“Isn’t this gorgeous?” Jillian Ross asks from a restaurant in a top resort just a few blocks from her home. “The shade and the cool breeze, listening to the water feature and watching the river. It’s the perfect tropical experience.”
When Jillian retired from her career in nursing, she realized she needed more in her life to fill the gap. “Most of my long-term friends are younger and still working. I found making new friends my own age quite difficult.”
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Jillian set off to look for a retirement destination.
She discovered housesitting as a way to test drive retirement destinations and, after trying a few, settled on the city she now calls home.
“I decided that it was a great place to live, and condos are very affordable,” she says.
Her upmarket one-bedroom apartment cost $86,000 and is in a prime location.
“It’s like a 7-star hotel. It has luxurious, 20-foot-high ceilings, exquisite decorations, funky chandeliers, and beautiful designer velvet sofas, and lots of them,” she says. Jillian’s bills are inexpensive. “My electricity bill was $8 for this month, and my water bill was $2.”
Although the cost of living is not as inexpensive as it used to be, it is still possible to live very well in Jillian’s city for less than $1,500 per month.
Where you decide to settle will have a large impact on your monthly expenses. Good quality rentals are easy to find to fit any modest budget in the center of town, outer suburbs, and in the nearby rural areas.
Fresh markets scattered throughout the city offer locally grown fruits and vegetables along with a variety of prepared dishes for as little as $1.30 apiece.
The city has a fantastic choice of restaurants. Along with the hundreds of local eateries,you’ll find a host of other world cuisines in the city. The wonderful open-air design of many of these restaurants is what visitors love the most. A wide assortment of sidewalk cafés can be found along most of the city’s colorful streets.
As a single woman, Jillian has found it very easy to make friends.
“What I have found is that people are open. Partly because they have come for the same reasons: to establish new lives and new networks. They extend a hand of friendship,” she says.
Jillian keeps busy and packs a lot into her week. “I go to language school every morning as a part of my social activities. I want to communicate with the local people as soon as possible.
“I’m in a Scrabble club, I go to an expat ladies’ lunch, and I also go to the expat club for breakfast,” she says. “And a friend and I play mahjong. I’m thinking about making that group bigger, and then we can run it through the expat club.”
A successful expat life takes a certain attitude. “I think it’s important to give and support the system,” says Jillian. “The more things people offer, the more activities to become involved with.”
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Your chance to retire overseas now
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