Tuesday, December 6, 2016

A Plan

Frank and I had a nice talk tonight. ABOUT THE MOVE. He had a rotten day at work, which spurred him on. But we’ve talked about it a lot lately. I spent my morning researching TESOL classes so we can teach English overseas. I’ve been listening to an audiobook called, “Retiring Overseas on a Budget.” I’ve looked into health insurance costs, apartments in San Pedro, Placencia, southern Portugal, Spain and even Malta! We’re ready to put this into motion. Within two years - we’ll be out of here!

So many thoughts. So many decisions to make. But we’ve set a date. That’s so important! When I was toying with the idea of moving to Spain at the end of my month in Europe in the summer of 1991, I knew I had to tell everyone immediately upon my return, that I was planning to move to Europe. I had to put it into motion. Not “I’m thinking about….,” but rather, “I’m going to…” I talked about it so much that my coworker finally asked me to give her an idea of when I’d been leaving so they could start thinking about a replacement for me. So I did. This was in TK October and I made a commitment to leave by the end of January. Now I had a schedule. A timetable. A PLAN. That’s what we get to work on now. OUR PLAN! Where we want to be in two years - financially and psychologically, as well as geographically. 


We started gearing up for this in earnest on Election Night. While we were watching the returns, and I was saying that “it’s early” and “those states aren’t important anyway,” I was already on my laptop looking at property in Belize. Saw a couple great potentials. We realized that night that it had to happen. The question was when. I submitted a retirement estimate request the next morning. I have an appointment with a CalPERS retirement specialist in two weeks. We have set this into motion!

1 comment:

cinnamonape said...

I am also a CALPERS soon-to-be-retired. I was planning on moving abroad upon retirement anyways. I am moving to Kuching in Sarawak which has a low cost-of-living, fairly liberal long-term visa rules, low crime rates, and lots of nature and a nice, multi-racial society.

Have you learned much about the process of moving abroad under CALPERS. You can build your case to not be subject to California taxes by doing a number of things like making sure the local election authorities know you no longer want to vote in local elections (only Federal Election races). Federal tax laws still apply on earnings in the US and, sometimes, abroad. Local taxes may also apply (every country has different standards).

You are not directly eligible for Medicare, but there are some programs where your CALPERS lifetime healthcare coverage may be transportable to some services abroad through PERSCare...ask your advisor.