The amount of money I’ll be saving monthly as a result of moving overseas is downright impressive.
My Present Monthly Outlay for Basic Necessities:
Roof over my head, car insurance, and utilities: $1000
Gasoline: $75-100
Food: $300-$350
Internet/Phone: almost $100/month
Health Care: $235.00+
Misc: $200 (mostly for hen food/hen goodies/goat food/goat goodies, plus new tennis shoes twice a year, etc.)
Cost of living in Costa Rica:
Rent: $350 (to $800+) not including utilities (up to $100 more, max) for a decent one (to three) bedroom place
Transportation: $50/month (tops) unless I elect to use Uber in lieu of buses and taxis. Buses are almost free for seniors (about a quarter) and — after I’m approved as a pensionado resident — they are 100% free!
Food/groceries/cat litter: $300 tops for one person and one cat
Other Necessities
Eventually, CAJA health care, $144/month based on my SS income (no deductibles, no co-pays)
MediSmart discount plan (50% to 80% off medical services) for public health facilities: $20.00 ($17.50/month for me, $2.50/month for Charli) plus $17.50 for monthly finger pokes to check INR level
Phone Plan: $20/month
Internet: $35-50
So, yes, I can live comfortably just on my Social Security income, especially after I can drop the Part B Medicare part of it ($235) via a monthly fee-free Medicare Advantage Plan that’s honored in Costa Rica at Hospital Metropolitano. My broker believes there may be one available after the first of the year. (I also have a puny WB pension and a puny union annuity; they can be preserved to extend my ability to live longer while not outliving my money. Hurray!)
Given the political situation here these days, I don’t know why anyone would elect to stay here, when the cost of living is so much less in other parts of the world. The US is no longer a first world country or a democratic republic. There’s nothing here for anyone anymore unless you’re a white male supremacist misogynistic billionaire.
Even the millionaires are leaving
…according to a realtor I’ve been following. She says back in the day, when she served up to 120 clients per year, perhaps two households/businesses were planning to leave the country after selling their properties. Now that she’s semi-retired and has just 21 clients, more than half of them are planning to leave the country … and a fair number of them are millionaires.
Yeah, it’s time to rethink what kind of country you want to spend the rest of your life in and support with your taxes.
In Costa Rica and other countries, taxes go to pay for citizens’ universal health care, all levels of education, environmental challenges, and other necessities that our taxes here in the U.S. should also be paying for, but aren’t.
What we have here is taxation without representation. We fomented a revolution over the same issue early on in our history, did we not?
What’s happening here now super sucks.
But very soon, I’m happy to remember, it won’t be my circus or my monkeys any more.
Hallelujah!
I very much look forward to focusing on other things when I get moved. Lovely, noble, good things.
Pura vida, baby!