How to Retire Without Money
WHERE TO RETIRE
This book is going to show you how you can attain the good life. It's going to give scores of examples of others, including this writer, who have done it. I don't care what your educational background is or how much money you have in the bank, or if you have any at all. I don't care how old you are, or whether or not you have any skills. This thing can be done. You can retire from the rat-race, and I'm going to prove it.If you have some savings to help out, fine. If you have a pension, no matter how small, wonderful. If you have a skill, swell. If you're a teacher, very well indeed; if you're an artist, or would like to be, or a writer, or would like to be, excellent. If you have any kind of industrial know-how, or construction skill, or if you're handy with tools, great.
Any of these things will help—but none of them are necessary. And all of this I'm going to prove. I'm going to take you by hand, and step by step, show you how to do it.
Meanwhile, however, I want to set some background. Otherwise much of what I've already said in the last chapter and much of what I will say after this one, will seem nonsense. So bear with me while I cover this subject of WHERE.
§ Let's face it. More than four out of every five people living in our country live in unfortunately grim surroundings.
The world is literally full of wonderful, desirable places hi which to reside. But rather than seek them out the overwhelming majority of us live in such traps of humanity as New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore, Cleveland, St. Louis, Washington, Boston, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee or Houston. And I've not even mentioned such real holes as Gary, East St. Louis, the coal towns of West Virginia, the textile towns of New England.
And even in our more attractive cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Orleans and Miami, the majority of the citizenry live in such poor neighborhoods, in such comparative squalor, that the basic attractiveness of the town is lost to them.
It is true enough that even New York or Chicago can be attractive and have their desirable attributes if you have the income of a millionaire but for the average reader of this book such cities mean drab living, too much heat in the summer, too much cold in the winter and sickening carbon monoxide fumes all year round. They also mean high cost of living, even though the living is poor indeed.
Is it hard for you to believe that there are places in the world, even within the boundaries of our own country, where it is possible to live quite well on what rent alone would come to in New York City? We'll come to this and prove it in following pages. Can you conceive of living in a villa on the sea with a full time servant, or possibly even two, all your meals and entertainment paid for, on what it costs to maintain an automobile in Los Angeles? This too we'll prove.
One of the great advantages of being very wealthy is the mobility that becomes yours. Where the average American spends his life in one city, and probably even in one neighborhood, only getting away for quick vacations or occasional business trips of one sort or another, the wealthy are continually on the move. They have both the money and the leisure time to indulge themselves in travel.
Thus a wealthy family can spend their winters in Miami or Palm Beach. But when the Floridian summer is upon them and the heat becomes oppressive, they leave the South and take off for the beauties of New England in the Spring. If Old Sol burns too hot, this year, then it's off to Canada on a fishing trip, or up into the mountains for the cooler resorts. If this routine begins to pall, there is always the Caribbean in the winter months, a cruise to Haiti or Trinidad. Or there is Europe with all its resorts, both winter and summer.
It leads to a fuller life, a more complete life, a more educational one.
Or, if your family of wealth doesn't particularly like travel but rather wishes to settle down, it can choose the beauty spots of the world, California, Florida, the Southwest, including Arizona, New Mexico and parts of Texas. Often they leave the States completely and establish homes on the French Riviera, the Spanish Costa del Sol, or in Paris, Rome or London if cultural pursuits are of interest.