In this report, I share the Top 8 Reasons to Not Retire Early Overseas.
Over the years I have learned many reasons why people have decided not to retire early overseas. Retiring early or living overseas is not for everyone. But, many people have fantasies they never try for various reasons. But, if you think about these reasons early enough, you may be able to overcome each one.
Why do I know this? I am a 62-year-old man that left the United States 16 years ago. I have lived in or visited 67 countries so far. So I constantly meet people who retired early overseas.
The beautiful woman you see traveling the world with me is Qiang of Hobo Ventures.
Two Main Barriers to Retiring Early Overseas
There are two kinds of barriers people face in retiring early overseas. The first kind of barrier is called an expectation barrier. Living in a foreign country often creates major changes in daily routines that may fall below your expectations. Life experiences overseas such as food, entertainment, relationships, and hobbies may fall below expectations. Some people feel like a fish out of water in a new country.
I will share how I overcome this first kind of barrier in a moment. But first I want to focus on the second kind of barrier. The second barrier is more dependent upon personal conditions that exist in your life. People like you have shared them with me over the years.
Top 8 Reasons to Not Retire Early Overseas
Here are the Top 8 Reasons to Not Retire Early Overseas that people have shared with me and how I would overcome each. Make sure to think these through and do proper research before retiring early overseas. You don’t need to take notes. I will provide a link to a written version at the end.
One. Pre-existing Health Conditions: If you have a pre-existing health condition and you are comfortable with your healthcare provider, you may decide to wait until you complete your course of treatment before retiring overseas.
But, if it is a lifelong condition you may not want to wait. Your other choice would be to locate a healthcare provider overseas that is a specialist in that specific treatment. In fact, you have probably heard about a whole new industry called medical tourism.
People employ healthcare specialists overseas who may even provide better care for less money. It may require time to find the best and brightest overseas, but it could allow you to live your dreams overseas for less money.
Two. Vulnerable Dependents: If you have someone in your life that is vulnerable and needs help getting through life, you may decide to stick around until their life or circumstances become more stable or they pass away.
A vulnerable dependent could be a person or an animal that would not survive comfortably if you were to retire early overseas. Depending upon the condition of your vulnerable dependant, and their ability to travel, you might consider bringing them overseas with you.
In some cases, living overseas is so much cheaper, you might be able to hire a full or part-time nurse or support personnel, which may not be able to afford overseas. Having others help you carry the burden may give both you and your vulnerable dependent a better life.
Three. Unusual Drugs/Treatment: I don’t consistently take any prescription drugs to manage my health. But I have learned from others living overseas, that many of the common prescription drugs are available overseas.
But you should not assume that any drug is readily available in a foreign country. Instead, join a Facebook group for ex-pats living in your target overseas city, and ask them if that drug is available.
If they do not know, ask them the name of a pharmacy in that town. Email the pharmacy and ask if your prescription drug is readily available, what it costs, and whether or not you need a prescription for a refill. Brand names vary so tell them the active ingredients also.
Pharmaceutical drugs around the world are often even made by the same manufacturers as they are in the USA or Europe. But you can often buy them for a fraction of the cost that you would have to pay in the West.
In fact, I just saved 75% on a Hepatitis A-B vaccine overseas. It was the same product, made by the same manufacturer. So I saved 75% on an identical medication. Instead of paying 180 USD, I paid $45 USD.
But be careful. When you live overseas, and you are coming home to visit family and friends, they may ask you to buy drugs to save them money. But some drugs they request could be controlled substances even when they are over-the-counter drugs in a foreign country.
If you enter your home country with those drugs, you are smuggling controlled substances which could land you in jail for a very long time. So, before you buy any drugs for friends overseas, Google the ingredients to see if it is a controlled substance. That might keep you out of jail.
Four. Mental Health: If you are under the care of a mental health professional, ask them their thoughts on the challenges you may encounter if you were to relocate overseas. Some people adapt more easily to the chaos of change that happens in their first few months or years living overseas.
The US State Department has developed informational content for their employees working overseas. I will include a link to a report that shares the four emotional phases that many people go through when they move overseas.
Even if your mental health care provider feels you are ready, you should review this content. Just knowing the 4 phases, may create a softer landing during your first year of living overseas.
Five. Living Your Life’s Purpose: Some people are so engaged and connected to their existing life in their home country that they will not be willing to give it up. If you are one of the lucky ones that is living their life’s purpose then you may be unwilling to give it up.
In that case, I would follow my heart and keep living my life’s purpose. In fact, that is what I am doing. I enjoy creating content about retiring cheap overseas as I travel the world. So I will not give it up until I am no longer intellectually capable.
But ask yourself one question if you are living your life’s purpose and don’t want to quit. Does my life’s purpose require me to sit in one place the rest of my life? Is there a way to live my life’s purpose while enjoying the world at the same time?
Could meetings be on video calls while I am living in paradise? Could I employ someone to do things that need to be done on the ground back home while I am in paradise? Is there a way to do my life’s purpose from another part of the world?
And if you are not living your life’s purpose, what will you do with your time in retirement? Many get bored in retirement after the first year or two. Maybe you could find your life’s purpose after you retire.
I have two other reports that explain how to find a purpose-filled retirement so you will never get bored and how to overcome the depression that some people feel in retirement. It can be as simple as helping other people in some simple way.
Six. Pension too Low: Some people just keep working until they are much older because they believe their pension (or social security) is too low or because they don’t believe they have enough savings to retire.
For example, if they want to retire at age 55, and their parents lived until age 80, they may estimate that they will live until the same age as their parents. So at age 55, they may estimate they will live 25 more years until they reach 80.
But, if their pension doesn’t kick in until they are age 65, then they need to support themselves for 10 more years before their pension starts.
If they have a 401k, they will quickly learn that they can not access those funds without penalty until age 59.5. But if they have savings or other investments, they may decide to use live on that until age 59.5 when they can access their 401k without penalty.
The problem with taking these kinds of risks is that there are too many variables that remain unknown. Like, what if they outlive their parents by 10 years? What if inflation ruins their plans? What if they have healthcare or other emergencies that cause them to dip into their savings and they have to go back to work? Will age discrimination keep them out of the workforce?
Many people just decide they are unwilling to take the risk. So they just keep working until they are older. The closer they are to death when they retire, the less likely they are to run out of money while they are still alive.
Inflation and running out of money are two of the biggest fears that keep people working until they are much older. Since this is the biggest fear people report, I will share my solutions to this one after I share reasons seven and eight.
Seven. Health Insurance Overseas: Some people self-insure when they retire early overseas. But that means you need to have a stack of cash to pay for whatever healthcare needs arise as you age. It is true that in some parts of the world, healthcare is both very good and much cheaper than in the USA.
However, most people would prefer to get healthcare insurance when they retire overseas. But insurance companies overseas are not always required to insure people with pre-existing conditions or to insure people once they get to a certain age.
To overcome these limitations, I have met people overseas who just plan on flying home if they get sick overseas. One guy I met in the Philippines, flys back to the USA every few years to get operations on his back that are covered by his senior care in the USA. So he just pays as he goes for his more routine healthcare needs when he is in the Philippines and flys home once every other year or so, to get more expensive procedures that are covered by his senior care in his home country.
Eight. Safety Net: When reading about strategies for retiring early overseas, many people learn about the concept of having a safety net. A safety net is one of the ways people overcome the fear of running out of money in retirement.
A safety net is a plan to have a reservoir of extra money (or an extra income stream) that will be available to you in case you experience multiple emergencies in retirement or inflation turns out to be higher than your estimates.
I am not a financial advisor so I am not qualified to tell you how large your safety net should be. But I will share with you how I set my safety net for retirement. I will include a link to my safety net strategy in the safety net paragraph at the first link below this video.
I would really appreciate it if you could share any other limitations that I missed in the notes below this video.
Okay, so I left three questions unanswered above. I promised to share how I overcame the two biggest fears, inflation and running out of money. And, I promised to share how I overcame the expectation barrier. There are two things I do that have helped me overcome all three questions.
Exploratory Visit: I do what I call an exploratory visit. I visit one or more target cities overseas. I stay long enough to determine what it would feel like living there. Is there enough going on to keep me entertained? Can I find the food I want to eat? What would it cost me to live there?
I go look at apartments and see what they cost. I go check out the restaurants and see if I would be happy eating there. I decide if I would feel safe living there. I do an estimate of the cost of living based.
So I go see it with my own eyes and decide if I can live there and what it would cost to live there. Once I have my own numbers, it is easier for me to decide if I have enough money to retire early overseas there and whether or not it meets my expectations for living overseas.
I have a course called the retire overseas course where I discuss how I do all this. I will put a video about that below so you can find out more if you are interested. The exploratory visit helps me overcome my expectations barrier and my fear of running out of money.
But an exploratory visit does not deal with my fear of rapid inflation. That remains unpredictable. So here is my …
Inflation Strategy: I have two ways I hedge inflation. First, I try to live on less than my monthly income. I am not able to live on less every month, but I do it as often as possible. I do my best to grow my nest egg monthly so I am prepared for unpredictable future inflation.
Second, I grow my monthly income each month. Somehow I knew I would get bored in retirement well before I ever decided to retire. I am one of the best people I know at goofing off. But I eventually get bored and want something more substantial to stay engaged in life.
In 2009, I read a book called The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris. In that book, he talks about starting an online Internet muse that throws money at you no matter where you are in the world. Since world travel was in my future I began reading about online businesses.
It took me forever to find the right online muse for me. I spent thousands of dollars on online courses, but none of it felt right for me. But eventually, I was able to create an online muse that makes money doing my favorite hobby–world travel.
In appreciation for your help in making all of my dreams come true, I created a course that will help you set up an online muse with your favorite hobby, and I am giving the course as a bonus to my existing and new members of VagabondBuddha.com.
Thanks for reviewing my report, Costs to retire in Ipoh Malaysia.
Please subscribe to VagabondBuddha.com or our Youtube Channel to watch us move around the world, 14 years and 67 countries so far. Make sure to grab a free copy of my eBook, How I Fired My Boss and Traveled the World for 15+ Years. It has most of my best tips and tricks.
This is Dan of Vagabond Awake, the Youtube channel for VagabondBuddha.com. Thank you for stopping by. The world is your home. What time will you be home for dinner?