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    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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    Follow Us:

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    Buying Real Estate For Cashflow

    • 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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    Offshore Wealth Summit

    Greece Workshop

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    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 Countries Ecuador

How Retiring Overseas Can Help You Reduce Your Working Years

How To Afford To Retire Today

by Kathleen Peddicord
Jan 31, 2021
in Ecuador, Lifestyle, Mexico, Retirement/Living, Uruguay
0 0
Cathedral built of bricks in the center of the city of Cuenca, Ecuador.

Alamy/Patricio Hidalgo

Longtime editor and friend Lee Harrison and his wife Julie divide their time between California and Mazatlán, Mexico.

However, Mazatlán was not the first stop on Lee and Julie’s overseas-retirement trail.

Lee And Julie’s Retirement Journey

In 2001, in their late 40s, Lee and Julie took early retirement from their successful engineering careers.

“We didn’t have enough of a pension or enough retirement savings to live on for the rest of our lives in the States, certainly not living the level of lifestyle we had been enjoying in New York up until that point,” Lee explains, “so we started looking around.

“My eyes were opened to the ‘retire overseas’ idea by a book on retiring to Costa Rica that I happened upon in a bookstore one day. At that point in our lives, Julie and I wanted a big change, an adventure. We craved culture shock, the bigger the better.”

Lee and Julie were both immediately sold on the notion of retirement to another country and began adjusting their view of the “correct” retirement age. Instead of asking themselves how much money they could accumulate for retirement by age 62, they began asking themselves how soon they could retire with some degree of financial security.

The answer was 12 years earlier than they’d been planning.

“By moving to a low-cost destination abroad,” Lee explains, “we cut at least a dozen years off of our work life and added 12 years to our retirement. For us this has effectively been a strategy for extending our lives.”

First Stop: Ecuador

Cuenca, Ecuador.
iStock/AlanFalcony
Cuenca, Ecuador

The couple chose Ecuador, which then and still today offers an almost unbelievably affordable cost of living.

“We sold everything that wouldn’t fit into a 20-foot container and moved to Cuenca,” Lee remembers.

At that time, there were virtually no American retirees in Cuenca. It was six months before Lee and Julie met another English-speaking couple. Their Spanish skills improved quickly, out of necessity.

Julie began volunteering at the music academy and performing piano with the Cuenca Symphony Orchestra, and Lee started writing about living abroad. Both continue to earn supplemental income from these activities today.

Lee and Julie were happy living in Ecuador and had no plans to move.

Escapade To Uruguay And Colombia

Punta del Este Beach in Uruguay
iStock/Rudimencial
Punta del Este, Uruguay

However, about five years after making the move to Cuenca, they took a vacation to Uruguay. In this country they fell in love with the European ambiance, the predominantly Italian culture, and the seaside life. In 2006, the couple purchased a home in Punta del Este, Uruguay’s premier beach resort town, where they lived for six years.

Then, in 2010, I sent Lee on a writing assignment to Medellín, Colombia. He was so struck by the beauty and sophistication of the city that he called Julie and persuaded her to come join him to see for herself.

Life in Punta del Este was great, but, when the couple saw what Medellín had to offer, they were inspired to launch the next stage of their adventures overseas. They bought an apartment in leafy El Poblado, Medellín’s prime address.

Discovering Mexico

Mazatlan, Mexico.
iStock/Ryan W Curley
Mazatlán, Mexico.

Again, Lee and Julie were content and had no thoughts of moving on, but, in 2015, on a whim, they decided on a monthlong stay in Álamos, Mexico. During that trip, they took a one-week side trip to Mazatlán.

Being in Mexico, after all their years abroad, was a revelation for Lee and Julie.

“We had ignored Mexico for years, passing it by on our way to South America,” Lee says. “I think we thought of it as too familiar, with too many amenities to be sufficiently exciting or challenging. But during that visit we experienced and appreciated the cultural familiarity and convenience of life in this country.

“Mazatlán is only 720 miles from the U.S. border, a straight shot down a single freeway,” Lee continues. “This makes it easy and inexpensive for children and grandchildren to visit. They can also fly here, as we’re only an hour-and-a-half flight from Phoenix.”

Mexico is a big country, offering lots of living options. Why did Lee and Julie focus on Mazatlán?

“We’ve always enjoyed Spanish-colonial historic centers,” Lee explains, “and Mazatlán’s is being beautifully restored. We love having the city’s best restaurants, cafés, shops, and theaters all within easy walking distance. Plus, English is widely spoken here in Mazatlán, which is a nice convenience when we have visitors who don’t speak Spanish.

“The ocean and beach are just off our front balcony. For us, that’s the best feature of all. Then there’s the convenience.

“I’ve been doing home projects in Latin American countries for nearly 20 years. Having a Home Depot nearby feels like a real luxury. We feel the same about having Walmart, Sam’s Club, OfficeMax, and the other American stores here. We never thought we’d miss those kinds of places as it turns out we have.”

Lee and Julie applied for their residency visas at the Mexican consulate in Phoenix, Arizona. They both obtained their visas in less than one hour.

“We’ve now obtained residency in four countries,” Lee says, “and Mexico was the fastest and easiest experience of all.

“This is just the lifestyle we were looking for at this stage of life, available right now at an irresistible price. I have to say that it’s good to be back in what feels like familiar territory.”

Sincerely,
Kathleen Peddicord
Kathleen Peddicord
Founding Publisher, Overseas Opportunity Letter

Tags: 'cost of living''Cuenca'Invest In MedellinLive abroadlive overseasMazatlánMedellinMove to Ecuadormove to mexicopunta del esteretire 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
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  • 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
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Meet Our Experts

Real Estate

Overseas Property Alert 

 

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

VISIT SITE

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Discover tips and strategies used by global property investing veterans

READ MORE

Explore Our Latest Posts

 

Learn how to invest and purchase property abroad…

EXPLORE

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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
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VIRTUAL Nov. 13, 2025
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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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THE 10 BEST PLACES TO RETIRE IN 2025

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