If retirement is approaching for you and you’re planning on making a move to spend your “golden years” in an area of the world where you can stretch your budget, a new report by Natixis Global Asset Management says that you should be taking a good look at Europe.
The recently released survey pointed out eight European countries that, among the 150 countries surveyed, were all placed in the top 10 including Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg and Finland.
At the top of the poll was Switzerland due to its low taxes, excellent health care system and extremely high standard of living. They also have a very strong public and private pension system. Austria, a close neighbor, is seen as a “cheaper alternative” in terms of the cost of living and, as with Switzerland, has a very high standard of living as well as a first-rate healthcare system.
The report encourages all individuals to take personal responsibility for their retirement plans and their prospects for where they want to live. This includes putting plenty of money into savings, of course, and avoiding countries high public debt. The fact is, many countries will struggle to guarantee a comfortable retirement for their own citizens in the future and should probably be avoided by expatriates.
Some of the countries that have been helped by the euro zone’s austerity measures, including Cyprus, Ireland and Spain, rose on the chart up to 24th, 25th and 29th respectively, making them a little bit more of a good choice if retiring in Europe is what you planning to do. Some of the rising stars include Iceland, South Korea and New Zealand and, surprisingly, South Korea was the country that climbed the furthest in the ranking since last year.
The 19th place overall was the United States, behind such countries as the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom and South Korea surprisingly. The report was keen on saying that all individuals must increase the amount of money that they’re putting away in retirement accounts (duh) as governments worldwide are being increasingly “squeezed” with problems like inflation, debt and fiscal policies that negatively affect the financial security of retirees. On top of these negative aspects, most countries have a rapidly aging population, something that will tax healthcare systems worldwide.
Surprisingly, many of the “cheapest” countries in South America were not near the top of the list, mostly due to their lack of infrastructure and healthcare systems. However, many “ of them including Brazil, Peru and Uruguay, are excellent choices with a very low cost of living, decent health care and low housing cost as well.