Is it common for Americans with minimal pensions to leave the USA and go to significantly cheaper countries around the world where they will live like the upper class with their dollars?
Is it common for Americans with minimal pensions to leave the USA and go to significantly cheaper countries around the world where they will live like the upper class with their dollars?
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I could be wrong but I feel like if you have little or no retirement money, you probably don’t have the money to move to another country. You’d also be leaving any family support system behind plus any government benefits like medicaid/medicare or ss.
Edit; you get to keep ss
No
Not common, but it is becoming more popular.
If by common you mean the average person knows a lot of people who have done so, no. If you mean that out of 330+ million people tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands have, then yes.
No, they go to Florida
Not common, but it does happen.
Moving abroad is difficult even for young people, but it’s especially difficult for older people. And most older people don’t want to leave behind family, friends, community, especially as they get to a point in their life when they may need to rely on those more heavily. So even if it makes financial sense, it doesn’t necessarily make sense in other ways.
If you have the 1 time means to retire somewhere where you can live above the poverty line, why wouldn’t you?
No. Where do you think they would get the money to relocate their entire lives to a completely different country and continent?
I’m sure it happens, but it’s not common.
It’s very common to talk, dream, or threaten it. However, very few people actually do it.
My parents went to Costa rica
While it does happen, it is not common. Some people do move when they retire, either to a better climate or to be closer to family members. Most people would consider a move to a foreign country would be too far from family and friends.
One thing to mention is that enough people have done this that those “significantly cheaper” countries are now no longer significantly cheaper—all those American retiree dollars flowing into Costa Rica have driven up the cost of living for everyone.
Nope its not very common. There’s less than 1/3 of 1% of Americans retired abroad. and among those 1/3 are in Europe , which isn’t cheap.
The average social security check is like $2,000 a month, which I don’t think would have someone living like the wealthy do
Most Americans only speak English with Spanish the 2nd most common, so I think the appeal to live with a higher quality of life but not seeing your family often just isn’t appealing enough.
There ARE groups of Americans who move to Mexico for this reason. Odd side-note – there is a large population of Americans who live in a Caravan/RV full time and who will visit cities like Yuma, Arizona to cross the border into Mexico for really cheap American-style medicine.
Thats what a family friend of mine is doing. They are planning on moving to the Philippines this year, living off their retirement and their daughter’s disability (Which i dont even know if that’s even going to be possible)
No. You can’t just move to another country. You have to jump through legal hoops to get legal residency. This usually requires a job of some sort.
I’ve known several people who have done it, but it’s much more common to move to Arizona or Florida to retire. Because of the previously low cost of living there. Prices have gone up a lot though. My aunts moved to Idaho and built a house together.
I just read that 760k Americans have retired overseas. That’s about 1/4 of 1%. So, not very common.
I know a lot of those include people who were originally from those places, and are retiring because they have family and friends there. I have a good friend from Croatia/Bosnia whose parents, after living in the US for 30 years, retired to Croatia.
No, not very common at all.
Not common but it’s becoming more common. In the old days it tended to be ex-military guys who set up around old military bases in places like the Philippines. But I’m hearing more and more about retirement communities in the Caribbean.
The only person I personally know who’s planning on doing it though is married to a Filipina and so he’s really just moving closer to his wife’s family. Although finances definitely played a huge role in his thinking.
I don’t know anyone doing this but it’s smart
It happens.
It’s not super common – there are some logistical difficulties (language, distance, healthcare access, legal, family) on navigating the process to move to another country – even with no intention of working.
I wouldn’t say common but geographic arbitrage is a concept that comes up frequently in early retirement subs. There’s a decent number of people that save up an amount of money that would never support their lifestyle in the USA, but is in fact enough to support that same lifestyle in Cambodia, who move there and never look back.
It’s common enough to be noteworthy.
Most people who do it usually don’t have much family/network here and can get away with leaving everything.
I’ve never heard of that but I do know some Americans go to Mexico for medical care because it’s cheaper down there.
No. People who are wealthy enough spend their late middle age living abroad so that they can brag when they move back to Florida or South Carolina for medical care in their old age.
Not that common. More UK citizens go to Spain and places like that than Americans go to places like Costa Rica to retire. 4% to 1%.
My husband and I hope to do it when we retire! We’re only in our 40s so it will be quite a while, but we’ve started checking out some options on vacations like Thailand, Portugal, or Panama
Absolutely. Even on a state level. For example, many Californians retire in other states because the cost of living there is too high without a full income. So they move to neighboring states that are more affordable.
It’s not unheard of, but it’s really not that common. Personally, I only know one person who’s done it.
Not common at all, but military vets have a higher rate. Likely just due to exposure to more places and, perhaps, foreign brides.
My wife and I have considered it, but ultimately decided it wasn’t for us. I think we’d feel isolated after awhile. We do plan to do 6 months here and there, but not permanently become expats.
Not common. It’s more likely they’ll find a cheaper place to live in these here United States.
60 minutes or Sunday Morning literally just had a story about this yesterday (I can’t remember which – I think Sunday Morning)
I know one person that has done that. They moved to Mexico and rent a places after selling their home here in US. They do come back often now as one of their children had a baby. Their other child has had major health issues and while doing well now will never be able to have kids.
“Common” would be overstating it, but it definitely is a thing. I remember in Thailand I helped a random American guy in his 80s carry his bag onto a bus. He was retired there.
I was just talking to a friend who is middle class who is seriously thinking of living half the year in Costa Rica now that he’s reached retirement age. It is much cheaper than here but also much better weather.
But all in all it’s not that common. I have known a couple people who worked here in the states, made decent money and returned to their eastern European homeland.
My uncle is retired in the Phillipines after serving 20 years in the military. His pension affords him a pretty decent life style of hashing and whoring.
I imagine a good chunk of overseas retires are ex-pats
No not really
It’s not unheard of, but it’s not particularly common.
It’s rare, but I know of a couple guys who have done it.
Fractions of a percent, but definitely there are areas in Mexico and Belize (for example) with a lot of US retirees. The social security check goes a lot farther there.
Common? No. But there are a sizable number of people who do it.
It’s not common, but there are American’s who retire and move to places in Central America like Nicaragua where their life savings and benefits will carry them much further.
It’s not common, but it happens.
My dad is a doctor with a lot of elderly patients. Some of them are expats who go to him on their yearly visit home because they don’t trust the doctors in their new country. He says they have the most appalling collections of STDs he’s ever seen.
I’m not sure I would say common, but I know people that have done this, even with good pensions.
I would say its more common for people to retire and move to lower cost of living places within the U.S. I know a lot of people who spend a career earning in San Francisco or New York then retire to somewhere more rural. There are a lot of logistical and pragmatic challenges of moving to another country, however there is a lot of variation of cost of living within the U.S. that it is much more practical to relocate within the country when you reach retirement age than start a new life in another country, especially if you have family (e.g. grandchildren).
Yes, it’s pretty common. My wife and I will be doing it in about 2 yrs.
No, for the sole reason that they cannot afford to move.
Americans don’t often get pensions btw. Most have no retirement money but some people are lucky and will get a 401k which is tied up in the stock market so if stocks are bad then they have no retirement.
Rich Americans might get a pension but they often have a different retirement plan that will work better for them.
They were probably already upper class if they managed to get a pension at all.
We mostly move to cheaper states.
It’s not very common, but I do have one friend that moved to Mexico after he retired. He downsized a lot and moved down there.
No, not “common” though it does happen. Mostly people find cheap places to retire to IN the US.
It’s not common at all but it does happen.
With the current situation with the dollar, there may be a lot less people moving abroad in future.
Not common.
For wealthier people maybe. I don’t know anyone who has. They usually move to a lower cost of living part of the country if they move at all.
From what I see, the majority of American haven’t left the country. Yep, was curious and just checked. 48% of Americans have a passport. In 1990 it was only 5%.
I know a handful of Navy retirees who live in the Philippines for that very reason.
I think people don’t realize how difficult it is to permanently move to another country. I think in the US, we’ve been trained with the immigration debate to assume that people just move to the US, either legally or illegally as a matter of course, and then we don’t really think about moving to another country.
The fact is, most countries sort of make it difficult to just move to them permanently, usually WAY more difficult than it is to come to the US.
Add to the fact that you’re talking about a retiree with little or no pension or money, there is very little incentive for another country to want that person. They aren’t even working/tax paying age.
I’m not American, but I’ve met a few Americans living in Cambodia and the Philippines for this reason. They talked about very cheap rents and being able to afford cleaners and going out for every meal. At the same time they were struggling with the corruption, and social isolation that comes with being an immigrant.
Can’t get a job that’s going to pay you a pension anymore—that’s a long gone employment benefit. Or, if you do get a pension (some teachers still theoretically have them, and we union RNs in the Twin Cities metro do, too—they’ll never equal enough money to pay for much more than monthly utilities, and who knows if they’ll get axed)
Not super common, but it does happen.
Keep in mind, it is expensive to move to another country. A person with no retirement savings is unlikely to have enough money to pack up and move to Thailand.
I know of only one person who’s done this, so it happens, but it’s uncommon.
My husband and I have talked about it but we are going to need to be around for my parents as they get older. We already moved 6 hours closer so now they’re half an hour away.
Looking at how much my mom does for my grandmother (….everything-and she has 3 siblings) yeah we’re likely going to be needed close to them.
Pretty much everyone I know who can afford to is relocating internationally right now, thanks to the political turmoil.
Not yet retiring, but transferring their jobs overseas to countries where they have easy citizenship paths due to ancestry or expat incentives. That most countries are cheaper than the US adds to the appeal both for working and later retiring.
The minute our parents no longer rely on us, my family will also be off to Oz, Scotland or Portugal!
Not common, but I know a few people in my area who have retired to their places of origin. In Florida there are a fair amount of transplants so this likely higher than the national average.
The problem is the “minimal pensions” which, after taxes, might not be much at all. Pensions are not so common anymore and retirees retirees instead have Social Security and 401k’s. Social security minimum for someone with 30 years is about $1k/month according to a quick search. This will likely be less in a relative sense in the future if the current administration succeeds in their promised goals.
Some of my acquaintances have this idea that they could move to a country with government healthcare and not have to pay insurance. It doesn’t quite work that way but there are agreements with the US and other countries (or at least, used to be until perhaps recently :/ ) that may offset some costs.
Short of it is no, you can’t leave the US with a minimal pension and live like the upper class even in “inexpensive” countries.
No, while I’m painting with a broad brush, it’s also likely that they’ve never even left the country
Someone with minimal retirement savings at retirement has likely been living paycheck to paycheck their entire life and that’s not a good mix for international travel once you’re past the backpack/hostel stage
I wouldn’t say I live like the upper class, more like the middle class.
I retired in 2021 at age 57 and moved to Portugal which is one of the more popular destinations in Europe for American retirees. The numbers are not large—I think there are between 10,000-20,000 Americans here. In my case the move was not driven by cost of living considerations. Some people do become come here and live on fairly low incomes but they don’t live anything remotely like an upper class life.
I have some acquaintances who retired in Ecuador and the cost of living there is significantly lower than in the U.S. I don’t know if you’d be living an upper class life there on social security but I think you could live comfortably.
No, it is not common. Rare in fact.
No. There was a very small movement to Poland years ago when it came out that the dollar went further but most people stay in the US. It all depends on the retiree’s circumstances since there are so many.
People with minimal pensions usually stay where they are or are moved closer to their adult children often with the help of said children.
In the past folks with middle class income or above would retire to a warm state like Arizona, New Mexico or Florida. Given how expensive homes are that’s probably going to dwindle. The cost of homes has gone up 48.55% in the last 10 years. This is why most will stay where they are especially if their home is paid off. Even if it’s too big and needs repairs it’s cheaper to stay and deal with the problems than get a new home with a new mortgage.
The only people who would move to another country for retirement are the wealthy, well traveled, and people with family connections. Also where in the states and that culture matters too. I’m from Ohio, most people who retire around here go to Florida, historically. I lived in Colorado for a time and I heard many older folks talk about buying land in Mexico and retiring there which wasn’t something I had heard of before. There are lots of American expats who’ve retired there. There’s villages built from those villages where the elderly stay in their expat bubble and don’t socialize much with the local
culture. For most Americans tho that’s not a consideration. We get a lot of propaganda about how dangerous Mexico is, and I know many who refuse to travel there. Moving away from North America means leaving nearly everything behind for all but the wealthy, so it doesn’t happen much.
The problem is medical care as the older you get the more you’re going to need medical care.
Finding an English speaking country with decent medical care is difficult.
It depends; about 50% of the people I know who have retired in the last few years have moved to retirement communities in Belize and other South American locations. Some have even relocated to Eastern European countries.
I will consider it as well. In certain places, you can afford a comfortable lifestyle on social security alone.
Pretty uncommon, but not unheard of.
A major issue with moving from the US to retire in another nation is the nations which will see enough of a value jump on the US dollar to make it worth it rarely have a primarily English speaking population. It’s hard to live comfortably in retirement when you struggle with basic communication, particularly as declining health with age mandates more reliance on people around you.
Based on nothing but my own personal experience, I would assume that it is more common amongst US military vets retiring after putting their 20 or 30 years in.
A guy near me in Savannah is moving to the Philippines because it’s cheaper to live on his pension there.
My wife’s coworker just retired with a $3,000/month pension, having worked 25 years at a Los Angeles County hospital. That wouldn’t even cover her regular bills here now that she has retired… so she moved back to Columbia (where she grew up as a child).
That $3,000/month US would make her pretty danged well off in Columbia, where here in los sngeles, after taxes, she would be struggling in a small studio apartment, with a bus pass and eating Top Ramen
Many Americans retire at advanced ages if they have nominal retirement savings and/or lack of a pension. The counties that would be more affordable to retire to would likely be 3rd world and lack adequate medical care for those of advanced age. Most of those in that situation are staying in the US to take advantage of Medicare and social security.
Not common, but when people do it’s not considered odd or unusual.
I only know of one guy that did it. He retired to the Philippines. He was able to get the dual citizenship relatively easily because his wife is from there.
Yep. I know several. They’re in Mexico, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Uruguay, I believe. One just came back here for a visit last week.
Most other countries won’t let us move in, if you’re over 40 and not rich, no other countries want the financial burden of your healthcare.
it’s my plan
Retirees are known to move to Latin America where the dollar goes much farther. Not terribly common but not unheard of
Americans with pensions? That is a question for r/Ask1985 .
Not really.
There’s a lot of discussion about it but the total number of people doing it are pretty small as a percentage of retirees. Typically is makes more sense if the retiree or his/her spouse is originally from the other country to which they will retire, or if they have some other long-standing relationship with that country (e.g. going there on vacation every year for the past 20 years or something like that).
/looks out the window at that significantly cheaper country.
Not as common as it should be.
It’s not that common, though some do. More common is moving to a cheaper part of the country.
I wouldn’t say it’s common, but if I were single I might. And no, I don’t want to marry a younger women from Thailand. My wife wants to be able to see our adult kids and especially the grandkids. No, she doesn’t want to visit once a year by flying for hours to get here.
The social security office tracks where the money is going (direct deposit), and the number one destination is Mexico. The next biggest (at the time I looked years ago) was the Philippines. I have also heard that affordable economies for people spending US dollars are Ecuador and Spain/Portugal.
There was a time where I saw many videos promoting Belize, but I have heard that recently it has gotten expensive due to popularity. Its still nice, just not a “bargain”.
I was quite surprised to hear that recently, Vietnam is becoming popular, but I would recommend an extended vacation there to gather info before committing to moving.
I’m planning on it if we survive 10/15 more years. But I just want to live a normal life where my money will last
My parents paid off their house and plan to retire in Mexico where they were born and built their house too. Rent our the one in CA and hopefully enjoy their time. Not uncommon among Latinos if they can afford it. I hear its a joke of African parents sending money home too to build their homes.
I personally know one retired person that moved to Thailand and has been living it up there. The overall cost of living is exceptionally low in Southeast Asia, and what he gets for $500/mo (furnished apartment with laundry/cleaning/food service) would barely get you a roof in most places in the US.
Not exactly common but it does happen and I wouldn’t be surprised there is an uptick in this over the next couple of years.
A guy i worked with retired after 12 years. Goes back and forth from Ecuador and his son lives in Florida. Not living like a king but comfortable. But he’s the kind of guy that can adapt to any country he’s worked in.
It isn’t super common, but it does happen, and some nations encourage American retirees.
Costa Rica, for example, grants temporary residency (and can apply for permanent residency after 3 years) for anyone with a sufficient direct deposit set up in a Costa Rican bank. For retirees, that amount is $1000 per month – well within the average Social Security payment.
Most countries won’t let poor Americans legally immigrate there. I have tried and am too poor to do so.
There are 800,000 Americans living outside the US who receive Social Security checks. Half of those are in Europe. There are around 50 million retirees. I imagine there are a significant number of early retirees who live outside the US for cheaper health insurance.
It would be really hard to leave here. This is home. I think people w small pensions just live a more frugal lifestyle, or move to a cheaper state or city.
I don’t know how common it is, but it’s something that people talk about a lot.
I am quite sure it is more common with folks who are originally from those countries, or have a spouse from there like the Philippines for example.
I wouldn’t call it common but I’m sure it happens.
Now that im retired ive given this a good thought. My retirement here in the US is decent, but elsewhere id live like a king. The trade off is id be leaving my beloved country and unfortunstely, the cheaper cost of living i move to usually means a less desirable place to live in the first place.
It’s not common but people do it. It’s a bit of a risk because a person who goes to the Global South countries are possibly more likely to be targeted by some locals. Retirees also get killed and robbed in the US but there are usually better support networks and law enforcement.
Yes, this will continue to happen. American homeowners in California cities are selling their homes and still retire with ease in a lower cost state. They may choose to expatriate to low cost countries depending on their comfort level and language ability.
That does happen but it’s far more rare than moving within the United States.
I have known people who’ve moved to Valencia and Costa Rica for just this reason
Move to the USA when you’re young to make money. Move to Europe when you’re older for health care.
Nope
I’ve heard of it happening, but it is extremely rare
I have an aunt and uncle who retired to Costa Rica and my wife’s grandma spent 20 years of retirement along with her sister in Mexico in San Miguel. San Miguel is popular for American retirees.
Yes, there’s people that will do it. It’s not super duper common but it’s not unheard of either. Most people you know won’t do it. I have a circle of about 500+ friends, I know one guy who did it. So I assume that’s about the rate of it.
Not extremely common. A lot of countries have strict income requirements too.
Well I can’t say that I personally know anyone who has done this, but I know there are enclaves of retired Americans in places with lower cost of living.
If I was in a similar situation, I’d consider doing it, myself.
No everyone over 65 has a pension.