Best Places In The World To Retire

Let's start with the good things about living and retiring in Bastimentos...

Let's start with the good things about living and retiring in Bastimentos...

Now some of the possibly not so good things about living and retiring in Bastimentos...

All in all, most Expats who I know are happy with their decision to live and or retire on Bastimentos. I guess you will just have to visit and see if it's the right place for you.

The amount you will spend on food here in Portugal would depend on for how many people you are buying. The cost for a couple with one son would average about $100 to $300 a week.
 
Sometimes I don’t have lunch at home but we’ll have dinner and sometimes I have a big lunch and I don’t eat dinner, for the cost for us really varies. Going to the supermarket, I spend an average of about €60 (US$ 65 or £43) a week. Then I’ll go to the fruit and...

The amount you will spend on food here in Portugal would depend on for how many people you are buying. The cost for a couple with one son would average about $100 to $300 a week.
 
Sometimes I don’t have lunch at home but we’ll have dinner and sometimes I have a big lunch and I don’t eat dinner, for the cost for us really varies. Going to the supermarket, I spend an average of about €60 (US$ 65 or £43) a week. Then I’ll go to the fruit and vegetable market, the butcher, the fish market and spend another €50 (US $54 or £36). The cost of food in Portugal is about a quarter less than in England. 
 
To cite some examples, a whole chicken is about €5 (US $5.42 or £3.60). A sliced loaf of white bread costs €70 cents (US $76 or £50). I buy whole wheat bread that is uncut from the bakery that costs me about €1.50 (US $1.62 or £1.08).
 
The cost of food in the markets in Portugal really varies. I cannot report the exact costs because I am not a supermarket person. I go to the supermarket once a month to buy cleaning product and canned foods. That’s about it. I don’t buy any food from the supermarket. There is a street market close to where I live here in Portugal and every Saturday and Sunday, I go there to buy my vegetables. I buy eggs from free-range chickens from a lady who sells them. I buy all the meat from the butchers and I buy fish from the fish market. The reason why I don’t buy fresh produce from the supermarket is because they don’t taste the same. Most of them come from Spain so they have travelled for days and have been refrigerated. When I put it on the table, it lacks flavor.
 
It’s like in England. In England, the food is appalling because there is no flavor. When I eat potatoes here in Portugal, they do taste like potatoes. When I go to England, the potatoes don’t taste like anything. Same thing with tomatoes. The tomatoes in Portugal taste and smell like tomatoes but in England don’t taste nor smell like tomatoes. The reason why I like buying from the street market instead of the supermarket is because the food that they sell in the street market comes directly from the producers or farms. That is commonly done in Portugal. The way that I buy is not unusual at all in Portugal. A lot of people buy from the street markets here in Portugal because people like the flavor of food. People who appreciate good flavor in foods go to the street markets. Those people who like processed food or pizzas go to the supermarkets.  

We have our Social Security and other retirement money deposited in an international investment banking corporation. I won't mention which one, but it's world wide, established, reliable, well funded and safe. We have credit cards that were issued from the institution that are usable at any ATM world wide, and the company remits fees from those transactions back to us, so we never have to pay anything to access our cash. We have no bank account (yet) in Medellin, nor do we...

We have our Social Security and other retirement money deposited in an international investment banking corporation. I won't mention which one, but it's world wide, established, reliable, well funded and safe. We have credit cards that were issued from the institution that are usable at any ATM world wide, and the company remits fees from those transactions back to us, so we never have to pay anything to access our cash. We have no bank account (yet) in Medellin, nor do we feel we'll need one, since we have that international account.

In order to establish a bank account, at least in Colombia, it's necessary to have a visa/cedula. We're in the process of acquiring those, so it will be a while.

 

BE Medellin

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(Commemorative photo of Citibank celebrating 100 years in the country of Columbia, pictured.)