Tuesday, 25 October 2011

Top 20 cheapest places to retire

Rather than eking out their pensions at home, retirees are looking further afield for a better life.

No one has been credit-crunched more cruelly than Britain’s pensioners, or soon-to-be pensioners. Having banked on being able to live off a steady stream of interest from their savings, millions of people are discovering that the flow has turned into a muddy trickle.
Retirement plans are having to be revised, and more of us are investigating the possibility of selling up and moving somewhere cheaper overseas. We may have been royally stuffed by the economic situation in this country, but maybe we can live like kings in exile.
It’s clearly an appealing prospect. The website Rightmove (http://www.rightmove.co.uk/) reports that 2.5 million searches were made on its overseas property listings section in August, breaking the previous record, set in July. And a report from Lloyds TSB International Wealth says that 17 per cent of people with more than £250,000 worth of savings and investments are considering leaving Britain, against 14 per cent just six months earlier.
What’s more, the list of possible retirement destinations no longer just begins at Costa and ends at Brava. A greater variety of ports is being sought in this economic storm, as demonstrated by our collection of the world’s 20 most affordable places to retire.