Thinking of retiring abroad for economic reasons?

Thanks, Lotus. :-) Sometimes these threads take on a life of their own. I have a few visitors. I'm trying to get more. Come join us.

600 plus views GT that would be a record!

You are a riot Mic - BP barked up the wrong tree when he thought you'd be insulted about pimping the Mrs. The day we walked into your lounge you were busy on the internet looking for a job for the Mrs.so you could get on with the next adventure. Mind you, these days Mr Living is equally cheerful. Why wouldn't he be? I'm up at 5 to get on with my day at the office while he likes abed living the life of a retired gent - a stroll to the gym, then breakfast and the paper, an hour of Sudoko, a chapter on the novel then finallllllly a look around the house at what needs to be done :) If I make more money than he does - he's DELIGHTED!

Guess that's the difference between our generation and BPs. Doesn't matter who makes the bigger bucks when we both get to enjoy it.

Meanwhile, in all his ranting BP has revealed an awful lot about his personal finances. All these years he's been posting as if he's some kind of financial oracle that we should all look up to. But just a few posts up there I was shocked to read that $35K is 35% of their annual income. Sorry Resurgan. These days $100K is chump change. Enough to survive on but hardly something to crow about.

Now get out there and start traveling and write about THAT on this board. A financial ghuru you are not.

Edited by: living

find me a moderator i think I am insulted but still thinking about it!.........good to see the warmth of Canada has not impacted upon the humour.

Well I'm the one sitting in a mid-6 figure condo that was bought for cash and generating a net income of $100k (I will admit to a small error above, the $35k is roughly 35% of MY net income, not OUR net income.) without working. So you might want to think about what kind of capital it takes to generate that income and have that kind of cash to buy a home when you move from country to country.

It may well be chump change to some living but I doubt you are one of those who would see it as such. After all, you're the one with the van conversion, going on camping trips with hubby and having to go back to work because you need the money to eat, not me. I'm the one taking my wife to Strasbourg and Basel for a long weekend to see the Xmas markets or last year, taking her to Geneva for a long weekend for Valentine's Day.

That I don't choose to write about where we travel, when or for how long, has a lot more to do with the prevalence of the green with envy responses you see here on the TT when anyone posts on just about anything other than staying in a hostel or taking a package holiday to Cuba, than with whether we do travel or not. In 2008 we spent about 4 months away from home on trips of anywhere from 3 days to 8 weeks. That's about average for the last few years.

I'm also quite comfortable travelling on a budget or 5 star all the way. Sometimes I travel on $100 a day on my own and sometimes I travel on $1000 a day with my wife. Now making that statement, you know what kind of responses it will get here on the TT.

pity is the word resurgam not envy.........pity for the scottish money machine, she is the one I feel sorry for.

691 views! Wow! What did I win? :-) Maybe there are people interested in retiring abroad for economic reasons....or else it's the mindless banter between two posters who have nothing better to do with their lives?

Hard for you to believe I am sure, but yes, I do know exactly how much it takes to generate $100,000 in income.

I think where the disconnect between you and so many of us is, BP, is that you think that is an extraordinary amount and the fact that you claim it makes you worthy of some kind of financial oracle status. It's not. In Canada many own(free and clear) six or seven-figure homes and bring in $100,000 pa off investments.

The next disconnect comes in regard to your thinking you are an object of envy for traveling 5. Again, not that interesting. In my professional life I've always traveled 5. Very nice but what of it? The fact that hubby and I toot around the continent in our converted van IS interesting to us. It is how we love to travel. We also like to ride local buses and cruise through the Mekong on the $37 ticket. It's not a virtue thing or a lack of money thing - just how we choose to do it because it appeals to us.

Third disconnect is regarding work. So what do you do all day? I LIKE to work. I like the intellectual stimulation, I like the sense of accomplishment. I like it that the work I do is focused on social change. I love the people I am meeting and the buzz that I get when a breakthrough is made. I cannot believe that my employer is paying me to take courses and learn advanced strategies and techniques in my field. My mind is sharp and my horizons are expanding. After four years of semi-retirement I am truly surprised to find that I get up every monring with a smile on my face. I am having a ball.

Do I do it for money? You betcha. We were living just fine off our portfolio but with the economic downturn it lost 20% of its value. Seemed to make sense to me to quit drawing off it and let it recover. I believe that I am about ten years behind you in age ...and probably about 30 years behind you in attitude, so that means I will be dipping into it for a long time into the future.

Going back into the full-time workforce for a year or two while my skills were still so highly marketable makes good financial sense. Who'd of figured I like it so much. But when you don't NEED to work, when you are free to tell the boss where you'll work, when you'll work, how you'll work, it changes everything.

Mind you, I don't find I'm interested in popping into TT so often, but that seems to have been a good thing.

Note how Resurgam's alleged annual income keeps rising when need be to salvage his financial guru status as others raise the bar for it, even at the high cost (to him) of admitting to have previously misstated it.

On balance, i'd be prepared to accept his original $35k and $65k figures as plausible, but feel that he may have gotten mixed up about which of the two incomes was his, and which was his Scotch wife's. Unlike Resurgam, she had worked long enough to have a pension, and, at 53, in the UK, $65k (Cdn) seems much more like it than $35K -
while $35k in turn is as much as one could expect from an early-retiring rolling stone.

I wouldn't go so far as to deny him guru status completely, however, since I allow as true his boast under a prior pseudonym that he doesn't pay any income taxes, nor - probably - does his Scotch wife - if she follows his financial advice.

No more from me on this one.........infact new rules for me if it isnt strictly travel related not a finger will strike the key.