Here are sample budgets for the cost of living in 13 overseas retirement havens.
- Buenos Aires, Argentina: $4,000 per month.
- Cayo, Belize: $2,200 per month.
- Maceio, Brazil: $2,700 per month.
- Medellin, Colombia: $2,000 per month.
- La Serena, Chile: $2,500 per month.
- Cuenca, Ecuador: $2,000 per month.
- Bearn, France: $3,000 per month.
- Abruzzo, Italy: $2,400 per month.
- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: $1,600 per month.
- Puerto Vallarta, Mexico: $2,500 per month.
- Panama City: $2,500 per month.
- Chiang Mai, Thailand: $1,200 per month.
- Atlantida, Uruguay: $2,300 per month.
These budgets should serve as a starting point for the cost of living in each of these countries. It's not going to cost you exactly $2,300 per month to live in Atlantida. Your cost of living could vary dramatically from these figures, depending on the spending choices you make.
While you could spend more living in any of the places listed here, you could also spend less. These budgets include generous allowances for rent and assume a one- or two-bedroom apartment in a central location. They also include the cost of in-country health insurance, entertainment, in-country travel and regular household help. To further cut costs you could rent someplace less central and nice, spend less on entertainment or do without household help. You could also reduce your in-country travel budget to zero if you had to. You can build these costs up or scale them back, controlling your cost of living according to your circumstances and priorities.
It is possible to make a move overseas on a strict and fixed budget of less than $1,000 per month. You could live on this budget easily in Thailand, by paring back allowances for household help, entertainment and travel. You could also manage a comfortable, interesting life on a very modest nest egg in parts of Panama (outside Panama City), parts of Ecuador and in Medellin, again by scaling back on nonessentials and renting an apartment outside the central and expat-popular neighborhoods used for the budget calculations above.
