Let’s get straight to it: A little-known loophole is about to close…one which can net you tens of thousands of additional dollars in Social Security benefits.
You need to know about this because come April 29, your chance to cash in on this opportunity will have passed you by. Now’s the time to take action.
Whether or not you plan to retire overseas doesn’t matter. With the strategy our Social Security expert Steve Garfink reveals, you can gain greater control over your Social Security benefits and a bigger payout, too.
We’re covering this important topic because an extra few thousand dollars in your pocket goes a long way in many destinations…
In Ecuador, expats report living costs as low as $1,000 a month. “We travel extensively and still add to our savings,” says expat Rami Amit, who along with his wife Daphna lives in the colonial city of Quito. They are just two of the folks you hear from in our report on the best retirement havens in the country.
Another “bang for your buck” destination, Costa Rica’s Lake Arenal, is an easy new home for Lynda and Tim Henry. They live with lake views, green hills, and hummingbirds on the porch. All told, costs are $2,000 to $3,000 a month.
I recently scouted out “the Gateway to Borneo,” a laidback city and an unexpected surprise. Spend your days visiting with tribesmen, diving with sharks, and photographing apes in the forest. Or play a round of golf at a high-end resort, catch a movie in English in an air-conditioned mall, and dine on the waterfront. Costs in Kota Kinabalu are very low.
I’m just scratching the surface of your issue here. Learn about having an adventurous retirement on the islands of Panama’s Caribbean…discover beachside living on Mexico’s Riviera Maya…buy in historic Italy from just $125,000…or invest in high-yield properties in Colombia’s up-and-coming city.
Did you know there is a little-known and legal strategy that can let you make tens of thousands more dollars in Social Security? This strategy, which most U.S. citizens don’t know about, can dramatically increase your retirement income, letting you live a far more comfortable retirement at home or abroad. But it’s about to disappear… possibly forever.
Bringing pets to the European Union (EU) from the U.S. or Canada is much easier than it once was. For dogs and cats, especially, the days of long quarantines are gone, paperwork is standardized, and—once within the EU—a “pet passport” valid throughout the EU can be issued.
The hills are cut with steep, tree-filled river valleys, and peninsulas, capes, and coves mark the lakeshore. At 18 miles long and three miles across at its widest, the blue expanse of Lake Arenal, in Costa Rica’s northern highlands, anchors a region known for its laidback lifestyle. Here, in a place of perennial warm weather and volcanic soils perfect for gardening, you can find the small-town U.S. vibe of yesteryear. And at a highly affordable cost.
The woman takes two wiry black hairs from a vial and dips them in water. She then puts them on a sheet of white paper. The stuff of forest magic lines her stall: powders, dried fruits, shriveled nuts…slender feathers and strange leathery objects. The hairs curl upward on the paper. Two earnest men look on. She is telling a fortune with those hairs…how, I’m not quite sure.
Just a few short decades ago, Ecuador was off the map for most North American retirees. All that has changed dramatically in recent years, though, as intrepid North American expats began trickling into this small South American country. What they found was a country with pretty colonial towns and cities; miles of golden-sand beaches; an equatorial climate tempered by offshore ocean currents and the mountain terrain to make it spring-like year-round;
Picture yourself in a town where it’s pleasantly warm year round. Winter snows and relentless summer heat seem a distant memory. You can have your pick from the vast array of farm-fresh fruit and vegetables grown in rich volcanic soils. Impromptu parades awash with color and Andean music are par for the course, and in the evenings you can relax with a beer in hand with both local and expat buddies. Or retreat to that farm you’ve always dreamt of, just outside of town, where you can grow your own food amid serene solitude.
Medellín, Colombia, is like no ordinary worldclass city. It sits in a valley 5,000 feet above sea level, with perfect, year-round, spring-like weather. You can stroll down leafy streets to lush parks, sip a coffee in eclectic cafés and bars, and shop in high-class boutiques. Young “digital nomads” huddle in trendy watering holes plotting the next Facebook. These are folks who can live and work from wherever they choose. They choose Medellín.
Investors in emerging markets usually look to the Big Three: international companies, consumer companies, and commodities. These are the bread-and-butter investment opportunities that come with a very large upswing in growth. But when global growth gets shaky, investing in growth markets—or even former growth markets, for that matter— gets trickier. Nowadays you can’t just throw a dart at a board and pick a winner.
Living and working overseas provides opportunities for new vistas, new cultures, great food, more sunshine, and a much lower cost of living. But did you know that it can also provide you with a huge tax benefit? Maybe you are overseas as an employee for a corporation, a local B&B, or even a tour company. Perhaps you operate abroad as an independent consultant, freelancer, or business owner. If you are a U.S. citizen living and working outside the U.S. for most of a year, you may qualify for what’s known as the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE). With this, you could completely eliminate your U.S. tax liability.
Open any cupboard in any home and you’ll find tableware of all shapes and sizes. Shelves groan with ornaments of cats, clowns, and cottages; many homes today have something made of china. But what the owners of these fine artifacts don’t know is that antique china, delft, and porcelain have become highly collectible over the last few years…so much so that those dusty dishes on your shelf may be worth a lot more than what you paid for them many years ago. So collectible has antique china become that a rare, 500-year-old cup decorated with a hen and cockerel sold in 2014 for $36.3 million to a Shanghai-based billionaire; he shocked his counter bidders by drinking tea from it right there in the auction room.