I’m leaving this week for Philippines, where I expect to live with my wife on less than $300 a month. Nearly everyone there speaks English, a bonus. She has already found a temporary place, where we will be in a townhouse in a gated community in Cebu, far from mad Manila’s squalor. a bit above that budget, but very luxurious and fully furnished. That will give us plenty of affordable time to look around for something more fitting. Mindanao is much cheaper, but she’s from Mindanao and doesn’t want to live there.
I had thought about Ukraine, but its basically Siberia in the winter. Neighboring Moldova is nice too, the language much easier to master. Consider Kyrgyzstan, an emerging star for the expat market. An intensely beautiful country, very relaxed, very cheap. Relatively benign immigration and visa picture, easy to make visa run to Kazakhstan. Again, though, Siberian in winter.
While this is true, cities without a college in them have comparable rent from what I’ve seen as long as they are in the same area (the midwest). Cheap rents in Indianapolis or Cincinnatti are no more expensive than cheap rents in the college towns.
However, having said that at least in a college town if someone is poor that doesn’t mean they are dysfunctional. If people can only afford $300/month in rent, sometimes it is because there is something wrong with them (mental illness, unemployable, criminal record, personal strife, etc) as an adult. In a college town only having $300/month for rent is just a normal behavior from functioning people. Being dirt poor doesn’t mean you are likely to have something wrong with you in a college town.
However in a college town, the population changes constantly and most are younger than you. This can make socializing hard.
But you can get rent and utilities for $300-400/month if you shop around in a college town. Add in $50 for the bus and $200 for food, and your basic living expenses are covered for $600/month.
Nah. Ed Pankau bragged up it’s advantages of Belize to me almost 20 years ago. I retired from my first career in 2007 but didn’t get around to checking it out until last year.
It’s affordable but overall not as cheap to live in as expected. Also, much of it is like a 3rd world country. After the Brits pulled out a lot of the infrastructure was ignored. Many of the roads aren’t even paved. In the rural areas services are far and few between and in the more populated areas crime is high. After spending a couple of weeks there looking at properties and other factors my wife and I decided that when I retire for good Belize would not be the place.
You could probably get by on that in Thailand, at least outside of Bangkok, but I would never want to try it myself anymore. If you’re young enough, it’s an adventure I guess. But when you get to be my age, and you see some of these farang (Western) geezers try to live like that, it’s pretty sad really. I’ve known lots of guys who said all they needed was four walls and just enough to eat, but then they were climbing those walls after a few months. Living like a native loses a lot of its novelty before too long. Plus Thai Immigration is getting much stricter about foreigners.
But it might be fun for you to try for a while. Just be sure to have some sort of escape plan and not be stranded there like a lot of guys I’ve known. Even if they could scrape together airfare, which they mostly can’t, they have nowhere to go – they’ve been there so long that all their family back home are gone. But the Thailand of the 1980s and 1990s is no more. If I were a young buck again, looking for an adventure, Cambodia is probably where I would end up today, and I think your money will go farther there.
You can get those all things in many places in that area. The actual downside to Costa Rica is that, for me at least, it’s a kind of bland, culturally fallow, token of a country, without any real organic identity, and which, in many ways, is vicariously defined though the North Americans who retire there. And it seems most of the woman can barely dance. It’s more uptight than the surrounding countries.
Factors like language, climate and culture should make your choice. Thailand has about the same cost of living as Costa Rica, and has developed very rapidly in recent decades. Just as two examples: Chiang Mai is a nice city; Trat is a pleasant and inexpensive sea-coast city near the Cambodian border (and near Ko Chang) with several ex-pats.
I agree with this. But it isn’t clear that OP is a young buck looking for adventure; the more developed country may be more suitable. Medical care might be an important issue — I’ve heard of tourists in Cambodia being helicoptered to Thailand’s superior hospitals!
My wife and I have talked about moving to Chile. It’s a developed country with single payer health care and great metrics for poverty and economic freedom. The downside is it’s probably not as cheap as you’d prefer but if I was looking to leave the US that’s where I’d be heading.
As a lot of rural areas get increasingly hollowed out, buying or renting a place to live can be really cheap, and food and whatnot isn’t exceptionally expensive.
Regarding the ex-USSR republics, there is a real advantage to them. All the important infrastructure was already put in placed by the Soviet system – roads, utilities, medical facilities, universal literacy, distribution systems – so today’s struggling economy doesn’t have to build them. It significantly keeps the cost down, while still furnishing the amenities of a modern industrial state. Countries like Armenia and Kyrgyzstan have Africa-level per capita economies, but have all the appearance of mid-range developing states.
Not really looking for adventure, rather looking for a place where I can live in relative comfort possibly able to afford someone to clean my house as I have a hard time doing it for myself. I’ve got a wife and 3 small children, 7, 4, and 2. Anyone know about Grenada? I knew someone who visited there and seemed to think it was pretty nice.
Cuenca, Ecuador, is very lovely, historic and plenty of Westerners choose to retire there because it meets so many of their needs in a really, really beautiful spot. You can live a pretty nice life there, on not much. Check out some pictures.
I visited there once, it is charming in so many ways!
Portugal!
Wife and I are looking into it. Cost of living is about 30% lower than the US. Specific area to look at is the Algarve area in southern Portugal. Lots of history and culture. Also very safe.
Just curious - I assume the recommendation against Boulder is cost-related? I’ve only been there once, but thought it was quite charming. I could definitely see living there.
I read an article over the weekend (I think – but am not entirely sure – in the Chicago Tribune) that said that northwestern Mexico was a good place to retire. I think – but again am not entirely sure (a decent memory would be a handy thing to have) – that the city mentioned was Esmeralda.
At any rate the article said that you could live comfortably there on $1500US per month. Since it’s only about 2 hours to San Diego, you can get health care in either country.
The kids thing changes things a whole bunch. I thought you were asking about a single or maybe a couple. Do you really want to raise your kids in a foreign country? That isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it gets complicated really fast.
For an area of the U.S. you might want to think about, consider the general Fayetteville, AR area. It is one of the most underrated areas of the country IMO and it isn’t the hillbilly shithole that most people imagine it to be. In fact, it isn’t very poor at all and the cost of living is very low. Wal-Mart (and all of their associated vendors) are headquartered in the area as well as Tyson chicken. It is also beautiful. I have many family members that chose to live in that area and I always have to translate my Boston area prices to their much lower ones even though they have more than I do.
It would be inconvenient to support a family of 5 on $1900 a month but it is possible especially if you move to a more rural area just outside of the cities in the area.
Fayetteville, Arkansas sometimes ranks as one of the best places to live in all the U.S. and it is cheap especially if you are willing to go a little way out.