- Norman Bour nearly lost everything during the 2008 recession when he was living in California.
- Bour, now 70, and his wife worried about affording retirement in the US and moved abroad in 2019.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Norman Bour, 70, who, along with his wife, left the US for Europe to live abroad in 2019. He writes about his experiences and tips for baby boomers interested in doing the same. The discussion has been edited for length and clarity.
In the early 2000s, I had a good run in the real-estate industry. I was doing mortgages and had a real estate and finance radio show with a partner in Los Angeles. I was making good money.
However, everything fell during the 2008 recession — I don't know if I could have prepared for such a downturn.
For many people, if they have a medical problem or financial setback, it takes very little to deplete their savings. It happened to me.
Over four years, I liquidated my retirement accounts, savings, and investment property, reducing my income from a healthy six figures to a very small amount.
Like many older people, I found myself a lot closer to homelessness than I cared to admit.
The ordeal was a real adjustment to my ego because no one likes to think that they're 60 years old and a failure, and that they've lost everything they worked for their entire lives, especially when their peak earning years are behind them.
I had to cut costs to survive
Since I was never a consistent saver and California's cost of living was rising, I knew retirement would be a struggle.
I realized I had to start rebuilding myself to survive for the rest of my life.
While so many things were outside my control — the economy and my clients — I knew I could control my expenses, where I lived, and my lifestyle.
I became a minimalist.
In 2013, after 27 years of marriage, I divorced and went from living in a large four-bedroom house worth $700,000 to renting a room in an Airbnb in Costa Mesa, Orange County, for around $700 a month.
After the recovery from the recession, I had no interest in getting back into real estate. Instead, I started a video marketing consulting company.
But Orange County living was still pricey, so I started taking Social Security as early as I could — at age 62 — to supplement my income.
Leaving the US made the most financial sense
Leaving the United States was never on my radar, my dream, or my goal.
It all happened accidentally when I was invited to speak in Europe as a video marketing consultant in 2016. Over three weeks in Europe, I recognized that the cost of living outside the US was far more reasonable.
That's when the light went on.
From a financial standpoint, it made sense to move abroad. There was also so much of the world I wanted to experience. I also knew my consulting business was location-independent.
My girlfriend at the time, now wife, and I left the US in February 2019.
Before we left California, I sold everything I owned through garage sales and also had about $8,000 in savings.
Additionally, I receive $1,700 a month from Social Security and, at the time, was making another $1,000 a month from consulting and writing. My wife received alimony as well, so she was making around $1,100, giving us a total monthly income of about $3,000.
Had we continued living in California, it would have felt like living at the poverty level when you added up the costs of rent, insurance, food, a car, gasoline, and all the other expenses. I would have been in a bad financial position.
We're living cheaply abroad in many countries
Over the years, my wife and I have visited and lived together in about 43 countries in South America, Europe, and Asia, including Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Ecuador, Germany, Greece, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain.
Several factors drive us when choosing where to live, with the weather being the most important. After living in Southern California for 40 years, we are not cold-weather people.
Another factor is the cost of living. We try to avoid living in expensive places like Copenhagen or France; otherwise, we would be in the same financial situation as in the US.
We arrived in Asia in November 2023 after taking a flight from Australia. We've been to Vietnam, Thailand, and Bali and now live in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
It's a pleasant place to be. We walk a lot, and the temperature is comfortable. We live in a nice, large one-bedroom apartment with a big bathroom, a beautiful balcony, and a lovely view, all for $700 a month.
We came to Malaysia for several reasons. One big reason is that we hadn't been here much before, and also because it is a very affordable country for medical care.
My wife is going to need cataract surgery, which could cost $4,000 to $6,000 in the US. She can have it done in Malaysia for probably less than $2,000.
While living abroad, we self-insure. We have Medicare but dropped Part B — which covers doctors and prescriptions — since we were paying $170 a month for it and had virtually no chance of using it without a home in the US.
It was the right decision to move abroad as a boomer
I miss certain aspects of the US, like my friends, and familiar comforts, such as visiting an In-N-Out Burger or a Target and easily reading the signage when I walk into a shop.
But my wife and I are very spiritual and practice gratitude, constantly reminding ourselves how fortunate we are to live this lifestyle.
We already have the next year planned out: We'll be in Malaysia until December 22, then go back to Bali, where we'll stay at a hotel on the bluff with an ocean view for only $26 a night. We'll spend 60 days in the country, then another 60-day window in a country we've yet to decide on, before heading to Europe.
In April, we'll fly to Greece to pick up a motorcycle in nearby Romania. For several months, we'll ride through Greece and then take a ferry to Italy to explore southern Italy, Sicily, Malta, and Sardinia.
Then it's back to the Balkans for a few months in Eastern Europe, and then we'll probably head back to Asia.
In the months before leaving the US, I created my blog, Travel Younger. The goal is to teach anyone over 50 how to travel smartly.
Before I came to Europe, I recognized that young people made traveling look so easy. This was quite intimidating as an older person who was not very experienced as a traveler. I said, "I need to learn how to travel like them. I need to learn how to travel younger."
The blog is not a revenue generator; it's just one way of giving back.
Many people my age are starting to think outside the box and recognize that they can take their $3,000-a-month income in the US and live nomadically and affordably elsewhere. I want to show them this isn't the world they remember 50 years ago.
I feel that having new experiences keeps us all mentally young.