Retire Early
Lifestyle
Retirement; like your parents, but way cooler

In 1991 Billy and Akaisha Kaderli retired at the age
of 38. Now, into their 4th decade of this
financially independent lifestyle, they invite you
to take advantage of their wisdom and experience. |
|
Get More -
Spend Less in Retirement
Billy and Akaisha Kaderli

Akaisha and Billy in front of a World
Map
Are you feeling financially
pinched with retirement just around the corner?
The Federal Reserve's 2019
Survey of Consumer Finances (released in 2020) found that the median
value of Americans' retirement accounts was only $65,000; the average, or
mean, account was just over $255,000. And only 50% of families had
retirement accounts at all.
I am
sure you are doing better than this, but $255,000 is not that much to fund a
retirement.
What to do?
Obviously
you need to invest as much as you can into low cost ETF’s such as VTI (Vanguard Total Stock
Market) and SPY (SPDR S&P 500 ETF), and the earlier
the better.
But what if you are nearing burnout and looking forward to
“telling the man I quit” but you are light on funds? There is a solution
where you can get more and spend less in retirement.
Look outside the US.
Let’s face it, the US is
expensive.
From dining out, to home maintenance, to health care, the costs
can quickly burn through your nest egg.
Why
not try some Geo-Arbitrage?
Your
money will go farther in places with a lower cost of living.
More and more people are
looking at alternative locations for retirement. Many have already settled
in Chapala,
Mexico and Chiang Mai,
Thailand, where
medical
expenses are a
fraction of the US prices and the quality of care much better.
We learned of this hack years
ago and our portfolio has gained markedly as our expenses were dramatically
cut leaving our investments to grow. By living in low-cost foreign locations
taking advantage of the strength of the US dollar,
our
annual spending is
much lower and the quality of life much better than had we remained in the
US.
Our first move was to
Chapala,
Mexico, an expat favorite. While there we
integrated into the local Mexican community gaining our Spanish language skills until we felt confident we
could easily travel throughout Spanish speaking countries.

Painted mural of Paradise
Guatemala, another Gringo
retirement magnet, lead us to
Panajachel, on the shores of the beautiful
Lake
Atitlan. Once again enjoying the low cost of living as compared to the
US we were able to leave our investments in tact, getting more value and
spending less.
Watching airline fares we were
able to fly to Thailand many times and enjoy the ancient city of Chiang Mai. That’s a
long way from the US, so in order to amortize our flight expenses we stayed
as long as one year. Once again we took advantage of the Dollar/Baht
exchange and the
high quality
medical care that Thailand offers.
Since we were in the
neighborhood, we learned that
Vietnam is an even better value, so we
traveled there a couple of times utilizing their quality textiles and
trained tailors to have clothes made.
Buy more, spend less.
More and more people from the
US and Canada are discovering the advantages of living in low cost places
where the weather is better and quality of life is high.
Perhaps you, too, need to take a
look at these locations even if it is just being a “snowbird”.
Check out our
Relocation Page
to find Expat Forums and chat groups where you can find out answers to your
questions and meet other Expats in countries like
Panama or
Ecuador. If you add
house
sitting to the mix, you can reduce your housing
costs considerably.
Another question we receive often from our Readers is
what to
do with their mail on long-term travel. Easy peasy!
Open up to
your options - You might make it a permanent move.
What's Your Number? - How much money do you need to retire?

About the Authors
Billy and Akaisha Kaderli are
recognized retirement experts and internationally published authors on
topics of finance, medical tourism and world travel. With the wealth of
information they share on their award winning website RetireEarlyLifestyle.com,
they have been helping people achieve their own retirement dreams since
1991. They wrote the popular books, The
Adventurer’s Guide to Early Retirement and Your
Retirement Dream IS Possible available on their website
bookstore or
on Amazon.com.



Retire
Early Lifestyle appeals to a different
kind of person – the person who prizes their
independence, values their
time, and who doesn’t want to mindlessly
follow the crowd.
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