, we have no idea. And neither does anyone else. The only one who can answer that question is you. Here’s the most important thing to understand about budgeting your new life overseas…

    Super Cheap

    • Chitré, Panama
    • Santa Marta, Colombia
    • Phuket, Thailand
    • Dumaguete, The Philippines

    Cheap

    • Medellin, Colombia
    • Boquete, Panama
    • Kyrenia, Cyprus
    • Hua Hin, Thailand
    • The Algarve, Portugal

    Affordable

    • Valencia, Spain
    • Cascais, Portugal
    • Las Terrenas, The DR
    • Pisa, Italy
    • La Rochelle, France
    • Mazatlán, Mexico

    Luxury

    • Ambergris Caye, Belize
    • Kotor, Montenegro
    • The Panama City Beaches
    • Paris, France
  • Resources

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    • Living & Retiring Overseas
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    • Investing

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    • Discover tips and strategies used by global property investing veterans

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    • How To Become Independently Wealthy And Fund The Lifestyle Of Your Dreams
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    Live and Invest In Spain Conference

    Offshore Wealth Summit

    Greece Workshop

    VALENCIA, SPAIN

    Sep. 17-19, 2025

    PANAMA CITY, PANAMA

    Oct. 15-17, 2025

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  • My Library
Live and Invest Overseas
  • Home
  • Countries

    Top Destinations:

    Whether you’re looking for fun and sun, a peaceful retirement, or the chance to earn some extra income, you’ve got a real world of opportunity open to you… In short, we’ve done our best to narrow down your best options, but only you can decide the right country for you.

    • Spain
    • Portugal
    • Panama
    • Belize
    • Colombia
    • Cyprus
    • Mexico
    • France
    • Montenegro
    • Browse All Countries

    Best For:

    • The Best Places To Retire
    • Health Care Abroad
    • Cost Of Living
    • Investing in Real Estate
    • Establishing Residency
    • Gun Laws In The World
    • English-Speaking Countries
    • Safest Places For Retirement
    • Best Places In Latin America
  • Budgets

    How Much Will It Cost You To Live Overseas?

    The only honest answer is, we have no idea. And neither does anyone else. The only one who can answer that question is you. Here’s the most important thing to understand about budgeting your new life overseas…

    Super Cheap

    • Chitré, Panama
    • Santa Marta, Colombia
    • Phuket, Thailand
    • Dumaguete, The Philippines

    Cheap

    • Medellin, Colombia
    • Boquete, Panama
    • Kyrenia, Cyprus
    • Hua Hin, Thailand
    • The Algarve, Portugal

    Affordable

    • Valencia, Spain
    • Cascais, Portugal
    • Las Terrenas, The DR
    • Pisa, Italy
    • La Rochelle, France
    • Mazatlán, Mexico

    Luxury

    • Ambergris Caye, Belize
    • Kotor, Montenegro
    • The Panama City Beaches
    • Paris, France
  • Resources

    Global Living

    • Living & Retiring Overseas
    • Raising A Family Abroad
    • Foreign Residency & Citizenship
    • Offshore & Diversification

    Making Money

    • International Real Estate
    • Banking
    • Employment
    • Investing

    Follow Us:

    • Meet Our Experts
  • Real Estate

    Buying Real Estate For Cashflow

    • Discover tips and strategies used by global property investing veterans

    Explore Our Latest Posts

    • Learn how to invest and purchase property abroad…

    Go To The Overseas Property Alert Site

    • How To Become Independently Wealthy And Fund The Lifestyle Of Your Dreams
  • Conferences

    Upcoming Events

    • Explore Our Events Site

    Live and Invest In Spain Conference

    Offshore Wealth Summit

    Greece Workshop

    VALENCIA, SPAIN

    Sep. 17-19, 2025

    PANAMA CITY, PANAMA

    Oct. 15-17, 2025

    VIRTUAL

    Nov. 13, 2025

    LEARN MORE
    DISCOUNT
    LEARN MORE
    PRE-REGISTER
    LEARN MORE
    PRE-REGISTER
    • MORE EVENTS

    Contact Our Events Team

    Toll-Free U.S. and Canada:
    1 (888) 627 8834
    From Outside North America:
    1 (443) 599 1221
    Working Hours
    Monday – Friday 08:00 am – 17:00 pm EST.

    Reach us with your questions by email at: events@liveandinvestoverseas.com

  • Store

    Unlock The World

    • Access Your Library

    Overseas Havens Reports

    • Expats' comprehensive destination guides

    Conference Kits

    • Hours of coverage  from our latests conferences

    Lahardan Books

    • Titles on living and investing around the world
    • Explore Our Store
    Your passport to a life well-lived abroad

    Services

    overseas living letter offers affordable retirement guidance
    The Simon Letter Wealth Protection Insights
    Global Property Advisor Global Investment Opportunities

    Our Customer Service team is here to assist with any questions or concerns CustomerService@LiveandInvestOverseas.com

  • My Library
Live and Invest Overseas
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Home How to

The True Cost Of An Overseas Move

Is Living Overseas Really Cheaper Than The U.S.?

by Kathleen Peddicord
Jan 08, 2025
in How to, Retirement/Living
0 0
panoramic beautiful beach scenery - El-nido, palawan

AdobeStock/Freesurf

Apples to apples.

That’s the principle to keep in mind when comparing costs, both for living and for buying real estate overseas.

Readers write in to take issue with our costs references every day.

“Restaurants in Panama are 35% more expensive than restaurants in the United States,” wrote one reader recently, after having visited Panama.

Another wrote last week to tell us he could buy an apartment in Nashville for half the price of an apartment on Ambergris Caye.

A third got in touch to explain how the United States is, in fact, a less expensive place to live than Mexico.

All of these assertions are commonly flawed. They aren’t comparing apples to apples. Frankly, it’s hard to say what they are comparing.

Every restaurant in every city and town in Panama is 35% more expensive than every restaurant in every city and town in the United States?

That can’t be what the reader meant…

Property Prices Differences

I don’t doubt that you could buy an apartment in Nashville (or in many other cities across the United States) for the same cost per square foot or less than you’d spend for an apartment on Ambergris Caye.

Of course, Ambergris is a Caribbean island boasting long white-sand beaches and the best snorkeling and diving in the world. An apartment in Nashville doesn’t seem to compare, does it?

Or maybe it does. It depends on what’s important to you.

If you want to live near the ocean, you’re going to spend more per square foot for your place of residence than you would for an apartment in any random land-locked city.

If living near the ocean isn’t important to you, then you don’t have to concern yourself with beachfront pricing.

Grocery Shopping And Gas Differences

Fresh and organic food.
iStock/Julia_Sudnitskaya

One couple who visited Panama, stopped in a couple of grocery stores and checked prices at the pumps. Their conclusion? Food and gas prices in this country are “much higher than back home.”

Maybe some specific grocery items are more expensive than the same foods in this couple’s home town. But, again, you’ve got to compare apples to apples. Processed foods imported from the States are going to cost more anywhere. If you want them, you’re going to have to pay the price.

However, shop not at the U.S.-style grocery stores but at the local markets, and your apples, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, peppers, corn, rice, and locally raised beef and chicken will cost you less than they do back home. I’d bet on it.

Is the price of gas higher in Panama than in the States? Depends where in the States you’re comparing to and what kind of gas you’re buying. We could compare figures for a gallon of 91 octane in Panama City with those for a gallon of 91 octane in Dallas, Texas, Baltimore, Maryland, or San Diego, California.

But, frankly, that seems a bit tedious. And it misses the point.

Are you going to base your retire-overseas decision on the cost of a gallon of 91 octane gasoline?

I hope not.

How To Make Effective Comparisons

Depending where you’re moving from and where you decide to move to, some things are going to cost less (maybe dramatically less), and some things are going to cost more. You’ve got to consider overall costs of living and not be distracted by the cost of a loaf of bread.

In other words, compare not only apples to apples, but baskets of costs to comparable baskets of costs.

Back home you’re likely paying hefty annual property taxes… maybe US$10,000 per year or more depending your state of residence. In most countries that impose them, property taxes are negligible. This is true in France, Portugal, Panama, Belize, and Colombia, for example. I know from personal experience paying them.

Back home you likely don’t have a maid or a gardener. If you do, the help is likely part-time and expensive. In some parts of Central America, you could have full-time help around the house for as little as US$150 a month.

If your only goal in retirement is to live cheap, you could probably save yourself the trouble of relocating to another country and seek out, instead, a super-low-cost locale Stateside. Living a modest lifestyle in a small town in Alabama or Iowa, for example, you could maybe do OK on your Social Security income.

However, you can’t compare modest, small-town life in middle America with beachfront living on a Caribbean island… a new life in a centuries-old Colonial city… an expansive view of the crashing Pacific from your balcony… or discovering the charms and historic traditions of country life on the Continent…

This Isn’t Only About The Money

We remind you regularly how much more affordable your life could be living in certain places overseas. This isn’t marketing hype. It’s fact.

It’s also relative. The particulars depend on where you’re coming from, where you’re moving to, and how you intend to live.

I hope, though, that we do as good a job helping you recognize the other benefits of investing in a new life in a new country.

I can’t tell you where you should go (though I’m happy to continue to make suggestions). I can’t tell you how much more affordable your life is going to be once you get there (one more time, this will depend on where and how you want to live).

But I can tell you that boiling this adventure down to a line-item comparison of costs for things like cable television and a pound of ground beef is a mistake. And basing your decision to move (or not) on that kind of thinking is doing yourself a disservice.

It won’t always be easy, but you’ve got to keep the big picture in mind.

Moving to another country, at any point in your life, would be the adventure of your lifetime.

Start with that. And stay the course.

Until next time,

Kathleen Peddicord signature

Kathleen Peddicord

Founding Publisher, Overseas Opportunity Letter

Tags: 'Belize''cost of living''panama city'ambergris cayebudget PortugalexpatsLive abroadPanamaretire abroadretire overseas
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Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord has reported on opportunities for Americans to live, retire, and do business overseas for 40 years. She has traveled to more than 75 countries, invested in real estate in 24, established businesses in 7, renovated and built properties in 6, and educated her children in 5.

Kathleen has moved children, staff, enterprises, household goods, and pets from the east coast of the United States to Waterford, Ireland, then to Paris, France, and finally to Panama City, Panama, where she has based her Live And Invest Overseas business. Peddicord and her husband, Lief Simon, now divide their time between Panama and Paris.

Peddicord was a partner with Agora Publishing’s International Living group for 23 years. She opened, staffed, and operated International Living publishing and real estate marketing offices in Waterford, Ireland; Panama City, Panama; Granada, Nicaragua; Roatan, Honduras; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Paris, France. Peddicord launched Live And Invest Overseas group in 2008 and has built it into a successful multimillion-dollar business. Today, she shares her firsthand experience of expat life with more than 500,000 readers of her publications, including Overseas Opportunity Letter and Overseas Living Letter.

Kathleen has been featured often in The New York Times, MSNBC, AARP, CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC, and more and writes monthly about expat matters, international real estate, and offshore diversification for Forbes and U.S. News.

Kathleen has written several books including the memoirs “At Home In Ireland” and “At Home At Los Islotes” and her latest title “At Home Abroad,” all published by Lahardan Books. Her best-selling "How To Retire Overseas: Everything You Need To Know To Live Well (For Less) Abroad” was published by Penguin Random House in 2018 and her “Buying Real Estate Overseas For Cash Flow (And A Better Life)” was published by Wiley in August 2020.

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Top Countries

  • Spain
  • Portugal
  • Panama
  • Belize
  • Colombia
  • Cyprus
  • Mexico
  • France
  • Montenegro

Best For:

  • Health Care Abroad
  • Retirement Living
  • Cost Of Living
  • Investing in Real Estate
  • Establishing Residency
  • Gun Ownership
  • English Speakers
  • Safety
BROWSE ALL COUNTRIES

Budgets

How Much Will It Cost
To Live Overseas?

Super Cheap

  • Chitré, Panama
  • Santa Marta, Colombia
  • Phuket, Thailand
  • Dumaguete, The Philippines

Cheap

  • Medellin, Colombia
  • Boquete, Panama
  • Kyrenia, Cyprus
  • Hua Hin, Thailand
  • The Algarve, Portugal

Affordable

  • Valencia, Spain
  • Cascais, Portugal
  • Las Terrenas, The DR
  • Pisa, Italy
  • La Rochelle, France
  • Mazatlán, Mexico

Luxury

  • Ambergris Caye, Belize
  • Kotor, Montenegro
  • The Panama City Beaches
  • Paris, France

Resources

Global Living

  • Living & Retiring Overseas
  • Raising A Family Abroad
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Meet Our Experts

Real Estate

Overseas Property Alert 

 

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Discover tips and strategies used by global property investing veterans

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Learn how to invest and purchase property abroad…

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Live and Invest In Spain Conference

VALENCIA, SPAIN Sep. 17-19, 2025
LEARN MORE
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PANAMA CITY, PANAMA Oct. 15-17, 2025
LEARN MORE
PRE-REGISTER

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Contact Our Events Team:

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From Outside North America:
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Reach us with your questions by email at: events@liveandinvestoverseas.com

Store

Overseas Havens Reports

  • Expats' comprehensive destination guides

Conference Kits

  • Hours of coverage  from our latests conferences

Lahardan Books

  • Titles on living and investing around the world

Services

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  • The Simon Letter: Wealth Protection Insights
  • Global Property Advisor: Global Investment Opportunitites
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