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Home Countries Argentina

Reduce Your Cost Of Living Big-Time…Maybe

Kathleen Peddicord by Kathleen Peddicord
Apr 02, 2018
in Argentina, Panama, Retirement/Living
0
leather walett on a wooden table. A stack of 10 dollar bills can be seen as well as some credit cards
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Your Cost Of Living Can Be Almost As Low As You Want It To Be

Today is the final day of our celebration of Live and Invest Overseas’ 10th anniversary.

I couldn’t be prouder of what we’ve been able to accomplish.

What started out as a two-person crew working out of a cramped living room in my tiny apartment in Panama…

Is today… 10 years later… Live and Invest Overseas… with more than three dozen employees across multiple countries and continents.

How did we get from there to here?

That has had a whole lot to do with you, dear reader…

Thank you, sincerely, for reading.

We value and appreciate your time, your attention, your loyalty, and your custom.

And we look forward to a long, productive relationship.

Today’s essay is 10 years old as well. It addresses the most popular reason people decide to live overseas. It also offers an important perspective…

You could reduce your cost of living to a fraction of what it is right now by moving overseas.

Maybe.

In fact, this cost of living question is more complicated than you might imagine.

If you’re living in Manhattan right now, no question: You could cut your monthly expenses by two-thirds… three-quarters… maybe more… by moving to Cuenca, Ecuador, say, or Leon, Nicaragua.

But what if you’re living now in Boise?

And what if, rather than Cuenca or Leon, you’re looking to move to Buenos Aires, Argentina, or Panama City, Panama?

Before you could determine if, in fact, your cost of living in BA would be more or less than in Boise, you’d have to figure first how you want to live.

Are you going to invest in a home of your own… or rent?

Are you going to own a car? Engage a driver?

Before we left France, Lief tried to budget our new life in Panama. When he did, he realized that it’s going to cost us more to live here in Panama City than it cost us to live in Paris (yes, I had him double-check his numbers).

While we owned our apartment in Paris, here in Panama, we’re renting… and rents have spiked in this city in recent months.

While we got by nicely without a car in Paris, here in Panama, we’ll have to have one. And we’ll have to have a driver, too, because I don’t plan to get behind the wheel of a vehicle in Panama City anytime soon.

In addition, you’ve got to remember that cost of living is a moving target. Currencies rise and fall, are devalued and revalued. Inflation spikes. Markets correct.

And, most important, remember that cost of living is relative…

If your current home base is Newport Beach, the entire rest of the world looks a bargain.

Friend and perpetual traveler Paul Terhorst, with 25 years of living abroad experience under his belt, was living in Argentina until last year. He left Argentina when costs in that country began rising and moved to Thailand, where the living remains super cheap.

Paul writes, “Argentina fails the Big Mac test this year. The cost of living in Argentina is slightly higher than in the States, according to The Economist’s report. Friends on the ground in BA concur. Inflation in this country is estimated at about 30% a year right now, and, since May, the government has been revaluing its peso. Bottom line, Argentina costs about the same as the United States at this point.

“Argentina and other developing countries still offer many low-cost alternatives that have disappeared in the States.

“For example, in BA and Mendoza, you can find small, family-run hotels in the heart of town for less than US$50 a night. Those hotels have long since been driven out of U.S. cities.

“Similarly, in BA, you still can find a steak with a glass of wine for US$10 in some restaurants. You still can get a car and a driver for about the cost of the car alone in more developed places. You still can employ a maid for US$4 an hour.”

Inflation is a global issue, but the effects are still relative.

A gardener may cost twice as much today as he did three years ago in Uruguay… but he’s still a bargain at less than US$100 a month.

In all the countries we’re reporting to you about and from in these dispatches, certain things remain bargains, certainly relatively, sometimes absolutely.

Rents are crazy high here in Panama City, as I’ve been reporting to you, but we’ve hired a full-time maid for US$250 a month. And my son Jack had his hair cut the other day for US$2.

Roving Latin America Editor Lee Harrison writes that “You could live in one of the best neighborhoods of Buenos Aires right now on a budget of as little as US$1,290 per month.”

In other words, costs in BA may be rising, but less than US$1,300 a month remains amazingly cheap…

Especially when you consider the quality of life you could enjoy in Buenos Aires.

Maybe you could live for less in Boise.

But you’d be in Boise.

Kathleen Peddicord

Tags: cost of living buenos airesCost Of Living Overseasrenting in panama city
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Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord has covered the live, retire, and do business overseas beat for more than 30 years and is considered the world's foremost authority on these subjects. She has traveled to more than 75 countries, invested in real estate in 21, established businesses in 7, renovated historic properties in 6, and educated her children in 4.

Kathleen has moved children, staff, enterprises, household goods, and pets across three continents, from the East Coast of the United States to Waterford, Ireland... then to Paris, France... next to Panama City, where she has based her Live and Invest Overseas business. Most recently, Kathleen and her husband Lief Simon are dividing their time between Panama and Paris.

Kathleen was a partner with Agora Publishing’s International Living group for 23 years. In that capacity, she opened her first office overseas, in Waterford, Ireland, where she managed a staff of up to 30 employees for more than 10 years. Kathleen also opened, staffed, and operated International Living publishing and real estate marketing offices in Panama City, Panama; Granada, Nicaragua; Roatan, Honduras; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Paris, France.

Kathleen moved on from her role with Agora in 2007 and launched her Live and Invest Overseas group in 2008. In the years since, she has built Live and Invest Overseas into a successful, recognized, and respected multi-million-dollar business that employs a staff of 35 in Panama City and dozens of writers and other resources around the world.

Kathleen has been quoted by The New York Times, Money magazine, MSNBC, Yahoo Finance, the AARP, and beyond. She has appeared often on radio and television (including Bloomberg and CNBC) and speaks regularly on topics to do with living, retiring, investing, and doing business around the world.

In addition to her own daily e-letter, the Overseas Opportunity Letter, with a circulation of more than 300,000 readers, Kathleen writes regularly for U.S. News & World Report and Forbes.

Her newest book, "How to Retire Overseas: Everything You Need to Know to Live Well (for Less) Abroad," published by Penguin Random House, is the culmination of decades of personal experience living and investing around the world.

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