Retired expats are growing in numbers, but there’s still only a tiny percentage of all retirees that have decided to move abroad.
Some 30% of new retirees stay close to home and the grandkids and another 25% stay put because of health care concerns.
Those who do move overseas generally head for the sun and a low cost of living with affordable health care.
Only small numbers reach Mexico, the south of Italy, or Argentina.
Most people become attached to their tiny piece of the action and lifestyle, no matter where it is or how good it is.
This has always puzzled me.
We typically back into a particular career and lifestyle when we reach 23.
At least that was my case.
We start a career and develop a lifestyle.
Then–and here’s the part that gets me–we spend the rest of our lives fiercely protecting our position.
It’s as if we believe there will never be an alternative.
We stay in our comfort zone even when we outgrow it and it becomes uncomfortable.
Often a person might take it to extremes, and find a place to live in a given neighborhood, and then spend the rest of their lives fiercely refusing to move.
Individuals turn down the transfer, the better job in another location.
Whatever our little turf happens to be, for whatever accident of circumstances and fate, we want to hang onto it at all costs.
No other place on earth can possibly compare.
Ridiculous.
Or maybe not.
I remember some sociologist researched the worst place to live in the U.S.
He concluded that the worst of the worst was Cabrini-Green, a housing project in Chicago.
Garbage in trash chutes piled up to the 15th floor.
The housing authority had to enclose the entire exterior with steel fencing to prevent residents from being thrown off.
So, researchers went to the people who live there, asked them if they wanted to move.
“You live in the worst place in America, would you prefer to live somewhere better?”
The answer, in virtually all cases:
“No.”
They’d developed bonds of community and mutual support, and wanted to maintain the community intact–no matter how sorry its shape.
In thinking about retirement abroad you’re either one of them or one of us.
If you’re one of them you cling to the known: your job, your neighborhood, your way of doing things.
You fiercely resist change and moving out of your comfort zone.
If you’re one of us, you long for a new adventure, a new challenge.
You push beyond your known limits, allow yourself to make mistakes and learn from your life experiences.
Make sure you know where you are on this changing spectrum before you make your retirement plans.
You want to choose a retirement that fits.
You should only consider moving abroad when you like change, new experiences, and new ideas.