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Besides having health issues living out of the USA you also lose your constitutional rights in whatever country you're living at. You're at the mercy of that country's or cities laws and regulations and could end up losing your residence for any amount of reasons. Politics plays a big part in most countries and many do not view Americans as desirable people living off their land. Some places you cannot own a home but have to lease instead.
The saying in Mexico is: Bad roads good people, good roads bad people.
Even the people from Mexico tell me stories about getting stopped by the police or robbed by other people. They have to have cash handy to give them if they demand it. Or else.
I think I mentioned this elsewhere but I’ll repeat it. I’m a retired clinical social worker who worked in a veterans hospital for over 35 years. We are located in Miami and had many many veterans who had retired overseas, mostly to Mexico, Central America, and Latin America. Everything seem to go well for many of them for several years. Unfortunately, once their healthcare needs became rather dire, they were forced to return to the United States. For some of the veterans it was a matter of needing family support/supervision. For others it was to have access to their VA medical care on a very regular basis ( some of them needed to be seen at least weekly because of the chronicity of their medical conditions).
I mention this because most of these individuals left everything in this country to go live their dream elsewhere. They sold their homes, businesses, if they had one, and most of their belongings.
One thing that served as a cautionary tale for me was that after having spent most of their funds while living overseas, upon returning, they were primarily subsisting on their Social Security check and/or veterans benefits if they were lucky enough to qualify for them. Many were shocked at the cost of living here. Most had nothing left from the sale of their homes or properties as they had spent it living out their dream years abroad . It was hard to see these individuals struggle to apply for benefits such as Food Stamps, subsidized housing, etc.
Having lived away for so many years, they have squandered a lot of their “family equity”. They have very few supports, many were estranged from their children and barely knew their grandchildren. They were surprised to see the ties that had been formed by their immediate family members and former friends in their absence, from which they were excluded.
I realized from working with the veterans and their families that it was not necessarily that their families did not care for them, but having not had interaction with them for decades, they did not feel a closeness with that individual. The veteran on the other hand, often returned expecting things to be just as they had been 20 years ago. It was quite sad. They came home out of necessity, hoping that family would take them in and provide them with care and found that family was not interested, not willing, or not able to provide that for them.
In truth this could happen to any retiree here, who expects family members to take care of them in their old age. However I saw that it was increasingly hard for these veterans as they hadn’t had a had or nurtured relationships with family members and old friends for many years.
As a native Spanish speaker, I would have no problem moving to any country where Spanish is a primary language, at times I have toyed with the idea of moving to Spain where my grandparents were from. But having seen and experienced with my former clients the reality of the situation that they experienced, I will probably remain here in this country.
I think many retirees are not aware of, or ignore how rapidly their health could decline and how much assistance they may require with their Activities of Daily Living (ADL). It’s certainly gave me pause and food for thought, as well as revisiting the idealistic plans that I had for retiring overseas when I was younger.
You make some valid points. For your reasons and more, I would not leave the USA and my family. Yes, I speak Spanish, but I am not fluent. I still would not leave our country and my family when so many are asking to live here.
Besides having health issues living out of the USA you also lose your constitutional rights in whatever country you're living at. You're at the mercy of that country's or cities laws and regulations and could end up losing your residence for any amount of reasons. Politics plays a big part in most countries and many do not view Americans as desirable people living off their land. Some places you cannot own a home but have to lease instead.
You make some valid points. For your reasons and more, I would not leave the USA and my family. Yes, I speak Spanish, but I am not fluent. I still would not leave our country and my family when so many are asking to live here.
The posting you cited is almost totally about veterans. My guess is that most retirees are not veterans, nor are most retirees to foreign countries.
I've traveled widely around Mexico, Central and South America and it's the unwarranted noise that stops me from moving down there. No noise controls. I was recently in Nogales at a dental clinic, a loud thumping boom car parked out front and that loud stereo music went right through the building. At least, in this country they've cracked down on these Noise Terrorists. Oregon: $1500 fine for playing loud music in your car. I spent enough sleepless nights in that part of the world. If you're deaf, no problem!
The sinking fertility rates in Latin American countries doesn't seem to show up on the radar screens of ex-pats, or future ex-pats. It's going to get increasingly expensive to retire down there, with fewer and fewer people. Mexico's fertility rate is down sinking to 2.1 or 2.0, large families are now history, and this new generation has no desire to do landscaping, clean houses or repair them, they want to sit behind a computer screen.
As far as the fear of crime, that's way down at the bottom of my fear index.
The posting you cited is almost totally about veterans. My guess is that most retirees are not veterans, nor are most retirees to foreign countries.
Veteran or not I felt that the point of the post was leaving family and people who could help you once you returned after being away for so long. I think some good points were made and something to think about.
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