A MUST READ: Charles Hugh Smith has written an essay to consider the options for retirement given little or no savings. He addresses many of the issues and challenges involved - LINK HERE: Charles Hugh Smith Retirement Options Essay.
From Charles Hugh Smith: I'd like to summarize a few key points in this discussion:
1. What we've been told are financial certainties are melting into thin air.
2. Financial repression--zero interest rates, capital controls and higher taxes on retirement income--are realities that are more likely to get worse than vanish.
3. Medical costs are soaring in the West due to rising labor costs and cartel pricing (pharmaceuticals and hospital chains in the U.S.). Co-pays are increasing and options for those with limited means are declining as the government slashes fees paid via Medicaid and other programs.
4. Medical tourism to SE Asia is growing as costs are a fraction of prices in the U.S. and the staff and equipment are on par (or better) than Western facilities.
5. The cost of retiring to an assisted living facility in SE Asia is roughly one-third the average cost of assisted living facilities in the U.S.
6. This enables options for limited-means retirees that would not be open to them were they to retire in the U.S./Canada/Europe.
7. Western currencies (especially the U.S. dollar, for all the reasons I have covered for many years) will likely increase their purchasing power at the expense of emerging-market currencies such as those of SE Asia. As the USD strengthens, it buys more in SE Asia. In effect, retirees with USD will be earning more even if their income in USD remains the same as the USD appreciates against local currencies.
Also here is video discussion highly recommended to watch - Charles Hugh Smith & Gordon T Long discuss the unsustainability of pension funds for U.S. public employees, the challenges of ordinary retirees to be able to retire given the financial repression on interest rates & low yields .. while everyone is beginning to agree that most people will not be able to retire, but must keep working, many do not realize that there are already "means-testing" in place for U.S. Social Security .. For more information on benefits planning, visit http://www.ssa.gov/planners/taxes.html.