I recently read two articles on the Retire for Less in Costa Rica Blog that really sum up what we have been thinking and what shaped our decision making. These articles have helped me describe to others why we are moving now.
The first was written by a former Financial Analyst and takes an actuarial point of view to the subject. In “What Does It Cost You NOT to Move to Costa Rica?” Bob Evans points out that when you get within a few years of retirement, the benefit of those last year’s tend to be very little.
In my case with my Military Retirement already secured, working an extra 5 years at my second career was only going to make a marginal difference in retirement pay. The value of spending those 5 years with my wife full time far outweighed the little bit of money.
The second article, “Five Good Reasons to Consider Retiring Abroad” generated a bit of discussion on some of the Facebook groups. Although some people felt the low cost of Assisted Live was the high point, I focused on item #1. Americans live on average 19 years after retirement, I wanted more time to enjoy the time I have with my wife. We are best friends and enjoy doing so much together. In the last few years those special adventures have been few and far between simply because of work and other commitments.
In our final analysis we discovered that we were at a point where we would be much better off moving to Central America than staying put and working ourselves to death, literally.