Thanks to some particularly useful feedback from a new reader, we’re aware that if you’re thinking about retiring abroad it can be a real struggle to know where exactly to start with planning your relocation. Whilst one may wake up one day and say ‘I want to retire abroad,’ an awful lot more needs to go into the mix before you’re ready to board the plane to your new destination.
You have to decide on your destination for starters! And that may be a decision that’s based in part on your dreams and wishes, but one that is equally guided by your financial situation and the reality and practicality of what it will be like for you living in any chosen location…
So, if you’re at the point where you’ve said to yourself ‘I want to retire abroad’ but you’re wondering now where on earth you should start, this guide will be your checklist to your new life abroad.
Getting Your Finances Straight
Before you can realistically plan your retirement abroad you need to be in a position of strength with regard to your money matters. This means you need to have a complete understanding of how much wealth you have perhaps accrued with your savings and what sort of income you can expect from your private, occupational and/or state pensions. To this end it would probably make sense to sit down with a financial adviser and work out what money is where, and what the sum total of it will mean to you in terms of capital and income in retirement.
It is from this position that you can really begin to think seriously about retiring abroad.
If you’re unsure about how to gather all the information together that your IFA will need to assist you in determining how much wealth you will have to retire on, you can speak to your employer for details of any work based pension schemes for a start. You then need to collate all the paperwork you have relating to any other investments or savings that you have. If you do not have recent statements you can write or call the institution where your money is housed and request one. Finally, the Department for Work and Pensions will be able to assist you with a pension forecast. Call ‘State Pension first claims’ on 0800 731 7898 or the national helpline on 08456 060 265.
Where in The World to Live Abroad
Perhaps the biggest question of all relates to where in the world you should go and live in retirement. Although, having said that, if you have family already living overseas and you plan on joining them, then the decision will have been made for you! For everyone else there is a great deal of choice!
Consider making a series of lists – list one could be the countries you’ve thought you might like to live in, list two needs to be all the things you’d like to experience from your new nation abroad and list three is a very important one, it’s what you don’t want to have to put up with overseas!
With these lists in hand you need to begin your practical research. You can research any nations you have on the first list you drew up. These countries can be looked at to see if they tick the boxes on your other lists. For example, if you have Canada down as a potential country to retire to and on your second list you have down ‘sunshine’ as a requirement and you have ‘no snow’ on your third list, you can swiftly strike Canada out of the running!
The purpose of all of this is to break down to the very basics of what you want from your new life abroad, what you don’t want and which countries come closest to ticking all your boxes. If at the end of all this list making and research all you have is a firm idea of what you want and don’t want out of a new life abroad but no nations to consider, you need to come at it from a different angle.
Country Based Considerations You Might Like to Bear in Mind
If you’re retiring overseas and leaving family and friends behind, how often would you like to be able to see them? If keeping in close touch is important to you, think about the proximity of your new nation. Clearly the closer it is to your old home nation and the easier and more affordable it is to get to, the easier it will be to stay in touch with your family and friends. This could then lead you forward to researching nations close to home that might tick most of your other boxes.
As you’re retiring abroad you should try and give some consideration to the fact that you may see out your days overseas – or at least live there to the point in time when perhaps you may need a bit more care and even medical attention. Therefore, whilst you might be a sprightly 50 something now, in 30 years time things may be a little different for you in terms of your mobility perhaps, and so what is it really like in a given nation for older people. Are there the social and medical care services available. If so, will you have to fund them privately. If so, will you be able to afford to do so?
These considerations are horrible – who wants to ever make them – but you should consider them sooner rather than later, because if you leave it until later you may have no choices left open to you. Look into the realities of the health and social care services in a given nation and your eligibility for them – think also about costing out essential insurances that you might need to live in a given country comfortably through retirement. Such exercises will give you valuable data to move forward with.
Other considerations should go into the infrastructure of a given country – some countries that are popular with expats have terrible infrastructure! We’re not going to point any fingers here but we’ve lived in a few! Think about the roads, the drains, the availability of water in long summer months, the reliability of electric and Internet services. Also, can you get your favourite TV channels abroad – and do you even care?
Remember that even in the Mediterranean the winters are cold. Okay, so it is ‘relatively speaking’ – but you will soon acclimatise to the summer heat which will mean that winters that are mild compared to those in the UK for example, soon feel freezing cold and unbearably damp. You need to be ready for these types of reality before you go.
What to Do with a Country Shortlist
Hopefully all this brainstorming, Internet research and time spent in the library looking at travel books will have left you with at least a short list of countries that you’re considering retiring to. At which point it’s time you travelled to each country in turn and spent some time there. At this point a lot of people will laugh and poo-poo the idea. But hang on a minute guys – we’re talking about you changing your whole life, packing everything up and moving abroad – yet you’re not prepared to spend a bit of time and a bit of money visiting that country in a bid to get to know it better?
What’s that I hear? It’s just not practical for you to take the time out to do that? What? You can’t afford the money to do that? Oh dear. And what about if you instead commit everything you have to this new country, move there lock stock and barrel and hang all you have on the move only to find it’s not right for you. You can’t stand the heat, you don’t like the people, you’re bored, you can’t make friends, you don’t fit in, the red tape is too much, you miss home, you can’t get Coronation Street and the food is disgusting?
Do you see my point? You can’t afford NOT to go and spend some time in any countries you’re considering moving to! To NOT go is madness!
For Those Who Ignore My Advice…And For Those Who Don’t!
If you really do decide that you can’t be bothered/can’t afford the time or perhaps the money to go and spend some time overseas then you absolutely have to get on the Internet and get on the expat forums and begin asking all the questions you need to have answered about your chosen nation/s. Additionally, even if you have spent some time getting to know your new country abroad, expatriate forums are an incredibly good place to go to learn more about a new country abroad.
A word of warning however: people on forums tend to have an agenda. For some it will be the positive promotion of the nation, for others it will be quite the opposite. You don’t often find middle ground so you need to be aware of this and take everything you read with a little pinch of salt – i.e., don’t let anyone put you off your dream, but at the same time, do remember that there is good and bad in every nation in the world!
Forums are a good place to reach out and make contact with those who have already relocated to the country you have in mind. You can potentially benefit from their experience – but don’t make yourself a drain on anyone else’s time – there are some things you will have to figure out for yourself when you do finally move!
Forums are also a good place to communicate with others who are in a similar position to yourself – you can even perhaps arrange to meet up with other would-be expat retirees and share all your thinking and experiences. Finally, forums can help you form friendships before you even move abroad – and because building up a core of new friends and acquaintances will be so very important to you when you do become an expat, this can make the move so much easier and allow for a smoother transition into your new life abroad.
Conclusions
These are the very first steps you need to take on the long journey ahead of you. You want to retire abroad – so make sure you do it right! We will be producing another guide all about the practical steps you need to put in to make the move abroad happen, and then a final guide to making it work for you overseas. These guides will together form a complete ‘to do’ checklist that you can pretty much follow to map out your path to a brand new life abroad in retirement.
Other Articles in the Series: -
How to Retire Abroad Practical Checklist
How to Make Your Retirement Abroad Work
