Life in retirement else where

A couple of days ago I was watching the news that they did a story about a couple of retired foreigners living in Malaysia. It got me wondering, how much do we need to actually retire?
So it got me thinking and I start punching the numbers in my mind. For a normal American to be living in U.S.A. without saving for a Ruth 101, you may not have enough to stay in America, because of the Health Insurance and all. But if you have retired, that means you’ll have life support every month, which will not be enough to cover even your daily expenses.
Maybe if you are staying in a expensive area, you might want to consider to move to a place that’s less expenses, on rent or real estate or food or gas. Well, gas you can’t escape if you still stay in America. Go inland. Be creative. Live in the suburb than the city. Half an hour to the city isn’t really that far.
Have you ever consider staying outside of America? Canada, Australia and Europe is a bit too expensive, but why not consider India and South East Asia.
Though India may be too crowded.
Well, why not Malaysia? It dawn on me really when the news feature is about the couple in Malaysia.
Here we have newspaper in 4 languages, with English, Malays, Chinese and Indians in all news booth. There’s McDonalds and KFC and even Kenny Rogers and Starbucks in every major city. If you are living in the suburb the rent is only less than 100 bucks and most area in the cities won’t go higher than 300 Bucks a month. We have the widest Broadband coverage with easy access in almost everywhere. That’s including even the smallest villages, because it’s run by the telephone company, as long as there is telephone line running in the area you can apply for the access, which is only 20 bucks a month. The only reason there’s at least 35% of the locals don’t have access to the broadband internet is because they are old folks who are not computer literate. So all children and adults he have enough coverage for broadband access really and You can video conference with your family abroad all you want. Other than that we also have satellite cable, which at the cheapest package at less than 20 bucks a month, the highest won’t even get over 50 bucks. You can get all the latest news and tv cable channels you are getting in the US. Well, besides that with the high gas prices, the Gasoline prices here is less than 30 bucks a gas tank. If you are like me who like to go about a bit a week you may need only 30 bucks. Of course, the most important thing is the normal stuff. Food are not really that pricy. Food at most of the food stall here is about 1-3 bucks a meal per person. Most stall are within walking distance. And you can choose from the most tasty and original, Chinese, Indian, Malays and fusion food. As I say fast food are available in most mainstreet. Western are available in most food stall if not all at a higher price, about 4 bucks a main meal. For gourmet food there are plenty middle priced food less than 10 bucks a meal. There’s plenty to choose from. But if you choose to cook at home like me, you can get the vege and meat from most market. Vege is at about 30 – 50 cents a kilo and meat are a bit higher, about 3-5 bucks per kilo. It’s cheap. I bought my grocery with less than 10 bucks a person for one week’s worth of food. And with chocolate or ice cream or pasta may reach 15-20 bucks a week max. It’s really affordable. And you can get all foreign or tropical fruit at less than a quarter of the price you paid for in US.
All together every month you only need around 300-500 bucks depending on how much you need to travel or eat, that’s including unlimited cable and internet access and a family packaged cell phone.
That’s cheap enough for me. And if you are worrying about healthcare, there’s clinics at almost every block of the city and every suburb, who pay house call. There’s no high rise healthcare insurance premium every month, and if you want to get one you can at your own will. Every trip to a normal clinic for normal diseases like a sick stomach, flu or fever would only cost about 10 bucks at most. That’s including one week’s worth of prescriptions filled. So there’s no reason to worry. The most expensive only happen in specialist hospital which may cost about 100 bucks a night. Government hospital is a bit packed but it’s free.
Oh! One more reason to stay in Malaysia is that Asian country’s bank gives the highest interest rate in the world. If you have a saving of close to 300 thousand, the monthly interest alone is enough to support a modest life here in Malaysia, and I mean not one penny you need to lose every month you can survive here. That’s a really good deal after my calculation. If you have a million bucks or even 500 thousand you can already feed a family of 3, including the kid’s formula, tuition funds and everything, with just the interest rate from the bank. So can you imagine that? You don’t have to work. Imagine if one of you can get a part time job? You can live like a king really.
I just thought if you really are fearing your world might collapse holding around 500 thousand in your retirement fund and don’t know what to do with it. Maybe moving to a foreign country could be one of the option.
One more thing if you are worrying about political instability. If you are not in the Capital central every hour of the day, you can hardly feel the pinch. Political discussions are pretty private. And most political games are played by the politics not the common citizen. And Malaysia besides the drama that the politician are playing in the media. The normal citizen sadly/ or should say are gladly not to be included actively, there’s hardly any effect on the normal living lifestyle of the normal citizens.
Not to mention, that we have some of the beautiful beaches. Oh! Beaches area are mostly village and not consider city area. If you live like 10 miles from the beach, you’ll be in some of the cheapest suburb in the area. And the cheapness is not because it’s not safe to live. It’s just cheap compare to US standard it’s middle class to Malaysian standard. And some of the most amazing malls, and one more fact is that we have the most sophisticated Cineplex at only 3 bucks a tickets. Cheapest even in Asian standard. So here you have it, why I’m such a movie and TV buff. As for the music side, that ‘s my interest. The textile and CDs and DVDs product tax are a bit high here. Yet still the price is almost the same as American and lower than European, only we are not the cheapest in Asia.
So if anyone of you are looking for a good trip here. Give me a call. I rent a whole apartment at only 100 bucks a month with 3 rooms and 3 bathroom so it’s comfortable. Only an hour drive from the nation capital. And trust me even if you are a bit celebrity in America, they hardly notice you if you are not on a promo tour. Who’d believe that a celebrity would go out to the mall with a normal dude? HAHA! Well anyway if anyone does realise you can simply come back to my peaceful apartment or just hop on the next plane home, it’s just 30 min drive from where I am. But I’d probably skip you 2 my home town where there’s even less media and celebrity doob people there. It’s more like a small, really small town with about 2000 people minding there own peaceful everyday life. Asian local are pretty free spirited and none of those celebrity drama, unless you are in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, where it’s so small and you have no where to escape. Malaysia, it’s small enough to go everywhere in a week, big enough to have plenty of geographic and locale buffer, it’s progress enough that transportation is just one carpool or bus ride away and it’s modern enough that you can get the comfort of every normal things and beyond in technology you all have in U.S.A. Our villages and small island villages have even better access to Broadband and Satellite television than the cities. So you can imagine, we are no less knowledgable than any people around the world or developed country. In some way we may have more, just that the general funding pool and income per capita here in comparison might be lower than the western and the Down Under. Which is a perfect place for high income per capita country’s people to stay in if they have enough and no need to work anymore or have less worries.
We have the most advance and largest indoor rock climbing facility in Asia and second in Karaoke facility than those in Japan I think. There are still plenty of fitness and yoga facility here and dance studio is a sport here. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it here. For about a couple of month that is before you get bored HAHA!