Thinking of retiring abroad for economic reasons?

Thus, we are planning on a split year...retiring abroad for only 6 months and returning to the states for 6 months

Then, the header on your website is simply misleading.

I don't understand why the header would be considered misleading. Is there a time limit on retiring abroad? Aren't snowbirds, winter refugees? Does one have to make a permanent move to one location to be considered an economic refugee? Weren't Katrina victims refugees?

In my (modest) opinion you should reconsider the name of your site. Refugees are people who are on the run or runned away from their country, not of free choice but because of either political,economical or natural disaster or even all of these reasons.
Economical refugees are people from the third world looking for a better life in a richer country. Birds migrate to other places due to climatic reasons, their survival instinct tells them so but if the weather changes their behaviour also changes.Not of free choice or after some consideration like humans mostly do.
As to the people hit by Katrina they had to run for their lives and to save their loved ones. I would say it's not the same as retired people who decide to move abroad because of the sun or the cheaper lifestyle.

After this I would just say: nice weather is what it is:just nice weather, but when you grow older you want good healthcare and at the end you want your loved ones around you and your ashes to be spread on the earth you came from.
Many people end their days in misery away from their homeland, because they haven't got the means to go back.

Just take a holiday whenever possible and enjoy the preparation of it, the holiday itself and maybe most of all going back to your own place and seeing it all again.
There is nothing greater than this feeling of being at peace with your life the way it is and having the feeling of belonging somewhere.

You can call it what you like as long as I can get some information on travel locations that I might be interested in living in for an extended period of time.

And immigration departments could check it for undesirables.

You can call it whatever you want gypsytoes and I wish you well with the website.

Having first hand experience of expat living in several countries, I 'll tell you this. Moving from a first world country to a second world country because you think your money will buy more is never what people think it is going to be. I've been living as a retired person in various countries for 19 years now and what I slowly came to realize is that it's actually very simple if you think of it in the right way. What isn't simple is finding a way to explain it that is simple for people to understand.

Downsizing your house is easy to understand for example. People who retire do that all the time. Sell the 4 bedroom family home and move into a 2 bedroom condo. Then they discover they miss having their own backyard, have neighbours who cook foul smelling food and stink up the hallway of the building. Another neighbour who plays their TV too loud etc. etc. Condo living they discover is not all it's cracked up to be. And if you think about it, who are the other people who buy condos? First time buyers getting onto the property ladder. The difference is simple, first time buyers are on the way UP while the retirees who buy are on the way DOWN.

Retirees contemplating retirement in a country with a lower standard of living THINK they will be able to live well on less money. So do retirees buying a condo. What both discover is that you have to give things up that matter to you. What those things are vary by individual but what is universal is the giving up of something.

The ideal retirement is to be able to move to a country with a HIGHER standard of living. That's moving up the ladder. Moving to a second world country is moving DOWN, no if, ands or buts about it.

You and others may think, 'oh that doesn't apply to us, we want a simple life, etc., etc.' You're wrong. You tried living in a poor country for a year. No big deal. I find it takes at least 3 years to really get to know a country and the honeymoon period can last for up to 2 years. Half those who try it return home (if they can still afford to do so) in under 2 years but in my experience 90% return within 5 years. Those are high odds and should be enough to give anyone pause for thought.

Look at any group of expats in any of these second world retirement countries and what do you find? The same types of people in all of them. Those who have been there under 5 years are usually the biggest percentage. The next biggest percentage are those who are sitting at the bar every day. Then there is a tiny number who have integrated, accepted the differences and shortcomings and are enjoying their life. If asked they will probably admit the choice will possibly shorten their life (healthcare) and they have no idea what they would do if they lived to be 90 and needed the kind of care provided in a carehome in a first world country but they are the kind of people who can simply avoid thinking about those kinds of things at all. Being in that last group is fine right up until the day you get ill.

My advice to any 'ecomic boomer refugee' is try to find a way to retire comfortably in the highest standard of living country you can. Don't look for ways to downsize, look for ways to keep moving UP.

Excellent points, Resurgam. That's exactly why I want to debate the pros and cons on my website. The problems that you speak of are the same problems that we encountered living in Nicaragua. Our options now are to split our time abroad, or find another country where the standard of living is higher than ours, yet the cost of living is lower. I have no idea where that may be.
I just got my December heating bill. It is $375 and sure to go up in January because we are presently having a cold snap... near 0 degrees...and I live in the south. Brrr. I don't want to be here in the winter, yet I am not ready to sell out and move.
We can rent our house easily for the winter months..we live near several large universities. Then, move to a tropical island for the winter months and return near the end of spring. Now, I call that an economic improvement. I'll let someone else pay the winter heating bills. :-)

Well my electric bill (all heating, air conditioning and everything else in our condo) is under $100/mo. average in the south Okanagan gypsytoes. You could also easily rent it in the winter months to Snowbirds from Alberta and Saskatchewan who come here in droves. So where to find as high a standard (there isn't a higher one) at less cost is perhaps closer than you think.

As for, "That's exactly why I want to debate the pros and cons on my website.", what I am saying is there is nothing to debate. The outcome is a known.

The outcome is a known............................. death is the only known, the rest is an interpretation.

If that narrow definition of a known is all you know then I guess it's all you know V200. Me, I have a rather broader definition based on experience. For example, I know if I go to the supermarket tomorrow I'll be able to buy an apple or a banana or an orange. Will I be able to buy a rotten apple? Maybe, maybe not.

Now the way I interpret that V200 is that whether someone will be the 1 in however many that make a success of retirement to a 2nd world country is an unknown. What is a known is that the vast majority will not make a success of it. It's a simple mathematical equation which can easily be proven to be true.

5 go home.
3 sit and drink.
1 denies thoughts of the future until it's too late.
1 plans (and can afford) to go back when they need to.

That's a 100% known outcome and any variance in the percentage is negligible for the purposes of figuring out what your plan should be. There's nothing left to debate.