A Canadian Retirement
12 Month Summer
$1000.00 A Month

A Canadian retirement is not expensive once you see a few facts and figures from a different country, why suffer from poor weather most of the year and pay a fortune to keep from freezing. Of course with high taxes and protected markets everyone wants you to stay right where you are.

Did you know that the greatest flim flam artists the world has ever seen have tried to make a case that you need hundreds of thousands of dollars in your bank account to retire, so you better keep working, that everything costs so much. It’s all a big smoke and mirror show. Governments are desperate to retain their highly trained workers, and when you make your money they want you to buy into the $500,000.00 home, the expensive luxury car, the 4 wheel drive, snow machines, motorcycles, the more you buy the more you are committed, now you have to work 50 weeks a year to pay for it all.

The average income for Canadians is a fortune in other countries, if you had a job and could earn $30.000 in Colombia your life would be so easy you would turn into a party animal. If you don’t get too extravagant you would pay $300.00, maybe more maybe less for rent, no heat to buy, power and utilities add another $100 and that’s more than generous, add $200.00 for food. $20.00-$30.00 a month for bus fare, the rest is your discretionary income. You don’t need a car, actually you are better off without one.You can live anywhere, a couple walls and a roof, life is so simple.

What you have to do is get over the brainwashing.

• It’s dangerous in other countries, it might be expensive here but at least it's safe.
• Healthcare will never be as good as it is here.
• We have higher morals than other countries
• You won’t find friendlier people than here.

All I can say is go, your first trip will be an education, your second trip will be smoother, on your third trip you’ll be helping the people arriving on their first trip.

One issue is your Government pension, if you are outside the country for a certain length of time they may not pay you the portion that the government has contributed, only what you have contributed so check this out with the government.If your not sure about Colombia, you can also visit Santa Marta by cruise ship, it is one of the Caribbean cruise ports used by the major cruise companies, stop in, get off the boat and walk around downtown, Santa Marta was founded in 1525 so there is history to see, the walkways along the beach, music and dance into the night. See if you can imagine what your Canadian retirement would be like, maybe warm waters and beautiful sunsets all year are what you want.

Living in Santa Marta, the costs for your Canadian retirement

• The cost to buy or rent a house is 1/4 of the cost in Canada.
• A trip to the dentist divide by 4, and they are not backlogged, Colombia has lots of expertise in dental surgery, plastic surgery, knee replacements, hip replacements etc.
• Your food bill is less by at least 30% and most is grown locally, fresh tropical fruits.
• No heating bills.
• Air conditioning optional.
• Swim every day, why mall walk! It’s not expensive to live close to the beach.
• Easy to get around without a car,
• Santa Marta public transit, about 75 cents
• Cabs are inexpensive.
• Motorcycle taxis half the price of cabs.

A Canadian retirement in the tropics on the Caribbean coast can greatly simplify your life

• Low Rent You can rent a small place for $300.00 or less a month, $500.00 should get you a nice apartment with a short bus ride to the beach.
• You don’t need a car People depend on buses to get to work in Santa Marta so they run often.
• No car insurance
• Canadian transit does not work well, just try to get around without a vehicle and sometimes the cold weather makes public transit impractical.
• No winter tires to buy, antifreeze, the winter servicing of your car, this saves you thousands.
• Give away your winter clothing.
• Save $5,000.00 plus a year by using transit, you won’t feel deprived because almost everyone uses transit to get around.
• Now that your outside every day you will be healthier.
• If you swim it’s easy on the joints.

Getting back to Canada for a visit

Every now and then it’s a good idea to return to Canada to remind yourself why a Canadian retirement on the Caribbean coast is such a good option. Any month of the year will give you a good reminder why.

• Travel from Santa Marta to the city of Barranquilla (1.5 million people) by bus.
• $3.00-$4.00 to get from your place to the Santa Marta bus station
• $10.00 bus ride to the Barranquilla bus station then a $10.00 cab ride to the airport,
• Fly direct to Fort Lauderdale, about 2.5 hours.
• From there choose where you want to go.

The same route can be used to fly from Cartagena except that the bus ride to Cartagena is about 4 hours, from Cartagena 2.5 hours to Fort Lauderdale.

Air Travel from Santa Marta.You can also fly out of the Santa Marta Airport, your flight though stops in the capital of Bogota, then you can make a connection direct to Canada if you wish.

After you do this trip a few times you will understand how easy it is and how easy it is to come and go from Colombia.

Back in Canada, time for a shockYour friends are still working, they cant afford a Canadian retirement in their won country.

• Cab from the airport the same distance that cost you $10.00 in Barranquilla is $75.00.
• The weather is cold
• If the weather is warm you still can’t sit outside as the mosquitoes are so bad.
• If you arrive in June or July the water is still just barely swimmable.
• It’s time to start talking hockey again, whatever month.
• Better cut back on the restaurant meals, forgot it was so easy to spend $100.00 dollars on dinner.
• Beer is not $1.00 anymore, it’s $5.00 - $6.00, and you can’t drink it on the beach.
• Welcome to wait times at the doctors office.
• The $20.00 that lasted you all day is gone in the first hour.

The reality is that Canada is for working, extracting raw materials, building big projects but pretty lacking for living, the weather is poor and cold most of the year, the distances are immense, all construction is expensive.

You can’t dream the weather into being nice, most of the country is north of the 49th parallel and that’s a long way north, there is no overhead sun, it’s always way over near the horizon. The sun is like a hazy distant star compared to where you are living now,

The beaches are free in Santa Marta, you don’t pay to heat the warm caribbean waters, the same goes for the warm weather all year long, the mountains are close and the tops have snow, you can see them from the tropical beaches.

Other parts of the Caribbean are certainly nice, no one can argue with that, but I have lived on an island and sometimes it’s just so inconvenient and expensive to leave. If I get restless I can just hop on a bus and travel south until I hit the tip of South America.

So come down on a vacation, look around and see if the Caribbean life would make for a good Canadian retirement. Santa Marta is a great place to live and it’s as modern as Canada, it just costs less. It’s best to stay for a while to understand how the numbers add up but of course they will always add up to less expensive in Santa Marta.

There is a growing community of expats living in Santa Marta, maybe you’ll join them. So when you think about it will it be a tropical Canadian retirement or another 10 years laboring in the cold.

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