Are you one of those folks who continually worries about affording life in retirement? Do you frequently fire-up your spreadsheets and plug in numbers from your latest retirement plan…only to learn you’re not quite there yet? Have you been convinced to make a timesharing commitment, as part of your “affordable retirement” strategy but wonder what impact that will have on your finances? Well, if you find yourself in any of these situations, then take (small!) comfort knowing that you’re not alone.

​Millions of people like you battle the eternal question: Am I retirement ready, and how do I retire comfortably with my nest egg? But guess what? Despite everything that your financial “advisor” may tell you – about needing a 7-figure nest egg to retire comfortably, you’ll be amazed at just even a moderate-sized nest egg can accomplish. If you think a 2-week time sharing arrangement will help ease the burden of your retirement plans, how about...

• Living in a home, along a sandy beach, with the crisp mountain air and fresh breeze and nature all around you – for less than $120,000 
• Owning a whole luxury condo overseas – no sharing or fractional ownership! - complete with hardwood flooring, high-end appliances, access to a community pool…and a whole lot more – and all for $135,000; or
• Going just a bit high-end with a 2-bedroom, 2-bath home overseas, on an acre-wide lot with a private pool, and access to a mile long, pristine beach. And that’ll set your nest egg back by under $200,000 

While you wait patiently for your timeshare ship to come in, and deliver you resale-value price appreciation, to fund your retirement, you could already be living the affordable retirement dream that others told you would never happen.  The challenge, however, is to find those options, do your diligence, and then make that bold move – like thousands of others like you have done.
Strewn across the world, in safe, friendly jurisdictions, with agreeable climate and plenty of luxurious amenities, are retirement harbors where you can:

• Live comfortably on a budget of under $15,000 a year
• Pay less nothing for your medical expenses, or less than $120 a month for great health insurance
• Make your modest retirement nest egg stretch far enough so you can live comfortably and still have local staff – maid, gardener, chauffeur – to support you, and never stress about outliving your retirement savings

Retiring overseas unlocks so many potentials for your nest egg, that only few can dream of here at home. For instance, an $2,000-a-month pension wouldn’t last long in a place like Manhattan or Florida. But there are jurisdictions overseas where that modest sum, coupled with just a tiny nest egg, can stretch far enough for you to afford a lifestyle, where you’d be a “wealthy” member of the community.

The relative strength of your current savings means you’ll enjoy a much favorable parity between local currency and your home currency. Great climate. Friendly people. Affordable housing and healthcare. Combine all these together, and overseas is the perfect solution for an affordable retirement that’ll see your nest egg stretch farther than if you retired at “home”.
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Retirees in a high tax bracket at home may find overseas retirement especially attractive. If you choose a jurisdiction with a low-tax rate, which many of them are, or one with no tax at all, you’ll enjoy tax-free or tax-advantaged growth of your investments. That too enables retirees to stretch their nest egg farther than they could dream it would go if they retired at home.

Your first step in planning your overseas affordable retirement is to unlock all avenues of retirement capital. And, one of the greatest sources of that locked-in capital is an often-impulsive timesharing investment, brought about by aggressive, and often misleading sales pitches. Once invested, if they aren’t outright scams, timeshare companies often make it extremely challenging for investors to exit their fractional ownership. Often, it’s the eagerness to avoid this up-hill battle that then keeps investors tied to an investment that:

• Is unlikely to appreciate much over a 10 to 20-year holding period
• You continue to maintain and pay for - which payments don’t go to adding equity, but are an expense that you must eventually write-off
• Few people are willing to buy from you when you decide to sell – and then too, it’s at a markedly lower, discounted price

If you find yourself in just such a “timeshare hell”, it’s time to reach out for professional help to cancel your timeshare. Staffed by veteran legal experts, who know the inner workings of the timeshare industry, they’ll help unload your fractional ownership to get you the most value for your investment. 
So, assuming you recover $20,000 from what you thought was a sunk investment. What could you do with those funds over a 10-year horizon until retirement?
Well, the one thing that you shouldn’t do is invest in another timeshare! But here’s just one idea to consider. Over the past 140-years, the S&P-500 index has netted an average return of 9.2%. Between 2010 and 2020, however, those average returns have ballooned to mid-double-digits – to 13.6% annually.

If you built a portfolio based on a selection of safe non-volatile S&P-500 listed stocks, and assume your returns are 10% a year, within 10-years you’d be more than a third of your way to funding a lavish overseas retirement lifestyle.  There’s no stress. No arm-twisting sales pitches. No loose-sleep-at-night “secret” investment strategy. It’s amazing what a collection of dividend-paying, Blue-chip companies can do to make your overseas, affordable retirement dreams a reality.