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| Subject: Re: Where to retire cheap | Date: 10/9/2012 11:00 PM | |
| Author: katinga | Number: 647970 of 686232 | |
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-andrew, living on $2,100 a month in Chicago and starting to feel squeezed We served in a DR Congo village for 10 years, as part of a faith-based NGO. Some idea of costs: Utilities: Off the grid. Solar panels. House help (required, or your neighbors will think you're stingy): $60/month. Medical: Very cheap if you could find any. Mostly self-treat and consult with a local nurse, good at diagnosing local ailments, and keep wholesale quantities of standard drugs around (for yourself and share with friends). Fly out ($700 each way) if you need more complicated medical. Water: Send house help running to source with buckets. Purify with water filter. Food: $20 would feed a family for a week. Entertainment: Friendship, hunting, fishing, gardening Car: You kidding? We got around on bicycles Taxes: We learned to be very nice to local government officials. Our biggest expense was to charter a flight out on a bush plane every few months. In the 90s, that cost $700 per flight. We could sell seats we weren't using, and there was local mining going on, so people with money to pay. I had a flight manager who I paid a commission to for filling the seats. I reckon our monthly expenses, even with flights, came to well under $1K. |
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