I'm 32, and I plan on retiring early. I'm spending my days building money-printing machines -- primarily real estate and Internet properties. Hopefully they won't need me around too much to keep them oiled. I would like to second his investment advice; so far it's worked for me.My plan for early retirement aims to deal with many of the issues Philip raises is to buy a sailboatboat, big enough to take me, my companion, and the odd crewmember, hither and yon, primarily in the caribbean. The benefits in personal energy, adventure, travel, and an inexpensive home will be many-fold. I look forward to it.
-- Stephen van Egmond, April 2, 2006
At the moment I rent two bedrooms in a house in Tarija, Bolivia, for USD160 per month. Gas, water, electricity included.During the last twelve months I have lived in the Cayman Islands, France, and Bolivia. Renting and moving around a lot gives flexibility and forces you to reduce your material goods.
What does 'retire' mean? According to Webster it means 'to withdraw from one's position or occupation : conclude one's working or professional career.' Well, if that is the case I am half retired. I have withdrawn, but I have not concluded. Neither do I think you have.
I think 'owner of your time', 'ooyt' for short, is a more interesting word than 'retired'. If you do what you like, professionally and privately, you are ooyt. If you work in a bank and hate it, or play tennis with your neighbour and hate it, you are not ooyt.
-- Jan Nordgreen, March 8, 2007
I have lived in Europe for the past 6 years and I disagree that most average Americans should not consider Europe because it is "too crowded and expensive". There are many places that are both incredibly beautiful and not very expensive -- such as Scotland (Especially the Highlands); SW France (especially along the Pyranees); Southernmost parts of Italy; Inland Spain; Portugal (especially Duoro Valley)and many parts of Eastern Europe. Culture and food can't be beat. Plus if you become resident you don't have to worry about paying for (generally very good quality) medical care anywhere in Europe and you get an $80,000 income tax exclusion from Uncle SAM. Also if you own property the real estate tax rates are almost non-existent in most of Europe.
-- Richard Waryn, May 25, 2007
One major factor in the renting vs buying tradeoff is how much and how long you're going to use something. If the thing can spend most of its time being used by others, renting may be more convenient.If you're going to spend a month a year at a vacation home, owning the whole vacation home (ignoring the possibility of owning a timeshare) may be more expensive than renting because you have to absorb the costs for the 11 months that you aren't there. Of course, you could find renters for the other 11 months (unless it's a property that's only attractive during part of the year, in which case you can probably still find renters for some of the time), but then you have to deal with those renters and still have to deal with keeping the place maintained.
And for a vacation home, renting also means that if you discover you don't like the place, not coming back next year becomes easier.
Owning a primary home would give me some stability I'd really kind of like that I don't really have as a renter at the moment.
I also think a lot of the maintenance issues associated with ownership can probably be controlled with planning. My parents have a swimming pool, and maintaining the right chemical balance there takes some effort; I will probably not buy a home with a swimming pool. Maintaining the yard also seems to take some of my parents' time, and this may be an argument for having a smaller yard. The condition the property starts out in is likely also a factor in how much hassle it is in the long run, though if you have a good contractor you're willing to pay, maybe it's not a huge problem.
And I wonder if some of the problems with finding good tradespeople happen to people who bought a house that they could barely afford, thus making good maintenance difficult to afford.
Other examples of things that can be worth renting if you don't need the whole thing are cars (if you live in an area where parking is difficult and public transit is good) and fractions of colocated servers (if you don't need a whole server to meet your capacity needs; the virtual server offerings have gotten quite good in the last few years). And I have to wonder if renting from NetJets would get you a bigger cabin for the same number of dollars as owning a VLJ, while saving many of the paperwork hassles that I hear can come from owning a sufficiently complicated plane..
-- Joel Weber, July 23, 2007
I have been living in Canada for 11j years already and what is of good here is work only, nothing else. Nothing connects the people here and is not very socializing country. Also is expensive for a retired person live here or in the States in general. Since mostly or the retires look forward low expenses places, quality of live and nice people for a place to retire I am considering partially retire from Winter time in Canada and live in some place in Brazil, some of the places are very affordable. Specially in the north of Brazil or the suburbs. Criminallity exists, but you have to know to survive, you can be overprotected all your life by the Queen or Uncle Sam, don't you? So be mature and adapt to other scenario. I live in Rio before and criminallity exist, also a monster inflation but there is the beach, the fun and the currency benefits. Somebody told me also that Nicaragua is getting one of the places more affordables to live for retired North Americans, but I don't know too much of that country, so far Americans beging to retire there, cost of living is going to increase, as is happening in Costa Rica. For an inmigrant who plain to retire from America, some things tends to be easier than from native Americans or Canadians, but not always the country of origin is good either. For instance Uruguay, is one of the most expensive countries in South America to live, but is quiet, with people well educated and free medical assistance and education. What I am tired of is of this f. Canadian time it goes from -30 to +30 and the indifferent people and the system where you have to pay for everything an expensive price. (even to find a date)
-- pablo jimenez, October 28, 2007
New Zealand is beautiful, but NO longer cheap to live, and property is really high at the moment. Kiwis mean you no harm, but they are not really into socializing with expats, and have a limited point of view. It does get cold down here!
-- max cruise, August 14, 2008
Sorry, PG, I disagree with several angles you gloss over. First, no retiree should ever feel "constrained" to live anywhere. Half the fun of retirement comes from freedom and endless possibilities. Neither adult children, friendships, or a spouse should make our place of retirement decision for us. If we choose to live near friends or family, we ignore the transient nature of modern life. Our kids and our friends both have a tendency to disappear or move on. We have to have lives apart from them. Spouses and partners need to form part of the team for a choice of location, but again, if they feel "constrained" in their selection then they build their own prison.
-- James Medeiros, September 16, 2008
Great and brief coverage. I couldn't agree more. I guess I'll rent...the question is, where?
-- john Hudelson, July 3, 2012
I enjoyed your views. I just wanted to add that most articles on places to live during retirement are written by Caucasians and people of other races have to be a little bit careful. For example, many Caucasians tend to go to East Asia. I remember reading a couple of years ago that expats were very happy in China. Japan is also high on that list albeit the cost of living is high there. Thailand was mentioned by you.All are nice places to live for Caucasians where locals will be nice to them. A single guy will have no problem meeting up lots of women there. However, as an Indian, and based on my past continual bad encounters with East Asians, I will have to pass up on these places. It is not that I lack in certain desirable attributes. I studies at IIT (Indian 'MIT' :)), have high IQ, got graduate degrees...
During my younger age a large company in Japan took me to Japan against my wishes to conduct experiment on me to help out its Caucasian employees and effectively destroyed my career. And I found Chinese in California to be equally racists trying to hurt my career (whatever was left of it) at every possible step. And Caucasians at Berkeley are polished and pretend to be open-minded but I found many of them to be extremely racists too. I expect similar things at MIT or Boston.
Currently I am enjoying my 'vacation' in Latin America (Ecuador to be precise) where racism is much less prevalent. East Asia for obvious reasons is ruled out for me. Berkeley is nice but has a large population of East Asians and Caucasians and is just tolerable. For me it will be Latin America, India, maybe Africa and small pockets of the USA just based on how I will be treated because of my race.
-- Kamal Sinha, July 27, 2014