• Contact Us
  • About Us
    • Affiliates
    • Syndication
    • Whitelist Us
  • Members Area
No Result
View All Result
Live and Invest Overseas
FREE REPORT
BEST PLACES TO RETIRE
*No spam: We will NEVER give your email address to anyone else.
  • HOME
  • COUNTRIES
    • Top Destinations
      • Portugal
      • Panama
      • Belize
      • France
      • Colombia
      • Dominican Republic
      • Thailand
      • Mexico
      • Spain
      • Argentina
    • Best For
      • Retire Overseas Index
      • Health Care
      • Cost of Living
      • Investing in Real Estate
      • Editor’s Picks For Retirement
      • Establishing Residency
      • Starting an Online Business
      • Single Women
      • Playing Golf
      • Browse All Countries
  • BUDGETS
    • Super Cheap ($)
      • Cuenca, Ecuador
      • Chiang Mai, Thailand
      • The Philippines
      • Las Tablas, Panama
      • Granada, Nicaragua
    • Cheap ($$)
      • Algarve, Portugal
      • Medellin, Colombia
      • Boquete, Panama
      • Carcassone, France
      • Buenos Aires, Argentina
    • Affordable ($$$)
      • Abruzzo, Italy
      • Barcelona, Spain
      • Las Terrenas, Dominican Republic
      • Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
      • Costa de Oro, Uruguay
    • Luxury On A Budget ($$$$)
      • Ambergris Caye, Belize
      • Paris, France
      • Panama City Beach Area
  • ARCHIVES
    • Living & Retiring Overseas
    • Raising A Family Abroad
    • International Real Estate
    • Foreign Residency & Citizenship
    • Offshore Diversification
  • Making Money
    • Banking
    • Employment
    • Investing
  • CONFERENCES
  • BOOKSTORE
Live and Invest Overseas
  • HOME
  • COUNTRIES
    • Top Destinations
      • Portugal
      • Panama
      • Belize
      • France
      • Colombia
      • Dominican Republic
      • Thailand
      • Mexico
      • Spain
      • Argentina
    • Best For
      • Retire Overseas Index
      • Health Care
      • Cost of Living
      • Investing in Real Estate
      • Editor’s Picks For Retirement
      • Establishing Residency
      • Starting an Online Business
      • Single Women
      • Playing Golf
      • Browse All Countries
  • BUDGETS
    • Super Cheap ($)
      • Cuenca, Ecuador
      • Chiang Mai, Thailand
      • The Philippines
      • Las Tablas, Panama
      • Granada, Nicaragua
    • Cheap ($$)
      • Algarve, Portugal
      • Medellin, Colombia
      • Boquete, Panama
      • Carcassone, France
      • Buenos Aires, Argentina
    • Affordable ($$$)
      • Abruzzo, Italy
      • Barcelona, Spain
      • Las Terrenas, Dominican Republic
      • Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
      • Costa de Oro, Uruguay
    • Luxury On A Budget ($$$$)
      • Ambergris Caye, Belize
      • Paris, France
      • Panama City Beach Area
  • ARCHIVES
    • Living & Retiring Overseas
    • Raising A Family Abroad
    • International Real Estate
    • Foreign Residency & Citizenship
    • Offshore Diversification
  • Making Money
    • Banking
    • Employment
    • Investing
  • CONFERENCES
  • BOOKSTORE
No Result
View All Result
Live and Invest Overseas
No Result
View All Result

Why Retire Overseas?

Kathleen Peddicord by Kathleen Peddicord
May 16, 2010
in Retirement/Living
0
Panama And Costa del Este

Why Did I Do This In The First Place?

When my boss at the time came to me to explain that the U.S. publishing company where I’d been working for 13 years was interested in setting up a new base in Ireland and to ask if I’d be interested in making the move to open that office for him, I jumped at the chance. I was 34 years old, ready for a change, and eager for an adventure.

I’d been covering this live, retire, and invest overseas beat for a long time, but I realized that that was not the same as living it. This was my chance to find out for myself what it’d really be like to be an American abroad.

My second international move was from Ireland to France. This relocation, seven years later, was to make it possible for my then 14-year-old daughter to realize a dream she’d had of studying in Paris. Rather than shipping her off to high school in the City of Light on her own, the family tagged along to discover ensemble what life in Paris would be like.

Four years later, we were planning our third international move, this one for more practical reasons. Our daughter had finished her high school-level studies in France and moved on to university in the States. I’d left the U.S. publishing company where I’d worked, by that point, for 23 years, thinking it was time to stretch my entrepreneurial wings. Lief was looking for a big real estate development opportunity, a chance to put his dozen years of accumulated experience to good use.

We considered the world map. Where to go to start a business…to undertake a long-term land project…and to continue raising our then 8-year-old son?

It didn’t take us long to settle on Panama.

A reporter for Kiplinger magazine, interviewing me last week for an article she’s writing on Americans retiring overseas, asked why I think this idea is gaining such momentum right now.

Why are so many more Americans, especially, considering the idea of a new life or retirement abroad, she wondered?

We discussed the current motivations. There are many, and some are critical. Many would-be retirees Stateside are worried how they’re ever going to be able to afford to quit working…now that their retirement nest eggs have been diminished, maybe dramatically, by market events of the past couple of years and the equity they were counting on in their homes has disappeared. Americans are worried about health care “reform.” They’re worried about tax law changes. They’re thinking their futures, personal and financial, are increasingly beyond their own control.

They’re looking for options. They’re so eager, even desperate for options that they’re beginning to look farther afield than they otherwise might have considered.

They’re looking overseas for appealing retirement choices.

All that’s true. But it’s hardly the whole story, and to reduce the idea of living or retiring in another country to that level is to miss something important.

I figure you’re reading these dispatches because you’re interested in the idea of spending time someplace else. You’re looking to relocate, in retirement or otherwise, full-time or maybe only part of the year. You have your own reasons and motivations.

My point today is to remember among them the unpractical and the irrational. The romantic and the sexy.

I’m hearing every day from readers looking to make a change because they feel trapped by their current circumstances.

And, yes, I understand, times can seem tough. But tough times are the best time to get going.

As you move ahead with your own plans to take back control of your own life, don’t forget that, beyond the real and practical advantages to do with lowering your cost of living, reducing your cost of health care, and cutting your tax bill, for example, are other advantages that, as I like to say, can’t be plugged into a spreadsheet.

There’s a big upside to a new life in a new place, an upside for your financial life, sure, but for your personal life and your family life, too.

The world is a different place from when I took my first step overseas. And the current reasons for pursuing these live, retire, invest overseas opportunities may seem a little harder-edged than they did to me when I set off on the adventure.

But here’s the important thing to keep in mind: The upside is as big as it ever was. And the real benefits are completely unpredictable.

Move to a place where you won’t have to worry about outliving your retirement nest egg. Relocate to a jurisdiction where you’ll be able to keep more of the money you earn. Redeploy your assets so they’re not at the mercy of a single market or currency.

Take one step. The next one will be easier. The one after that easier still.

And, before you know it, you’ll be on the other side. You’ll have crossed over to a life that isn’t ruled by cable news reports of stock market plunges or currency tumbles.

When my family and I left the States, did I ever imagine that, 13 years later, I’d be sitting in Casco Viejo, Panama, one Sunday morning, writing to you to suggest that you get serious about your plans to do the same thing?

Not hardly.

How’d I get from there to here? One day at a time, each one leading to new opportunities.

I look forward to tomorrow. And I urge you to come discover it with me.

Kathleen Peddicord

turnkey profits in europe

Comments

Tags: 'places to retire'how to retirejobs overseasproperty overseasretirement communities
Previous Post

Real Estate Investing In France

Next Post

Travel In Taiping, Malaysia

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.

Related Posts

Couple relaxing at the beach
How to

The Retire Overseas Challenge No One Talks About

by Kathleen Peddicord
December 1, 2019
0

One of the biggest challenges you'll face as you launch your new life in a new country is seldom discussed....

Read more
Tropical beach in belize with white sand and sun chair

Complete Cost Of Retiring In Belize

November 26, 2019
Tropical beach life in Belize

Retiring In Belize On Social Security

November 26, 2019
A white sand beach with palm trees and beach hut in Belize

How To Retire In Belize For US$1,500 A Month

November 26, 2019
Praia da Bordeira and boardwalks forming part of the trail of tides or Pontal da Carrapateira walk in Portugal. Flying seagulls over Praia da Bordeira in portuguese. Bordeira, Algarve, Portugal.

How One Couple Discovered A Great New Life In Algarve

November 20, 2019
Senior couple enjoying their vacation at the beach

News From Our Readers After Living And Retiring To Portugal

November 18, 2019
issues to consider before you retire overseas

9 Critical Issues To Consider Before Deciding To Live Overseas

November 4, 2019
Next Post
Malaysia offers sights like this beach and many perks with it's MM2H program.

Travel In Taiping, Malaysia

Take Control Of Your Financial Future
Quiz Which Country

LIOS Resources


  • New To LIOS
  • Ask An Expert
  • Media Center
  • Contact Us
  • FAQs

Quick Links


  • Best Places To Live
  • Best Places To Retire
  • Finding A Job Overseas
  • Real Estate
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms

© 2008-2019 - Live and Invest Overseas - All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Countries
  • Budgets
  • Archives
  • News
  • Events
  • Bookstore
  • Newsletters
  • About Us
  • Members Area
  • Contact Us

© 2008-2019 - Live and Invest Overseas - All Rights Reserved.

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.