Image credit: Chip Stites

The pros, the cons – and – why you might want to consider it too!

The decision to move overseas, to leave the US is rarely simple and not made lightly.  Starting over wherever you do it is never easy. It demands an adventuresome spirit, the desire to change your life for the better, and a willingness to accept different cultures. One of the significant advantages is a much lower cost of living, but much we take for granted in the US is very different elsewhere.   

I will set the money aside as we found it is just a part of a larger puzzle. Money can be the initial impetus or an excellent side benefit, but it is rarely – and in my opinion – shouldn’t be the reason to move overseas.

A love of travel!

My wife and I love to travel. Both of us had traveled when we were younger and as we age. Both of us were energized by the process of travel, seeing new things, and being exposed to different cultures.

Both of us had been to Central America and Europe for extended periods.

Careers, backgrounds, and education

My career was spent in finance, and I know the result of printing money on both the economy and society over time. History is full of periods when governments print or find more capital than they need. (The empire of Alexander the Great, and Dionysus of Persia, and the Weimar Republic are perfect examples of both.) Not to mention that the county that owns ‘currency of international trade’ historically lasts about 70 years! My background is history, philosophy, and economics, and while history may not always repeat itself, it always rhymes.

How I (we) wanted to live

I wanted a slower society, a less costly society, and a place where accepting outsiders is ordinary.  I felt that an older culture more accustomed to history’s changes was necessary, and I wanted a democratic style of government. I wanted a healthier society and a place where aging is more venerated.

My (now) wife Shonna took a Rotary Scholarship to spend a year schooling in Denmark and then spent almost another year traveling in France.

My father moved us to Italy when I was seven, and we returned to the US when I was ten. This perspective and the broader education are part of our backgrounds, allowing us to consider other countries as possible places to retire.

2008

After about three decades in the business, I knew I needed a change. This feeling started in 2008 as I studied what “banks” had done, what they had sold, and the result. I don’t think the road in front of our society (economically or politically) has many choices left, and I don’t see any political will to do what Paul Volcker -Federal Reserve Chairman under President Carter- did in 1982. I don’t expect anyone to agree with me. Many probably don’t, but this is how our (my) thought processes evolved and eventually led to our decision to move.

Food

Food was a concern as better – organic – food in the US is more difficult to find and costs more. We wanted a place where ‘organic’ and local were more the norm than the exception. We don’t like processed food. Processing, making sure a food will last longer on the shelves adds unwanted chemicals. We saw a change in the wellness factor of our society. I was, and much of the US is, over-weight.

We also saw a food chain stretched to the max.  The stories of “runs” on TP last year were icing on the cake as we had already moved. What concerned me half a decade ago was that some east coast grocery stores took six weeks after a hurricane to reopen and were completely emptied five days before the storm and not replenished.  The length of the food distribution chain was bothersome.

Our society, big and small business, runs on just-in-time restocking (inventory). This works well until it doesn’t.  I never worry about what happens when all is well – financially or otherwise. I worry about what happens when the system breaks down.

The result was we wanted to live in a culture with a shorter food chain and a fresher food system.  Most of the food we eat today comes from within ten km. of our house and is organic, or has fewer, often no chemicals on them. The exceptions are wine, cheese, seasonings, and out-of-season fruits.

Healthcare

We eat healthy food now. Before I left, I weighed 250 pounds. I had high blood pressure, a lot of stress and passed an average of two kidney stones a year. I was on four different meds. With this slower pace of life, less stress, an exercise regime, and eating healthy, I have no high blood pressure, and I haven’t passed a stone in four years; I have one medication and weigh 194.

That brings up a part of our decision that also pushed us toward moving. Italy has the second-highest-rated healthcare system in the world. (According to the WHO). When we left, we were paying over $1,440 a month in premiums. I was on Medicare with the extra coverage necessary, and Shonna had a $6,000 deductible to keep her cost down. Even so, she still paid more than half the premium without considering the deductible. Today our joint medical premium is $948 a year with a few small copays.

Before COVID, one of us had respiratory distress and went to our local ER. We were there over five hours, had three sets of x-rays, saw three doctors, IVs, and IV meds. Twenty-four hours later, no symptoms. It cost about 5 Euro. $7 – yes, you read that correctly, $7 including meds.

The average retiree worries about running out of money.  We estimate that we have saved about $100,000 in almost five years in medical premiums and out-of-pocket expenses.

Safety

We were robbed just before moving. The robbery included a wedding ring of great value. When asked if there was any chance of getting the ring back, the nice policeman who arrived three days after the theft smiled and said: “No!” “We have over 1500 cases a year for four of us, and we are further behind every day. No, your ring has already been broken down for stones.”

We were concerned by the number of friends buying handguns for protection and taking gun safety classes. We noted the rising crime rate and the investigations of our police force by the FBI. We wanted to feel safe where we lived.

Even with the rising crime rate in the US, one of the questions we get most often is, “Do you feel safe in Italy?”  It is not unusual for a society to miss the forest for the trees. Considering all that has happened in the last four years, it is a wonder to me that anyone could ask that question, yet we still get asked online if we “feel safe?”

We feel very safe in Italy: a place where they still don’t lock their doors in small towns.  The UN ranks Italy 193 out of 230 (#230 is the safest country globally). The US ranks 93 out of 230.

Then there is the water situation in the west, where we lived. I will leave that alone except to say the mountain we live on has four active springs that I can see.

I am hopeful you notice that our concerns were for our basic needs and the basic needs of older people?  Those things were primary drivers in our decision to make a change.

Old Age

We wanted a place where aging is not equated to moving into an old-folks home or old-folks community.  We wanted a place to feel safe, where we could live longer, better, and healthier. Italians generally venerate age. The traditional “passeggiata” or “walk” includes Gramma – Nonna, and Nonno and a family of three or four generations walking together.  Italians also have the second-longest life expectancy in the world and live about five years longer than the average in the US.  

Please, understand I am not trying to dun the society I grew up in, lived in, did well in, and love! I am trying to point out that our needs and desires had changed. I am trying to point out that our society has changed, and the economics of our situation has changed. We wanted a life that we felt was better for us on multiple levels!

Perspective

Our perspective broadened by travel, upbringing, and education, gave us reasons to consider other places. When we added everything up: moving for health, safety, lifestyle, food, water, and travel, the problems seemed small compared to the benefits. 

We traveled to other countries: Ireland, Mexico, Costa Rica, Portugal, France, Spain, and England. Finally, we spent three weeks traveling, on our own, around Italy. We fell in love with it and each other all over again. The differences, north and south, the foods, the customs, and the traditions all appealed to us.

We went to an International Living (IL) Conference in Cancun (and eliminated all but four countries from consideration).

I have been a reader and now write and speak for International Living Magazine. This lengthy investigation included much thought and travel before Shonna and I met, plus five years after we were together.

It was not a decision taken lightly.  The biggest reason for care, diligence, is that old saying: “The devil is in the details.”

With any big decision that saying looms large. Any move has its inherent problems. Changing cultures and languages is even more so, but that is why you weigh the changes and consider what is essential to the life you want.

“All that glitters is not gold.”

 Retiring together in less space

Let’s start with the fundamental changes that occur when a couple retires. Suddenly, those three hours at night and the weekends together become twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

If you will, please add to this exotic cocktail of ingredients moving from a house of over 2000 sq. feet to an apartment of about 918 sq. feet.

Mix in one bathroom instead of three.

Subtract the air conditioning (summer) and put yourself on the second floor above an unheated entrance room (winter)! 

We lived in this apartment for two and a half years.

We learned a great deal about each other.  This issue here is not just the adjustment. Every couple will go through this. The real problem is the adjustment added to the complications of moving to a smaller space, coupled with everything else. (By the way, we are still together and better than ever.)

Language

We made the biggest mistake of not learning the language better beforehand, but we weren’t sure where we were going either. New culture, new customs, and no ability to express yourself!  Wild!

We approached every event as an adventure. Buying meat at the local butches, wine at the Enoteca, bread at the Pasticceria, or even just trying to purchase diesel fuel for the car! I put gas in once. I would get home and shout “victory” at the top of my lungs or bear the Shonna’s scrutiny when I couldn’t figure out how to ask for chicken wings. Google translate doesn’t always give you the correct local Italian words for what you want.

Then there is getting a phone and internet. The system isn’t the same, how they pay, what they pay for, or anything, and when you want to cancel something – try saying that to a cellphone in a foreign language. I went number by number – 1, then 2, then 3, until I figured out which number I wanted.

I flunked the written “theory” drivers test in Italian twice before I passed it.

It took me a month to get “mustard” right! 

After four years, my Italian is passable. Friends tell us it will take seven to eight years for any hope of fluency. Italian has five verb tenses, and sometimes they make up a word from others because it “just fits.”  Seriously!

Customs

There are two here. The customs ‘doganale’ you pay when you mail something from the US. The forms, the proofs, the regulations: all in Italian. All to be translated.   

Mistake #2, mailing too much stuff from the US here. We sent a pallet. Sixteen boxes. We should have sent three packages. No more.

The second customs are the customs of society. Italian sip and taste their wine. Italians don’t drink without food, and I have never seen an Italian drunk.

Dinners are not only for eating but also for talking and discussing, exchanging ideas, and laughing.  Dinner out is three-hour-plus – minimum. You NEVER eat and run! When you make a reservation for dinner, that table is yours for the night.

A birthday dinner is paid for by the person whose birthday it is; anything else is an insult.  Birthdays are NEVER held before the date: horrible luck!

Italians will ‘drop by’ without notice; after all, you’re family! Never go to an Italian home without a gift! They will bring you one, even if they are unannounced or unplanned!

I could go on here, forever, but you live and learn. Oh, by the way, Italians NEVER go out without clean clothes and polished or nice shoes.  And colors – oh my – chartreuse and orange sneakers with matching top and pants, the coolest!  Wild colors are the norm!

Driving

The US has no reciprocal agreement with Italy for driver’s licenses. We are supposed to get an Italian license in the first year.  I found out in year two. Did I mention flunking the test twice – in Italian before passing? Yea, I did! I studied for a year and a half and filled up three notebooks with words, regulations, 156 signs, and 100 separate road rules. I passed just last month. You have to get a 90% on 40 true/false questions taken in Italian in less than 30 minutes.

The exciting part of all this learning and regulation is that no one, and I mean no one, follows the rules. Stop signs are suggestions! Lights must be: dependent on your mood. Parking: “Oh, I’m only going to block an entire lane of traffic for five minutes, just getting a pizza.”  Seriously! 

I also think every Italian believes Mario Andretti is their uncle. Speeding tickets are electronic and can be delivered up to two years after the offense.  If you don’t fill the ticket payment form correctly, you get another ticket six months later for twice the amount.  You must tell them who the driver was so they can assign the penalty points fairly, and you get penalized extra for not telling them the first time who the driver was. Oh, the question regarding the driver is the last question on the back of the ticket, and you don’t have to fill out any of the previous questions, just the last one! Seriously!

Family and Friends

If there is a tricky part and COVID accentuated it, it is friends and family.

I thought I had some good friends, made over four decades in one place. I now have one friend with whom we stay in touch. Everyone else wouldn’t make an effort to call or even text, and some stopped talking to us when we said we were leaving. My once upon a time “bestie” even said to me… after being here eight months, “Well, you beat my estimate; I bet you’d be home with your tail between your legs in six months.” (Some friend!)   I think the friend’s and family part is the hardest.

We are in touch with family regularly. But I miss them: with COVID and now the new variant, the separation has been brutal!  I hope we can be together physically before the year is out.

Italian Friends!  A most amazing thing!  We have more close friends, who we see, talk with, go out with, have over, and travel with than we ever did in the US. Why? A more inclusive, embracing culture. It took almost two years here to be asked what I did before I retired.  What Italians want to know about you is very different than in the US. What do you do is not a question people ask.

OUTCOME!

Would I do this all over again? In a heartbeat! My daughter asked me when I was coming home to stay!  My answer: “In a small urn that you can put on the mantle. But I promise to come to visit you regularly and hope that you will visit us as well.”  I did! They have!

I do miss my daughter and grandkids and their family! But life has many choices, and each of us must make the best life we can!

We live on 50% less here than in the US. We believe our quality of healthcare, food, water, safety, and ability to travel is higher here. Italians value life differently! They don’t call it “la dolce vita” for nothing!

Are there difficulties, sure! There are fewer choices for most things here than in the US. Italian society is decidedly less convenient.  

Whether you choose to stay where you are, move to another state, or country matters not! What matters is that you have the best life you can create for your Life-After-Work-Zone!  That is what we did and why we did it!

AW Chip Stites is the creator of thelaughingretirement.com and The Laughing Retirement Community on FB. He is a retired CFP and investment manager who believes that “retirees” more than anyone else need to create their best lives and control the money on which they live. 

If you would like to email Chip, you can reach him at info@thelaughingretirement.com. You can schedule a time to speak with him or Shonna here: