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Europe doesn't want people who can't make it in the US. We have Texas for that. Anyway, I'd choose Mexico. More meaningful personal freedom than the US at less than half the price. And if you have a good retirement income, the door is wide open.
renting process is becoming just like buying these days. Landlords will advertise a rental unit and will open up the property for bidding. Highest bidder gets the unit.
Expat here, who has lived in several countries, few things:
1. You can’t move, live, or work long term in any country without a visa, period.
2. Europe is expensive as hell. You want cheap then try SE Asia or South America.
3. Germany, again, you’ll need a visa to move, live, and work there. They have strict immigration laws.
4. You better learn German. Germany is not an English friendly country like Netherlands. I lived in Germany for a year and was very dependent on Google translate.
5. You don’t need to apply for citizenship or marry some local. Again, you need to find a company who can sponsor you a visa, or be really rich, or have a remote job.
I'm a US citizen retiree (age 67) with a moderate retirement income from a corporate pension. I retired almost 5 years ago, and have spent about half of the past 5 years here in Germany. I speak fluent German, and I generally agree about the need to learn the language, especially living outside of the main cities of Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich or near the big US military bases (Ramstein, Grafenwoehr/Vilseck, Ansbach, Stuttgart). I live in Chemnitz, a medium sized city in eastern Germany, population 250K. One hour by train to either Leipzig or Dresden. Nobody speaks English to me, and I rarely speak English to anyone else - so far this year, I have only run into 3 Americans in Chemnitz, a couple of Mormon missionary guys on their day off, and last week a guy in a duo that performed a great concert in the city park.
In Germany as a US retiree, it is actually pretty easy to get a non-work residence permit, first time valid for 2 years and then renewable for longer - IF you have good, documented retirement income over roughly $2000 USD monthly (which is now about the same number of Euro). Social security or private pension income is what they like to see since it is a permanent income stream. You will need to know German pretty well to go through the process to get the residence permit. The caveat is first you need to find an apartment or home to lease under a contract and register as a resident of a city. Then you have to get health insurance in Germany - this is likely the hardest thing. Over age 65, private insurance companies don't really want you as a new customer. You will have to get a doctor's evaluation, and the insurance Co. will use any reason they choose to reject you. If you can even find one that will take you, they will charge a minimum of $600 monthly for coverage, likely much more. I found a plan by a private company under the government-regulated health insurance plans used by the majority of people in Germany which costs 15 percent of my monthly income.
After all of the above, you can apply for the residence permit. It can take 1 or 2 months to get approved and issued by the local Auslaenderamt (foreigner's office) and will cost 100 Euro.
Aside from paying about $350 monthly for health insurance, I pay $650 monthly for very nice, quiet, fully furnished and equipped apartment including all utilities - power, heat, hot water, water, trash, basic cable TV, high speed internet. I am 10 minutes or less walking distance to downtown, transit stops, many grocery stores and local shopping outlets. I don't have a car here, I use my bicycle a lot, and also local trains and transit. I wish I could find a setup like I have here in a medium sized city in the US, but have my doubts. I am stunned by the fast rise in rental prices and real estate costs in the US over the past few years.
Where the dollar has reached 1-1 parity with the Euro for the first time in the 21st century. And while our gas is at $5 a gallon , Germany is offering monthly unlimited travel by euro-rail for 9 euros a month that’s now $9 bucks a month to travel all over a country unlimited travel
We used to say live in America because take home pay goes way farther , there’s no taxes to pay for healthcare and parental leave and massive social services, BUT
With the doubling and tripling of monthly rents, that more than equates what is like an average Joe getting hit with an encroaching cost of living that leaves NOTHING to be saved . And doing a cost-benefit analysis on moving to Hamburg, Germany or Barcelona, Spain or somewhere in Prague or a villa in Montenegro and working remote vpn …. And having those costs of living
Yes it looks like it is for the first time maybe ever in recent history , mathematically true that you can save more money not living in America than you can living in America …. Because thousands and thousands a month for rent gas and medical and student loans is hitting us harder than European taxes are hitting Europeans
As others have no doubt already mentioned by now , one can easily end up having to pay the equivalent of 4,000 USD a month rent in certain parts of Europe , making the extremely broad comparison of the United States to an entire continent ( as typical ) rather pointless .
That said there are certainly still parts of Europe , like in my current neck of the woods , where one can not only spend much less than 4,000 USD a month on rent , but also live real well off exactly that amount .
Needless to say though that such areas are increasingly becoming concentrated in rural areas of the " easterly " parts of the Old Continent , which would non financially speaking be a rather tall order of potential places to move to for most Americans due to ( among other things ) an extreme language barrier .
While my own anecdotal experience naturally isn't gospel truth , I can nonetheless safely say that I wouldn't be able to lead a proper non full of constant annoyances existence in the formerly Habsburg hinterlands if I hadn't learned to speak advanced level Hungarian , and as it is there are still vast swathes of Slovakia and Croatia that are effectively closed off to me as places to live in due to the fact that my knowledge of Slovak/Serbo-Croatian is still very basic .
In short the decision to relocate to a part of the world that's culturally very distinct from your own shouldn't be made purely based on financial considerations , as attractive as it might seem at first .
P.S. As an aside while the situation with rising gas prices isn't as bad as it could be right now if I were to live elsewhere in Europe , since I can fuel up anytime I want to in Hungary , you'd be surprised as to how desperate many Austrians/Germans have become as a result of the overall fuel price scenario on the Continent .
I've been approached so many times by elderly Austrian/German retirees living in my current stomping grounds to obtain fuel for them that I've lost count and one can only guess as to how long the advantage of having Hungarian license plates will last if the EU honchos have their way :
First please most people in this country are not paying 4k rent, if you are it would be far easier to move to many places in America where you can rent or even own someplace for a quarter of that. Some people seem to forget all about "fly over country". And please Europe if you have that kind of budget there are many countries around the World you can live like a King, places where Americans are actually still welcome.
I'm a US citizen retiree (age 67) with a moderate retirement income from a corporate pension. I retired almost 5 years ago, and have spent about half of the past 5 years here in Germany. I speak fluent German, and I generally agree about the need to learn the language, especially living outside of the main cities of Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich or near the big US military bases (Ramstein, Grafenwoehr/Vilseck, Ansbach, Stuttgart). I live in Chemnitz, a medium sized city in eastern Germany, population 250K. One hour by train to either Leipzig or Dresden. Nobody speaks English to me, and I rarely speak English to anyone else - so far this year, I have only run into 3 Americans in Chemnitz, a couple of Mormon missionary guys on their day off, and last week a guy in a duo that performed a great concert in the city park.
In Germany as a US retiree, it is actually pretty easy to get a non-work residence permit, first time valid for 2 years and then renewable for longer - IF you have good, documented retirement income over roughly $2000 USD monthly (which is now about the same number of Euro). Social security or private pension income is what they like to see since it is a permanent income stream. You will need to know German pretty well to go through the process to get the residence permit. The caveat is first you need to find an apartment or home to lease under a contract and register as a resident of a city. Then you have to get health insurance in Germany - this is likely the hardest thing. Over age 65, private insurance companies don't really want you as a new customer. You will have to get a doctor's evaluation, and the insurance Co. will use any reason they choose to reject you. If you can even find one that will take you, they will charge a minimum of $600 monthly for coverage, likely much more. I found a plan by a private company under the government-regulated health insurance plans used by the majority of people in Germany which costs 15 percent of my monthly income.
After all of the above, you can apply for the residence permit. It can take 1 or 2 months to get approved and issued by the local Auslaenderamt (foreigner's office) and will cost 100 Euro.
Aside from paying about $350 monthly for health insurance, I pay $650 monthly for very nice, quiet, fully furnished and equipped apartment including all utilities - power, heat, hot water, water, trash, basic cable TV, high speed internet. I am 10 minutes or less walking distance to downtown, transit stops, many grocery stores and local shopping outlets. I don't have a car here, I use my bicycle a lot, and also local trains and transit. I wish I could find a setup like I have here in a medium sized city in the US, but have my doubts. I am stunned by the fast rise in rental prices and real estate costs in the US over the past few years.
Supply and demand. Flood the country with millions of illegal aliens (the Biden Admin is projected to admit 1.8 million to the US this year on top of the 1+ million admitted last year) and the demand for affordable housing FAR exceeds the supply, driving up costs.
Give me a ticket and enough to set up I’m out. Mexico has over 700,000 U.S. expats. It’s a beautiful country.
Just don't run afoul of the cartels.
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