With regret I have to confess that we do not have five millions in savings, therefore we have to come up with the alternative way:  either dramatically reduce our spending during retirement years or retire later.

After the long painful discussions we agreed that we do not want to work till the full retirement age, 66-67.  We are getting older, it takes more time and efforts to find the next job after the next re-organizational announcement (a.k.a. lay-off), the competition with the younger workers is increasing, the salaries are decreasing, etc.   Whatever we will be making we will be spending to keep and maintaining our level of living with the minimal savings that will be eaten by inflation. Another 12+ years of hard work just to be where we already are! Besides, some of our older friends, who were able to stay on the job market till their full retirement age, look and feel like now as the squeezed lemons, with no energy left and with no money saved (the last is the more sad that the first one).

All these calculations and “what if” analysis made us to conclude that we should start to search for another “paradise” where we can spend our early retirement years without compromising the quality of life and not killing ourselves on the “workplace battlefield”.  Besides, the health is not what it was before.

Now, we need to calculate how much we need per year to live in that “to be identified paradise”.

After the reading and research you starting to get the idea how much you need to live there.  The monthly budget according to these magazines could be as low as $900/mo. However, I realized that this life style will not be for us. Most likely, for our lifestyle we will need $2,000/mo in the third world countries in Latin America or Asia.

My husband and I traveled a little bit in Asia, and we feel that that should be enough.  We continue to interview people (expats and citizens) form countries on our list, and their numbers are much below $2,000/mo, which are the good news.   As you will read from the web sites mentioned on this blog, to live in Europe you need more.