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The Real Reason To Retire Overseas Is Purpose

The Key To Success When Retiring Overseas

Kathleen Peddicord by Kathleen Peddicord
Dec 30, 2020
in How to, Retirement/Living
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Elderly couple sitting next to other looking at the sea at sunset.

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“I just don’t know what to do now. I mean… what do I do with myself at this stage? Where do I go?…”

It was early one morning during my most recent visit with my family back in Baltimore, before the rest of the house was up. My mom was sitting across the kitchen table from me, looking down into her coffee mug.

“I’ve been considering options nearby. I’ve looked at retirement homes, but I’m not ready for that yet. I’ve looked at condos, including the ones where your aunt is living. I’ve spoken with real estate agents about townhouses and private communities.

“I know I need to do something, and I’m ready to make a move. I want to take a next step soon, before the end of this year. But I have no idea what that step should be…”

My mother and father were happily married for more than 35 years, until my dad died in a car accident 12 years ago. A couple of years later, my mom moved from the house in the country that she and my dad had built together to a smaller place a block away from my sister. The years since, she has occupied herself helping with my sister’s kids, who, when they were younger, visited her nearly every day.

Now, though, the grandkids (my sister’s three kids and my two) are nearly all grown up. Post-kids, post-husband, post-grandkids, my mom finds herself an ultimate empty nester.

She’s still relatively young and healthy. She has a comfortable retirement nest egg. But she has no direction… no plan. She sees no reason to stay in the house where she’s been living now that the grandkids aren’t in the picture day to day. She wants to downsize further, but she can’t figure out where to go or what to do with herself when she gets there. She’s fully preoccupied trying to figure it out.

Everyone’s situation is different, but I think my mom is representative of the new retirement demographic.

Retiring somewhere warm, sunny, and affordable sounds great. But today’s retirement generation, younger and healthier than any that has preceded it in history, is looking for more than nice weather and a low cost of living. Those things are as important as they’ve always been, but now they’re only a starting point.

The Real Point Is Purpose

During that early morning conversation with my mom recently, I mentioned my plan to start a Student Center in Panama this year, in Veraguas Province, near where Lief and I are developing our Los Islotes community.

Then I told her about our plan to hire an administrator and then to try to find volunteers to serve as teachers and tutors.

“We’ll begin by building a four-room schoolhouse,” I told her, “where we’ll provide English-language and computer literacy courses and offer after-school tutoring for any kids in the area who are interested.”

My mom looked up from her coffee, and her face brightened.

“What a wonderful project,” she said. “Something like that would give real purpose to your life…”

Purpose Could Take Many Forms. It’s Limited Only By Imagination

How would you like to reinvent your life in retirement? Would you like to pursue a hobby you set aside your entire life until this point?

Would you like (or maybe you need) to start a business, either laptop-based or bricks-and-mortar, to generate cash flow to supplement your retirement nest egg while also giving you a reason to get out of bed each morning?

Would you like to volunteer to teach (keep Los Islotes’ Student Center in mind!)? Donate your time to help out in an orphanage or a shelter for single moms?

Perhaps you’d like to build houses… or plant gardens? Learn to play a musical instrument… to speak a new language… or maybe to scuba dive or practice tai chi?

The secret to success pursuing any purpose anywhere in the world, I’d suggest, is connecting with others who share your interests and perspective.

That connection can happen organically. It won’t likely be the driving force behind when and where you choose to reinvent your life overseas… though it could be.

Imagine your dream lifestyle… and then seize it wherever in the world you find it on offer for a price you can afford.

Once on the scene, put yourself out there. Make an effort to become part of the community where you’ve chosen to base yourself. Get to know your new neighbors. Each connection will lead who knows where…

The key thing, as my mom is beginning to see, is to chart a course.

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

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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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