[quote=“GuyInTaiwan”][quote=“Mer de Chine”][quote=“GuyInTaiwan”]
On my current track of earning/saving/investing, I’d be able to retire in Taiwan in ten years (though having kids in the future will put a serious hole in that plan), .[/quote]
Slightly off topic here, but… what would you consider being the minimum amount of savings needed to retire in Taiwan? We all have different needs, and expectations for return on investments, but I’d be interested in knowing what you base your calculations upon.[/quote]
Well, you could live fairly comfortably off 50,000NT/month for a couple (this why I said having kids would put a serious hole in this plan). It would mean travelling in the developed world, not in the developed world, but that’s okay. My fiancee and I currently live off 30,000NT/month. That’s comfortable, though it doesn’t allow us a lot of room for luxuries (though a lot of our recreational activities involve free, outdoors stuff, not going to bars), though it does include rent. So, if you say you could get a 5% return on your investments above and beyond inflation and tax here, which isn’t unreasonable, then you’d need 50,000NT x 12 (12 months in a year) x 100/5 (5% over tax and inflation) = 12,000,000NT and you wouldn’t be eating into your principal. Given my/our current rate of earning (which is probably quite average for forumosa), we’d be on track right now for ten years (which would put me in my early 40s), and that doesn’t take into account any growth in our investments beween then and now, some of which we could put into buying a place outright – you can get decent apartments outside Taipei for two or three million.
It’s very doable here if you don’t lead an extravagent lifestyle (and I don’t drink, and we cook at home a lot, so that’s a large part of it). If you can basically live off the Taiwanese partner’s income and save/invest the foreign teacher’s income, it’s possible to save in the vicinity of 700,000-1,000,000NT a year, and certainly more if you’re running your own show or doing some lucrative privates. Like I said though, kids would put a serious hole in that, though again, it depends upon how well you rein them in too.[/quote]
Yes, your numbers add up and I was kind of reasoning along the same lines. However, I was planning on a single income, and a life style involving some travelling which means that the pace of saving is slower, and 50000NT/month would be a must unless of course I buy and pay off an appartment (outside of Taipei). Which means that I will probably have to slug it out for longer if I want to get there.
Also, in retirement one has to be more conservative with investments, and returns of 5% adjusted after taxes and inflation are far from guaranteed.