Retired Mid-Fifties & Living Lakeside in Chile on $3,000/month

A little Jimmy (Banana Republics) mood music: [link to www.youtube.com (secure)]

I'm packing now......my damn rent's more than that !!!

Best go prepared: [link to www.youtube.com (secure)]

3k a month.

Another Buffet classic: [link to www.youtube.com (secure)]

Until another 9.0 earthquake hits!

Sounds like a good alternative.

That part of Chile is breathtaking in the sense of the beauty, but is also very isolated from the rest of the country, only one road that is for good off road vehicles most of the year (it rains heavily in that part of the world). People there is very kind and community oriented due to the isolation. Also very sparsely populated, the entire region has less than 300.000 people.

Hold on there, for $3000 in Georgia I pay my house payment (10 year old 3600 sq ft) and have a new Toyota truck. I wake up to a mountain view every day, have a lake for my kayak, and I'm surrounded by people who speak English. I have medical care close and a large city if I want to take in shows or shop. $3,000 can buy a lot even in much of the US - you just need to know where to look.

Hold on there, for $3000 in Georgia I pay my house payment (10 year old 3600 sq ft) and have a new Toyota truck. I wake up to a mountain view every day, have a lake for my kayak, and I'm surrounded by people who speak English. I have medical care close and a large city if I want to take in shows or shop. $3,000 can buy a lot even in much of the US - you just need to know where to look.
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Agree that you can have a wonderful lifestyle in the US itself for that level of "cost" ... if you want to live rural (as this couple is), stay away from the cities (as this couple is), and don't become a card carrying member of the "buy, Buy, BUY" club.

The BIG extra expense in the US to living inexpensively is health care. If somehow you can cross over that hurdle then one can live just as cheaply in the US (in a nice location) as they are living in Chile. fwiw once you qualify for Medicare healthcare costs in the US can actually become very reasonable ... particularly if you are in an area where the insurance companies offer HMO style care (benefits greatly beefed up) for the cost of your Medicare premiums.

I will concede that I am not sure you could also raise 3 kids in a great environment, with healthcare and GOOD schools, as well as pay your other costs for that amount, but once the kids are gone ... well the US is just fine!!

But they will never ever truly feel at home there....

You are absolutely correct about healthcare costs. It's fine if you are working and have good insurance. If not, you are screwed. I know a lot of people who want to retire early, but cannot because of the whole healthcare system.

The point I was making, though, was that they have $3000 expenses without housing costs because they bought their property outright. A lot of people don't have the cash to plunk down for purchase of a property. They still need a car. They still need $100 for gas for that car. They still need food (even though they raise a lot of it themselves, which you can do here, too), phone/internet $100, electric/propane/firewood up to $300... I'm just not seeing where it is any cheaper than living a lot of places in the US. If people here take out their mortgage or rent from the equation, most could live quite comfortably on $3000 per month net. If you added taxes back in and housing, that's like a $60k family income.

People that lived under oppressive dictatorships know that freedom and quality of life are the most important things.

Chile, Argentina, Uruguay etc.

Bwahaha.... Chile meets the top 5 for internal State Dept no go list. Fuckung fool...

Then it's got to be good..............

If Chile were so great and such a cheap place to live, all those Central Americans would be heading that way instead of for the US.

They can't afford $3000/month....even for 2 people together.

Being an ultimate prepper, I have decided to move near Urcos, Peru instead: [link to vincentbridgeslegacy.com]

^^THIS!^^

3k a month is way too expensive. Save 10 months of that and live debt free in the midwest, usa.

Skip the airline trips stateside for Christmas and funerals. Skip jackboots at customs.

Raise your own chickens, corn, lettuce and okra. Much cheaper and better for most Americans.

must love earthquakes...

FWIW, we have a lot of inmigration, and it has become an issue, the biggest trouble has been with haitians. But we have an ongoing inmigration of Colombians, Venezuelans, and also Dominicans, Haitians were also a mixture of what you would call "liberal" government commitments and and human traffic.

Indeed, most people that comes from places where EQs are uncommon get really frightened here. For most Chileans, anything less than a 8+ (Richter scale) is "meh".

I think the article got it very wrong about healthcare on Chile. Public healthcare is crap, cheap, but crap. Anything very urgent, emergency or dangerous, and you probably will die waiting attention. Here they look if you can pay before, or ask for a blank check at the door, and if you can't provide that, they will leave you waiting for the "free" attention to be available. On the other hand, Private healthcare is very expensive, and also asks for a blank check upfront (and I mean literally, if someone does not provide a blanck check or a health insurance number, you are not admited).

Uhm, you mean followers of the leader of the Nazi party in Chile? Really? That guy was a very controversial figure when he was alive.

I'm not fan of the zionists neither (the "Jhooos"), but Serrano was plain bonkers. I have Nazi friends that at least are capable of a coherent and thoughtfull debate, but Serrano often resorted to clownish behaviour, at least in his last years of public appearances.

So how does one make 3k a month in chile?