I worked up until my 67th birthday a few weeks ago, and decided enough. I was going to try full time retirement and see how it goes. About a year ago, I applied and got the retirement visa (MM2H) from Malaysia, which is a 10 year social visit pass. For various reasons, I decided to give that up, and so no longer have the MM2H.
We have discussed this here before, and the belief is that retirement in Singapore for a single man like myself and renting an HDB flat is sort of an empty existence in retirement. I might be wrong, but it does seem to be that way. Having a wife and family is another story. It's possible to be here permanently, even in retirement if you have a family. I don't frequent bars, and I'm not an extrovert by any means.
When you are in retirement, you need to look for opportunities that occupy your time productively. In Singapore, I could get involved with community centres, do volunteer work, or get a new hobby. The problem I personally have, and it's probably only me, is in spite of my 40+ years as an expat overseas, I also feel as an outsider if I attempt to integrate myself into the culture. For example, I volunteer work at a community centre near where I live, and the looks of amusement and hopefully some admiration on the other volunteers took away from what I was actually volunteering for.
My actual interests are taking continuing education courses in the university, offered to seniors. Another interest, training a dog. Another interest, long hikes on mountain trails. Another interest, being a little closer to my brothers and sisters for the next 20 years.
I have dear friends, almost family, that live in Vancouver, Canada. I've known them and lived with them for 15 years in Singapore, and now they live in Vancouver as Canadians. I'm American, but I'd like to buy a small condo in a place like Bellingham on the Amtrak line and within 45 minutes of Vancouver driving. All the interests listed above can easily be accomplished there. Moving back to the States might be harder than I think, but every time I visit, I truly like the scenery, culture and people. The newspapers tend to really exaggerate at times.
That leads me to a selfishness on my part- giving or still keeping my PR. There is a part of me that just wants to cut all ties to Singapore, but of course returning as a tourist every few years. There is another part of me that has exactly S$40,500 in my CPF (Medisave only). My PR is good until 2017. I visited the ICA, and the person there told me that if I did not have a permanent address here or lived here for most of each year, in 2017 I would most likely get only a one year approval on PR. If I continued to stay away, I would lose my PR. At my age, she said work is no longer required, but what is required is living here for a good part of the year.
My inclination is to keep my PR only because I look at CPF as being a bank account with a great 4% interest. Also, maybe retirement in the States might not be what I’m thinking it is. Yet, I know Singapore does not offer a single older man a quality of lifestyle.
I’ll make an informed decision, of course. But particularly for you older expats, what do you think?
Thank you.
Rob
But, retirement just doesn't seem to be on the cards. Earlier this year my boss here decided to inform me that he'd like to keep me around for another 10 years and did some financial shenanigans to make me really think about it. So, it looks like, between the fact that I'd not be able to work if I went home (can't picture myself "retired" anyway) because of the general mess of the US and my age, I guess I'll stick around here for a while longer. But in my case, I'm married to a Singaporean so it's a wee bit different. But if I'm not going to be able to work here, I'm back to the US as I still cannot, for the life of me, see myself trying to eck out a retirement here. How to relak, man! Noise everywhere, all the time. I'd pack up and go back as well.
