SINGAPORE: A man from the United States was recently featured in a Business Insider (BI) piece that showed the difference in costs between retiring in Malaysia and America.
The piece tells the story of Andrew Taylor, now 70 years old and who has lived in Penang and Kuala Lumpur for the past decade.
Had he stayed in the US, he told BI, he would have had to wait until he was 80 years old until he retired, but as it is, he was able to do so at age 60, the year he began making Malaysia his home.
Mr Taylor began considering retirement in his mid-50s but quickly realized that it would have been unlikely that he could afford to keep living in the US if he retired early.
He found about a visa program called Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H), which makes it possible for foreigners to settle down from his former partner, who was from Penang,
While getting into the program is stricter today than it was when Mr Taylor first applied, foreigners can still stay in Malaysia for 5 to 20 years if they have high bank deposits and buy property in the country.
Upon getting his MM2H approval, he left Washington, DC, and made his way to Penang, where he lived for seven years. For the past three years, however, he’s lived in the capital in the two-bedroom condominium of his dreams, located around 2 miles outside the city centre.
“I’m on the 22nd floor and can see the Twin Towers. I can see all the major towers in KL, and it’s just a beautiful view. I think if I’m going to be in KL, that’s what I wanted,” BI quoted him.
The rental rate of RM2,800 (less than S$851) might make Singaporeans more than a little envious, given the high property prices in the city-state.
Even at the age of 70, Mr Taylor has no plans of slowing down, zipping around Kuala Lumpur in his Vespa.
But the best part is that he can stretch his dollar far more than he would if he had stayed home, and he told BI that his lifestyle today is quite close to what it used to be.
His monthly budget of US$2500 (S$3,423) is US$500 (S$685) more than it used to be, but that amount would not have been feasible back home.
BI added that he also pays RM340 (S$103) for a basic health insurance policy every month and is fairly happy with the country’s healthcare facilities, especially since a long wait is unnecessary for doctors to attend to.
Importantly, Mr Taylor also feels safer in Malaysia than he does back home, where hearing gunshots outside his window was not unusual, though he cautioned that such a drastic move might be much more difficult for those who have strong family connections back home.
Mr Taylor is also somewhat of a YouTube star these days:
/TISG
