Talking about Retirement is very interesting to me and my husband as both of us come from different countries. I am from Indonesia and my husband is from USA. We have the opposite in deciding the retirement life. I will not go everywhere as I really want to be there for my children when they need me anytime because I don’t have any relatives and family who live in USA. That is why I want to be there for all of my children when I am old someday.
My husband has different option. He prefers to live in Indonesia which is famous with many beautiful places, like Bali, Lombok, Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, etc. He said that with his social security fund, and his other retirement fund, we can live more than enough in Indonesia than in USA. He really loves enjoying many beautiful places especially in Bali. He also likes the friendly Indonesian.
I can understand what he wants as I have seen many people in their retired life, they live out of their country. Of course, they will pick the countries where the value of the money is lower than their country’s. Through this condition, they will not be worry about the financial. Even with their standard retirement fund, they still can enjoy their life because of the lower cost they will spend.
I think it is better I will give a simple example:
If you have the retirement fund just from Social Security, for example $ (USA) 1,500.00/person so for the couple, the total would be $ 3,000.00
How could you survive living in USA if you still have the mortgage to pay off? If you spend around $ 1,800.00 for the mortgage, it means the couple still have $ 1,200.00 left. If They spend $ 100.00/week for food, in one month they will spend $ 400.00. It means they still have $ 800.00 left. Then they have to pay for the monthly bills, like electrical, telephone, TV channels, insurances, other debts, etc, I predict around $ 600.00 so they still have $ 200.00 left every month. The amount of that money isn’t big enough to be allocated for the extra expenses, like visiting Doctor, buying gasoline, medicine, gifts, even the cost for the vacation.
Can you imagine if they live in Indonesia or other Asian Countries, with total amount of $ 3000.00 = around Rp 30 million (IDR) if right now the value of every $ 1.00 = Rp 10.000,- (IDR)?
With those money they can live in a standard luxury apartment with high security. They can pick very nice apartment and just spend around Rp 5.000.000,- till Rp 10.000.000,- ($ 500.00 – $ 1000.00) and they can live more than enough like the rich people with the rest of their money (Rp 20-25 million – IDR) so they can be easily visiting other places or going to vacation to other places or maybe visit their country every once per year.
With the cyber system we have right now (Internet), it can boost the retired people because everything just goes ‘click’ and ‘click’ even to do the Taxes, checking their bank account, communicating via email/chatting or via telephone. All these Hi-Tech just make them more confident to live even far away from their country.
Of course beside those I mention above, the security stabilization of the country is needed and a must to be considered too.
So, the conclusion is the best new places to retire around the world are beautiful Asian Countries. You can choose them, like Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, etc.