Busy...

Preparation.... a bit more info to add to my previous post on the spreadsheets that we prepared to help search for our new retirement home. A few countries came out on top of our list and we needed to take a look at residency requirements that are mandated by those countries. This usually boils down to a minimum monthly pension income or investment funds that you bring with you to gain entry. Some countries also want detailed previous residence information, medical histories and medical tests to be done before admission to their country. Some have published their specific minimum pension income requirements (see Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, others) and some are a little more cagey about this (most Caribbean locations) and ask that you extend your vacation stay with them while they review your residency application forms. In these cases, a fee is payable to the local Immigration Ministry for extension of stay. Extensions might be granted for several weeks or several months, and if they have not addressed your application another extension form and fee is needed....

Cost of living for rent, food, medical, and whether a vehicle is needed to live in each location had to be compared. Obviously it would be nice to have a car no matter where we are but avoiding that cost would also be good if it wasn't really needed. Using taxis and perhaps the occasional rental might suffice. I doubt that would work in Mazatlan though.

We found the Numbeo and Expatistan websites somewhat helpful for general cost of living comparisons but not really up to date. Current and forecast inflation rates and cost of living indexes are good indicators available from several other website locations as they show trends. They need to be cross analyzed by crime rates, unemployment and poverty. In my opinion, locations with low cost of living and minimal residency entry requirements seemed to also have higher crime rates and higher poverty. We also looked at sunshine, rainfall, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc... The relative importance of all line items were weighted with multipliers to reflect what we felt was important to us and then calculated to arrive at total points per destination.

Another thing to consider is the currency conversion from Canadian dollars. Many of the Caribbean countries have their currencies closely linked or locked in with the US dollar. If the Canadian dollar performs poorly against the US dollar, it makes it more difficult financially to live in those countries. We have been watching this closely.

There are a lot of variables to consider, some more important than others, and yet they only point as indicators for our potential new home - only living there for a while will nail it down. We did our online research and analysis during the first half of 2015 and will need to update it as we move ahead - hopefully not too many changes in the next couple of years - and we will need to remain somewhat flexible in case there are changes. Cyndi will make the final decision when she picks her favourte palm tree. :-)