California Boomer Couldn’t Afford Retirement on $3,000/month, Left US

• Norman Bour nearly lost everything during the 2008 recession when he was living in California.
• Bour, now 70, and his wife worried about affording retirement in the US and moved abroad in 2019.
• They choose cheaper countries, including Malaysia, for better healthcare and affordable housing.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Norman Bour, 70, who, along with his wife, left the US for Europe to live abroad in 2019. He writes about his experiences and tips for baby boomers interested in doing the same. The discussion has been edited for length and clarity.

In the early 2000s, I had a good run in the real-estate industry. I was doing mortgages and had a real estate and finance radio show with a partner in Los Angeles. I was making good money.

However, everything fell during the 2008 recession — I don’t know if I could have prepared for such a downturn.

For many people, if they have a medical problem or financial setback, it takes very little to deplete their savings. It happened to me.

Over four years, I liquidated my retirement accounts, savings, and investment property, reducing my income from a healthy six figures to a very small amount.

Like many older people, I found myself a lot closer to homelessness than I cared to admit.

The ordeal was a real adjustment to my ego because no one likes to think that they’re 60 years old and a failure, and that they’ve lost everything they worked for their entire lives, especially when their peak earning years are behind them.

I had to cut costs to survive

Since I was never a consistent saver and California’s cost of living was rising, I knew retirement would be a struggle.

I realized I had to start rebuilding myself to survive for the rest of my life.

While so many things were outside my control — the economy and my clients — I knew I could control my expenses, where I lived, and my lifestyle.

I became a minimalist.

In 2013, after 27 years of marriage, I divorced and went from living in a large four-bedroom house worth $700,000 to renting a room in an Airbnb in Costa Mesa, Orange County, for around $700 a month.

After the recovery from the recession, I had no interest in getting back into real estate. Instead, I started a video marketing consulting company.

But Orange County living was still pricey, so I started taking Social Security as early as I could — at age 62 — to supplement my income.

Leaving the US made the most financial sense

Leaving the United States was never on my radar, my dream, or my goal.

It all happened accidentally when I was invited to speak in Europe as a video marketing consultant in 2016. Over three weeks in Europe, I recognized that the cost of living outside the US was far more reasonable.

That’s when the light went on.

From a financial standpoint, it made sense to move abroad. There was also so much of the world I wanted to experience. I also knew my consulting…