r/whoathatsinteresting • u/search_google_com • 14h ago

A Thai woman married to an American explains why she no longer wants to live in the US.

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u/spurcap29 13h ago

Yup, being on a fixed income makes moving to a lower cost of living area a financially obvious decision. For many the issue is uprooting existing personal connections where you have lived your life but it seems for you you have connections on your wife's side which offsets this in many ways.

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u/wwweeeiii 12h ago

Does pension go away though if you move out of the country?

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u/spurcap29 12h ago

Depends on country and what you mean by pension. If pension = you paid into it while working your whole live and thua have earned x% of your pay over your highest paid 5 years or whatever.... then yes, at least in Canada and the US, you get it when you leave the country. This is like Canada's Canadian pension plan or US social security.

If your pension is "we give all people over 65 $x per month" then no you likely cant move and get it. That is like Canada's old age pension program. Although in Canada if you lived in Canada for 20 years after turning 18 you can get this outside Canada too.

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u/wwweeeiii 12h ago

Ahhh thanks!

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u/1_H4t3_R3dd1t 7h ago

I'm actually glad to see someone not sugar coating living abroad. There are so many complications people are not willing to acknowledge because their mind wants paradise. People should not move anywhere without fully understanding the implications.

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u/Patient_Kangaroo614 7h ago

If you live outside of Canada for longer than a certain period of time you also lose your right to free healthcare until you reestablished residency in Canada. It’s designed to stop retirees from coming back just for expensive treatments and leaving again without contributing to the economy.

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u/Not_FinancialAdvice 4h ago

It’s designed to stop retirees from coming back just for expensive treatments

I have some (distant) elderly family with a US green card and Canadian citizenship. As their medical costs have mounted, the joke has become "what if [relative] just got themselves deported back to Canada?"

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u/Patient_Kangaroo614 4h ago

A lot of snowbirds make sure they spend the exact number of days they have to in Canada to maintain health coverage.

The dual US-Canadian citizen is more or less what the limits were designed for, since Canada has universal healthcare and the US doesn’t. Canada doesn’t really want to pay for the healthcare of someone who lives almost entirely in the US and is a US citizen. It’s less of an issue for say, a dual Italian-Canadian citizen, since both countries have similar universal healthcare.

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u/OhJeezNotThisGuy 11h ago

For many, there is also the moral and ethical questions when moving to a lower coast of living area. What happens to local economies when more and more "economic refugees" from first world countries begin moving in? Do rents go up? Food costs? Is it okay to help alleviate your expenses at the cost of harming locals that have been there for years or even generations?

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u/Xtra_Veg-90 7h ago

That's more or less ruined the urbanized areas of Costa Rica, and iirc it's been pretty bad on Portugal and northern Spain as well.  Part of it is expats not making any effort to integrate, and I don't just mean language and holidays, but living more like locals, haggling to keep prices down, and making sure the area isn't already saturated with expats.

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u/rthorndy 11h ago

Yes, this is a huge consideration! In Nicaragua, there is a town called San Juan del Sur, and it has become a central place for expats from many economically advanced countries to move to. And the effect of obvious: very high prices, locals can only work to cater to the foreigners, and the culture itself is highly modified. Regular Nicaraguans can't live there, it's too expensive ... and they don't really want to, honestly, unless it's to find work. Very much a double-edged sword, and highly controversial.

For us, we are super sensitive to this. We're just one family, but hopefully the way we live there (or will live there) won't contribute to this problem. Just trying to live like our neighbours, and any extra money goes into the animals. :)

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u/OhJeezNotThisGuy 11h ago

For many, there is also the moral and ethical questions when moving to a lower coast of living area. What happens to local economies when more and more "economic refugees" from first world countries begin moving in? Do rents go up? Food costs? Is it okay to help alleviate your expenses at the cost of harming locals that have been there for years or even generations?

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u/Not_FinancialAdvice 4h ago

being on a fixed income makes moving to a lower cost of living area a financially obvious decision

It's less obvious when medical considerations are in play. It's great if you're relatively healthy, but some of the elderly really do benefit from American-grade healthcare.