Time for Another Retiring in Bali Blog

I probably get about ten emails a month asking for information on moving to Bali. Some of them are from people who want to work here, and I can only offer limited advice for those folks unless they’re teachers, and even then the advice is pretty much tempered by my own peculiarities such as – I won’t work for a language school that pays pennies and offers poor conditions just so that I can live in Bali. I’d much rather live in Kazakhstan and get paid well. Actually, I’d like to try living in Kazakhstan now that I think about it.

Then, too, some folks have girlfriends who have just the right place for them and they want some advice. That’s a minefield that I don’t want to enter. Been there and done that and screwed up – so I don’t comment on people’s relationships and offer advice from far although I know that there are websites and forums that will.

Now that I’ve written a bit on retiring, I get quite a few requests from folks – usually guys but sometimes women – who want to retire to Bali, and I try to answer those as best as I can but then again, my own situation is fairly specific – an Indonesian wife, a bunch of kids, and a long history in Indonesia so writing a general answer to a question like, “I want to retire to Bali and live simply. How much does it take?” is pretty tough.

What you see below is where I am now in my replies to those folks. I’ll take any advice on what else I might say.

I’m not sure how much Bali is Paradise – you might want to take a look at a few of my articles on Hubpages about Paradise. But one man’s Paradise is another man’s desert or something like that.

Questions about how much money one needs to retire are pretty subjective. There are questions about the number of people that you’ll be supporting, where you want to live, what kind of food can you eat (and still enjoy it), what kinds of entertainment do you like and need, how much do you drink (and what do you drink), what kind of living arrangements do you need in terms of basic amenities (bathrooms being one of the most frequently cited questions), how often you’ll want to go back to the States, medical issues/insurance, and a few more things that will pop up. Can you be a little more specific about your lifestyle?

So, what else do I say? I put some numbers up months ago about the budget that I had planned out for retirement, but the closer I get to the final day of work, the less likely it seems that I’m going to meet those numbers. Still, there are times that you just need to take a leap of faith and see how things turn out. And that’s about it. Live long and prosper.

~ by drbrucepk on February 25, 2008.