Start With A List
Take out a piece of paper and a pen and sit down in a comfortable chair.
Now, write down everything that’s important to you in the context of an overseas retirement haven. Consider all aspects of your life, big and small:
- The cost of living. How much money do you have to live on monthly?…
- The weather. What do you like? Year-round sunshine? Four seasons? Low humidity? Minimal rainfall?…
- The infrastructure. How important to you are reliable Internet and cable TV?…
- English-speaking doctors…
- First World hospital within a half-hour’s drive…
- International-standard schools… high schools that prepare students for the International Baccalaureate…
- Surfing… boating… fishing… diving… international-standard golf courses…
- Educated and English-speaking labor pool…
- International banks… ATMs on every corner…
- Aunt Jemima, Betty Crocker, and other name brands you know on the grocery store shelves… and at what cost…
- The view from your bedroom window… the sounds outside your bedroom window at night…
- Fellow English-speakers (maybe you want to be among them… maybe you don’t)…
- Available distractions… restaurants, theater, first-run movies, shopping malls, bridge clubs, tennis teams…
- Accessibility… how far to the nearest international airport…
- Restrictions on foreign ownership of property…
- Taxes—sales tax, property tax, transfer tax, income tax, rental income tax, capital gains tax, import tax for your personal and household goods… where does your income come from and what taxes, therefore, would you be liable for?…
- Public transportation and how you get around… do you need a car? Can you walk to the newsstand each morning?…
- Crime (we consider all the places we recommend to you to be safe)…
- Stability of the government (we’re apolitical as a rule but recognize that, sometimes, hard as we try to coexist peacefully alongside whoever happens to sit in the power chair, politics affects us as we move around and can’t be ignored entirely)…
- Rate of exchange between the local currency and your own…
- Rate of local inflation…
- Cost of an airplane ticket back home…
- How quick you could get back home if you needed to…
- Availability and cost of household help, nannies, caretakers, drivers…
- Ease of forming a company… opening a bank account…
- Requirements for obtaining foreign residency… visa hurdles… opportunities for eventually obtaining second citizenship…
How do you retire overseas?
That’s how.
At least that’s how you begin. You make a list.
Kathleen Peddicord
Continue Reading: Most Affordable Places To Retire Overseas
