Retire in India and live off interest payments?

the irish indian

yeah hindsight is 20/20 vision.
I sold a house a year and a half ago for 72K now it would fetch 150K

But i did buy an apartment in Goa and now just have to work and save hard to be able to retire there someday.
Problem being its so damn hard to save any money!

capt_mahajan

Jyoti, as you well know, this thread brought me to indiamike.
Its a wonderful idea of yours, and a dream of mine too, as you well know too.

You must have thought of these already, but availability of medical and education facilities closeby are the main reasons which have held me back till now.

I wish you all the best with your plans, and am more than a little envious

Jasmin

I can understand what you are saying. I'd also like to spend more time in India, probably not so much now, but in the future. But I don't want to sell my house here. I guess if you plan well,there must be a way of having the best of both worlds? I don't have a mortgage, so keeping my house wouldn't be a financial drain.

So I guess my question would be: Would it be feesible to retire in India one day? And what if I rented a place there, but only spent, say, six months or so there a year? Could I just rent for six months at a time?

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Digital Drifter

Which is what most people should do IMNSHO. It's very hard culturally, with the added baggage of basic infrastructure issues(water, power etc.), you need to have the temperament to move here.


Which is why 6 months is a such a good time. Suddenly, you want to see snow, see autumn colours, be ALONE. Just ALONE. What do you do, if you're rooted here? I'd always suggest, if you find this country fascinating or whatever, spend increasing amounts of time, just so you can pace yourself and see whether you're ready to make the move.

Obviously that would involve a large sum of money, just to experiment; then again, if you burn your bridges, you WILL have to take the rough with the smooth in India.

& when it's rough, it really turns nasty out here.

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capt_mahajan

Very well put, DD. As usual.

Nick-H

Absolutely.

Not that I have any regrets. Not having sold the house is largely a financial wish; it might have been good to rent it out and sell it much later (like, for instance 2011 with the London Olympics about to happen just down the road...). But I would have had to have invested about £10,000 to make it rentable, and I didn't have that.

Oh... I thought I knew so much about Indian culture before I came here. OK, I did compared to a newbie, or a 2-weeks-a-year man --- because I lived largely in it in London before even coming here.

But phew, am I still discovering!

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Jasmin

Thanks for not calling me a sissy DD! I agree with what you are saying.

Digital Drifter

sissy for what?

All said and done, the choice is always yours. Even if you give up, what standing does anyone with no skin in the game have to do with your situation?

Do your research, watch your money and try being a miser for 6 months at a time, to see whether it changes you.

jyotipg

Captain,

I find it comfortable if I can get major health facilties withing 2 hours of my place of stay. And in my last trip to Mukteswar, I saw some really good hospitals coming up near NAinital and Kathgodam. There was a new one coming which as the so called "Ventilator" support and they were advertsising it big time on a billboard.

As regards to health insurance, I bought it 3 years bacl for me and my wife because is you start at a lesser age, it covers all the diseases which may require any kind of hospitalisation. I havent used them till now but it keeps adding to my insurance cover if I dont use them..

Nick, Broadband is also teh kind of neccessity for me. This area currently is covered by all majot cellular operators.. By the time, hopefuly the boradband is also available there..

Cheers,
JP

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barodian

I was glad that I found this thread with the exception of little drama

ONe of my goals is to retire in India. I think I have ways to go before that comes +35 yrs or so...But, I do plan to retire early! Getting to the topic, I was in the mix of doing something with EXCEL to see how my money would be managed with inflation and interest earned. In the U.S. Social Security is not going to help in the golden years for most and considering my age. Luckly, I have 401K plan for retirement. No one know's how the whole market is going to play out. Which way are the Dollars, Rupees and Pounds going to play. I have been keeping track of Dollars to Rupees for over the past year and have seen Rupees take some ground away from the Dollar. At the moment the $1 is worth about 40 Rupees versus 45 Rupees a year ago.

My advice to everyone would be to diversify your assets. What I started doing is sending few hundred dollars to my India account every 2 months or so. That way my money is being compounded in Rupees. By doing this I am hoping that my money would be safe in either Dollars or Rupees and that is what diversification is. I don't know what is going to happen tomorrow but by me diversifing my money in different sectors, I am betting that at least one of those sectors will outperform the others and provide a safe retirement.

Everyone is different and have different ambitions. My recommendation is to do what you feel is safe, after all it is your money!

Sama

what is this "India account"? a bank account in India I assume? only for Indians or NRIs?

just curious...since I am much closer to retirement age than you are, stashing money away in an "India account" to compound in rupees would not be a bad idea, IF I was allowed to do that....

I have a number of retirement accounts I could draw on, but am wondering how to do that....much of the info here on IM is relevant to Europeans, etc. retiring in India, but am wondering how an American, where the mutual fund accounts such as IRAs, Roth accounts, 401Ks, Social Security, etc. are different, could do it, that is, how things could be set up...I haven't a clue!

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barodian

I called Citibank and unfortunatly it is only for NRI. Sorry!

noflylist

Only problem with depositing money in India would be if Rupee devalues sharply, you would loose the benefit of attractive interest rate. Also the requirement of NRI can be circumvented by a your local creative citinri banker!

barodian

The risk is always going to be there. You are still at risk with dollars and pounds. What happens if Rupees goes higher or matter in fact any other country? The dollar and/or pound would lose it's value regardless. I posted my thoughts and what I do occasionally to diversify my investment. Also, you don't really have a banker for you with citinri. You have to mail in your deposit by mail or setup the accounts together but there is a charge in the U.S. not familiar with other countries. They provide you with an ATM card and some checks.

YogaGal, are you referring to withdrawing money from your different investment, while you are overseas? If you are Social Security can automatically deposit the money into your U.S. account. With IRA's and 401K there is a age limit requirement in regards to withdrawals. I believe if you don't then there could be some penalty involved and also for withdrawing early or distributing more than allowed. You need to talk with your tax advisor on that part. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Sama

yes, I already know all that and I am at least 10 years away from Soc. Security's retirement age -- at least! But I guess to start, my question would be, if someone gets a Soc. Sec. check deposited into their American bank account, for example $800/month, then how would one draw on it while in India?

sorry if this is a stupid question!