Affordable Nomadic Retirement Adventure: Part Two

Hey there! We’re a couple on the cusp of retirement, and let’s face it, the whole “house, big backyard, rocking chairs on the porch” vision wasn’t exactly setting our souls on fire. We craved new experiences, and living life on our terms, all without breaking the bank. That’s where our journey to an affordable nomadic retirement began.

Scrolling through retirement blogs, we stumbled upon a question that hit us like a ton of bricks: “Do we want to have a home or do we want to have a life?” It got us thinking. How much cash would we really need to retire right now and enjoy life before Social Security kicks in (which, for us, is still 90 months away)?

$4,000 per month means we’d have to have $360k in the bank. Hmmm, that’s a lot

If we set our sights on retiring in June – which would make the selling of the house happen on a much more tolerable timeline for me – then it’s 83 months to SS so we’re down to $332,000.

Okay, what if we could live on $3,000 per month? Now we only need $249,000 to retire early. That’s not as big a number as it sounds, though. I mean, it’s a bunch of money but it’s not out of reach.

We had also just switched brokerages to work directly with a friend of ours and Sandra reminded me that we had committed to a year with Christina. So that means starting this grand adventure more like November/December. Which then means the window to collecting SS payments is 78 months and the required capital is down to $234k.

Hmmmmm. We had some money saved and we’ll get a decent chunk from selling the house so retiring early is suddenly looking like a pretty doable plan.

Making the Retirement Math Work on $3,000 a Month

The big question was, could we swing this financially on $3,000 a month? Traditional retirement wisdom tells you that you need a small fortune saved up. But what if we could create a fulfilling retirement experience without needing a mountain of money?

So What does a $3,000 a month Nomadic Retirement lifestyle look like?

I’d been reading up on other countries and was pretty confident that $3k per month would allow us a decent standard of living in a lot of different places. But the residency visa appeared to be an issue.

We couldn’t get a resident visa anywhere just based on having a pile of cash in the bank and having $250k invested won’t generate the required $2k per month income to qualify to get a pensionado visa in Panama. Well, it would in rentals but we’d have to show that income stream for 2 years prior to moving so that’d mean we’d be homeless in Oregon with $2k/month to live on unless we kept working. (Update – that was bad info; in order to qualify for the residency you need to have a guaranteed-for-life pension from the government or a major company)

That’s when we discovered the magic of affordable nomadic retirement. By being strategic about where we go and how we live, we realized we could explore the world for less than the cost of maintaining our house in the States. Think about it – no more property taxes, no more expensive lawn care!

Affordable Retirement Travel and Living LIKE a Local

So what if we didn’t ‘move’ to a country, what if we just maxed out the 90 day visitor privilege and became senior nomads? 3 month rentals seemed to be readily available in most countries I looked at and the whole point of getting out of Oregon was to avoid snow and cold.

We both have enjoyed our limited travels but always felt rushed – 10 days in France, 10 days in New Zealand, not enough time to really enjoy the country except on a very superficial level. The 4 years we spent in England was an awesome time but we had young kids, we didn’t have much money and 4 years is soooo long that we never felt any pressure to get things seen so we wound up missing quite a lot.

The question then became, could we reduce our lives to a big suitcase and a backpack each then just be nomadic seniors? 90 days per country should be long enough to really get a feel for a place but short enough that we would feel some small pressure to see what we wanted to see. I was pretty confident that I could do that and she’s game to give it a try.

Is the Affordable Nomadic Retirement Life Right for You?

Listen, senior nomadism isn’t for everyone. It might not even be right for us. But if you’re like us and craving something different out of retirement, and you’re open to exploring the world on a budget, then this might just be the perfect path for you.

Join us as we share our adventures, our budget-stretching hacks, and all the lessons we learn along the way. Who knows, maybe we’ll inspire you to dust off your passport and join us on this wild ride!