When Allan Fawcett made the decision to retire from his career in computer science in 2011, he had already thought that he wanted to spend at least some years traveling, especially in Europe, after so many years working in technology, he was ready, to give his mind a break. “Computer programming destroyed my brain,” Fawcett said. “I needed an escape route.”
What he did not take into account is that this escape was going to become something permanent, some time after retiring he met his current wife, Elisabeth, and finally took the leap and completely moved to Spain with her, Fawcett, who is now 67 years old and is a resident of Spain by marriage, could not be happier with his decision, although his wife still works, he spends his days playing tennis, reading and going to the beach or cafes with his expat friends in Barcelona.
Fawcett and his wife Elisabeth can travel all over the continent, and he even has a trip planned to Paris for the Olympic Games this year, he says that it could not be possible to lead the same lifestyle in the United States, housing is much cheaper, food is cheap and wine even more, the first quality public transport system; Fawcett does not have a vehicle and does not need one to get around, the possibility of walking is also a great advantage.
“Life is good here,” says Fawcett, who became a resident in 2019. “You can eat outside everywhere, the weather is amazing and everything is very cheap”
Fawcett is part of a growing trend of retirees, driven by the US retirement crisis, migrating abroad instead of spending their golden years in the United States, by December 2022, there were more than 700,800 people who were receiving Social Security payments outside the United States, according to the most recent data available from the Social Security Administration, in 2000, that figure was less than 400,000.
There are those who move abroad because they cannot live comfortably on a fixed retirement income in the United States, where the costs of housing and health care, especially, are becoming increasingly unattainable, a significant number of retirees depend almost entirely on Social Security payments to make ends meet in the United States, which average about $1,900 per month, an increasingly large portion of elderly Americans live in poverty, with social services reached and distant from each other.
Others have always dreamed of traveling and getting into other cultures, and others could afford to stay in the country, but found out that they could get much more for their money in other countries.
“It Costs Us Almost Nothing” — Low-Cost Living Retirement
The latter is true in the case of Susan Keenan Sweeney and her husband, Joe, who moved to Hungary in 2015. Joe, who was born in Hungary, but moved to another country as a child and although Sweeney, 69, had been successful in his working life in the banking software sector in the United States and even retired early in the state of Florida, they commented that the increasingly high costs of housing and health care discouraged them.
When she and her husband visited Hungary some time before moving, they looked at the economic cost of living and the calmer pace of life and decided, almost “on a whim” to move, now they own a house in the countryside, about two hours from Budapest, surrounded by vineyards, Sweeney grows and enjoys the fresh seasonal products that are available at the nearby market, making jams and jellies at home; the couple spends the winters in Spain and travels a lot in Europe the rest of the year.
