How To Save Your Retirement
How To Save Your Retirement
It’s a big part of the American Dream… owning your own home.
I’ve owned many over the years.
But owning your own home isn’t always easy… even in your dream location.
Right now, I’m in Los Islotes, our base on Panama’s Sunset Coast… and we are dealing with bats…the flying kind.
They found a hole and started nesting in our roof. Their movement in the night as they come and go wakes us up sometimes. Therefore, we’re on an eradication mission.
We covered our home in fishing netting to keep them from coming and going. The first netting had big holes so until we could get some netting with smaller holes, I was defending my house with an airsoft gun.
I sat outside in the evening with my gun and I shot any bats trying to get back in.
Most just did fly-bys, but the ones that got stuck in the netting or passed through got popped… It wasn’t many, even with the larger netting, and the critters won’t be a problem for much longer.
Meanwhile, it gave me something to do for a few nights other than watching the news in the U.S., where people are shooting people with real guns rather than bats with plastic BBs…
It’s the sort of freedom we enjoy on the Sunset Coast of Panama, which might be pretty hard to enjoy if you lived on any coast in the States these days…
Bat Crazy
But I actually didn’t plan on writing to you about bats today.
No… Rather, I wanted to talk about something I think is “bat—- crazy.”
It’s a trend that’s grown and grown in the past few decades…
And, it is related to home ownership.
It’s something I’ll talk about in my new summit I’m putting together to help readers with their retirement plans. (As an Offshore Living Letter reader, you can access that—for free—this week. Keep an eye on your inbox for details.)
You see, Americans face a dilemma that is a real barrier to building wealth—and setting yourself up for a secure retirement.
It’s one of the major problems with retirement planning in the States right now…
You buy a house when you’re young. Then you continue to go up the property ladder—getting bigger and better homes—refinancing with each move, getting a new mortgage and a new 30-year term.
If you keep doing that into your 50s, you’re not going to repay your mortgage until you’re in your 80s or 90s—you’ll always have a house payment, which is probably one of your single biggest expenses.
So, you become “trapped.” Most Americans’ wealth is tied up in their homes… but they’re not able to “cash out” and realize the equity until too late in life.
Many folks these days “double down” on this bad retirement planning by taking out home equity loans.
It’s one thing if you badly need the cash.
But using your house as an ATM means that the value of what might be your single biggest retirement asset is constantly being eaten away… constantly dwindling… going down and down and down… until that moment you do retire.
And then, you better hope you have other assets…
According to Bloomberg, about half of U.S. homes with mortgages, have associated equity loans greater than 50% of the property value…
To me, one of the best pieces of general advice is this: if you can avoid it, don’t use your personal home as an ATM when you need cash.
If you do, you could be destroying your retirement nest egg…
There Is Another Way
There are plenty of other steps you can take… things you can do… to protect your retirement and make sure your nest egg stays intact.
In fact, that’s exactly what I’ll be discussing in my “Save Your Retirement Summit”—which you can tune into for free this week. I’ll be sending you the details in the coming days…
I’ve spent 30 years traveling the globe… investing outside America… looking for the best solutions around the world to protect and grow my wealth.
I think I’ve learned a thing or two along the way—strategies that aren’t obvious, certainly might not occur to most investment professionals in the States… but that anyone can take advantage of.
It’s not all about moving overseas.
In fact, there are many international wealth protection—and retirement protection—strategies you can take advantage of that don’t involve leaving your home country…
Tune into the “Save Your Retirement Summit” this week to see what they are.
In my five-part summit, you’ll learn:
- Exactly why I think U.S. retirement is in crisis
- What I’ve learned from my investments overseas and how I can help you
- The “Retirement Protection Factors” I believe everyone needs right now
- The right and wrong ways to diversify
- My biggest wealth-growing successes (and failures).
Keep an eye on your inbox for your opportunity to access this free summit…
Stay diversified,
Lief Simon
Editor, Offshore Living Letter
