5 great retirement places where $30k a year is enough
Retire overseas in one of these perhaps unlikely cities or regions and you'll live fine on 30k a year.
The higher medical expenses rise and the lower incomes fall, people saving for retirement see the potential for a comfortable departure from work receding farther and farther into the background.
In fact, a GoBankingRates survey finds that a whopping 19 million people, including 9 percent of boomers and 9 percent of millennials, say they never plan to retire at all, while 23.9 percent of respondents fear never being able to retire.
What if you’re one of them?
What if you look at your retirement accounts and shake your head, knowing that your property taxes just went up by $600 a year (again) and your projected Social Security check would barely have covered that payment as it was? What if every time you go to the grocery store you feel as if you should have brought home a lot more bags for the money you spent? What if at your latest doctor visit you found out that you still haven’t met your deductible and you’re out nearly $10,000 already—and you’ve already realized that you won’t be able to afford coverage next year anyway?
Well, as the old Petula Clark song says, “I know a place where you can go”—or, rather, International Living does. In fact, they know several places where you can actually live comfortably in retirement on a scant $30,000 a year.
Sound too good to be true? Not so, although you’ll have to leave the old U.S. of A. behind to do it. Still, there are plenty of compensations to be had by doing so, if you’re adventurous (or desperate) enough.
If you’ve never considered living abroad, just review all those hefty expenses you face during a Stateside retirement—rising gas prices, soaring medical bills and insurance premiums, the potential fallout from newly imposed tariffs, and the relentless rise in the cost of living—it’s worse for seniors than it is for the general population, thanks to their greater spending on things that rise in price faster than the general cost of living, you know.
And then think of all the potential benefits that await you on foreign shores: more temperate climates, perhaps (especially if you live in the northern part of the U.S.); lower utility bills; lower prices for lodging; cheaper (and sometimes better) access to medical care; the availability of public transportation; a new country to explore; the opportunity to mix with other expats and make new friends…. You get the idea.
Here, in no particular order, are the five countries International Living highlights as the five best places to retire where you’ll be able to live on less than $30,000 a year. Locations offer you the choice of Latin America, Europe or Southeast Asia, so you can select the country that most appeals to you:
5. Mafra, Portugal.
Fifteen minutes away from great surfing, and just 21 miles from Lisbon, Mafra offers parks, a major palace and former royal hunting grounds. Not only is there the opportunity for an active social life with cafes and bars, the town’s cultural center is one of the providers of events including plays and concerts.
A cheap ($5.30 one way, $8.80 round trip) express bus ride to Lisbon will get you there in 40 minutes, while at the opposite end of the line you’ll find those surfing beaches at Ericeira. Oh, and a couple can “live well” on $2,034 a month.
4. Cuenca, Ecuador
Move here if your thing is seeking out festivals, food and scenery; the UNESCO World Heritage Site and third largest city in Ecuador offers all these and more. It will cost you more, of course, if you travel, but if you don’t, you and your significant other can enjoy retirement on a mere $1,680 per month.
You don’t need a car to get around and it’s safe to walk to where you need to go (as well as pleasant, in Cuenca’s temperate climate). And rent on a 3-bedroom condo with 2½ baths will only set you back $700 a month.
3. Central Valley, Costa Rica
One person living here will be able to do so comfortably enough on $1,500–$1,800 per month, with the more frugal able to do it on less—while couples will be “liv[ing] well” on $2,000 per month.
The Central Valley not only offers small villages where you’ll find other expats, there’s plenty of variety in your surroundings, the report says, including “elegant residential communities, excellent medical facilities, first-class shopping, splendid restaurants, and spectacular natural wonders, including volcanoes, soaring waterfalls, roaring rivers, and wildlife-filled forests.”
There are Pacific beaches for vacationing, too, and aficionados will find that coffee is grown in the Costa Rican mountains.
2. Pedasí, Panama
Four hours from Panama City, Pedasí is a fishing town on the Pacific coast, surrounded by cattle ranches and cornfields and with beautiful beaches just outside town.
To live here comfortably, you’ll even be able to travel on $2,000 per month, with one American retiree couple reporting prices of $1–$2 a bottle for beer, a housekeeper who takes care of a half day of indoor tasks for $15 and handymen and gardeners who will keep things up to snuff outside the house for $5 per hour.
1. Phnom Penh, Cambodia
A low cost of living coupled with a high standard of living, says the report, means that a single retiree can do very well in Phnom Penh for the paltry sum of $1,150 a month—or even less. In fact, Cambodia itself is in the top polition in the cost of living category in IL’s Annual Global Retirement Index.
A one-bedroom, one-bath apartment in the city center—with a balcony!—runs $250 a month, while food costs about $200 a month; another $80–$100 a month takes care of utilities, including water, electricity, garbage, cooking gas, and drinking water.