Episode Summary
In this episode of The Expat Files, Johnny Mueller continues a discussion about an expat who lived in Uruguay and Chile, detailing his experiences and frustrations with life in Latin America. The expat describes the challenges of navigating the region, including language barriers, cultural issues, and systemic problems that make it difficult for expats to succeed. He also reflects on the sense of alienation and failure he feels as an expat, and questions whether he belongs anywhere. Johnny acknowledges the expat's perspective, highlighting the difficulties of living in Latin America and the complex relationship expats have with the region.
Johnny then reflects on his own experience as an expat, discussing the various strategies people use when dealing with the U.S. system, such as hunkering down, walking away, or minimizing taxes. He emphasizes the importance of expats sticking together due to the shared experiences and challenges they face. However, he also expresses regret over his decision to move to South America, noting that he has become poorer, lost friends and family, and lacks a true home. He acknowledges that while he has learned a foreign language and some investments have paid off, the overall cost of living abroad has been significant. He also mentions the difficulty of obtaining passports and the challenges of dealing with bureaucracy in third-world countries. Despite these challenges, he remains uncertain about his decision and acknowledges that he may have made a better choice by staying in the U.S. He concludes by offering advice to others, suggesting they stay put, work hard, and be ready to move if necessary, but not to give up U.S. opportunities for the sake of an idealized version of life abroad.
Johnny discusses his decision to move from Uruguay to Chile, citing the Uruguayan constitution's restrictions on dual citizenship and mandatory voting as reasons for his dissatisfaction. He contrasts this with Chile's more straightforward citizenship process and favorable tax policies. Johnny also emphasizes the benefits of living in Chile, including protection of assets and a better quality of life, while critiquing the common expat experience of isolating oneself within gringo communities and the pitfalls of following popular expat destinations.
He then discusses the challenges expats face in Latin America, particularly with language, legal issues, and relationships. He argues that most gringos and new expats struggle with Spanish, often end up being scammed by local lawyers and professionals, and tend to cluster together in tourist areas, leading to inflated costs. He also touches on the topic of expat relationships, noting that marital issues are not unique to Latin America and that expats often face romantic temptations due to the local population's interest in gringos. Johnny shares personal anecdotes about his experiences in Costa Rica and his own social standing in the past.
Johnny discusses the challenges expats face when moving to Latin America, particularly the shift in social dynamics and the potential for personal and financial pitfalls. He highlights how expats who were previously unnoticed in their home countries may suddenly receive more attention in Latin America, which can lead to emotional and relational complications. He also addresses the financial risks expats face, such as overpaying for services and the challenges of dealing with local contractors. Johnny emphasizes the importance of understanding local customs and financial practices to avoid common mistakes.
Finally, Johnny discusses the challenges of retirement in Latin America, particularly for Americans who are not financially secure. He suggests that those with substantial retirement savings, such as a pension of four or five thousand dollars or more, can consider moving to Chile. However, for the majority of first-world Americans who lack such financial stability, he advises against moving to countries like Uruguay, Chile, Panama, Costa Rica, and Argentina. He humorously suggests that if someone is considering these countries, they might be more interested in the cat food than the lifestyle. The segment ends with a call to action for listeners to email The Expat Files and visit expatwisdom.com for more information.
Topics
Expat experiences in Latin America, Cultural and systemic challenges for expats, Sense of alienation and failure, Moral implications of expat life, Regret over moving abroad, Challenges of living in third-world countries, Advice for expats, Comparison between expat life and life in the U.S., Uruguay's citizenship restrictions, Chile's citizenship process, Expat experiences in South America, Asset protection and tax policies
Chapters
00:00:00 Opening 00:00:19 Welcome to the Show 00:00:21 Overview of the Show's Content 00:00:25 Introduction to the Topic 00:00:26 Setting the Stage for the Discussion 00:00:31 Introduction to the Expat's Story 00:00:32 Continuation of the Expat's Story 00:00:37 The Expat's Complaints 00:06:10 The Importance of Sticking Together as Expat Friends 00:06:16 The Shared Experiences of Expat Life 00:07:21 The Challenges of Obtaining Passports and Dealing with Bureaucracy 00:11:27 Johnny's Disappointment with Uruguay's Citizenship Policies 00:12:43 Johnny's Preference for Chile Over Uruguay 00:15:03 Johnny's Critique of Common Expat Experiences 00:17:11 The Reality of Spanish Language Skills Among Gringos and Expats 00:17:37 The Financial Impact of Clustering in Tourist Areas 00:18:19 Scams and Legal Issues in Costa Rica 00:19:53 Marital Statistics and Expat Relationships 00:20:50 Romantic Temptations and Social Dynamics 00:22:21 The Shift in Social Attention for Expats in Latin America 00:22:47 The Honeymoon Period and Its Aftermath for Expats 00:24:11 The Impact of Attractiveness on Expats in Latin America 00:25:06 Financial Pitfalls for Expats in Latin America 00:27:10 The Challenges of Retirement in Latin America 00:27:12 Financial Considerations for Retiring in Latin America 00:27:16 Recommendation for Those with Substantial Savings 00:27:18 Warning for the Majority of Retirees 00:27:23 List of Countries to Avoid for Less Secure Retirees 00:27:29 Humorous Take on Cat Food and Lifestyle 00:27:36 Call to Action and Closing Remarks
Transcript
Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.
[00:14] Hello there all you expat wannabes, I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the Expat Files, living in Latin America. The show that tells you just what it's like to live, work, play and or retire down here in Latin America. It's a mix of the good, the bad, the ugly and the great and it's all right here so let's get started. Okay now as promised I'm going to continue on with that diatribe that I started last week concerning that expat who lived in Uruguay in Chile. If you remember he was complaining about how for him and all his expat friends just about everything turned to crap or crashed and burned including personal relationships. Obviously this guy's got a really dark tale to tell and here at the Expat Files we've never been bashful about revealing Latin America warts and all and of course all stories
[01:00] and viewpoints are welcome as long as they agree with mine. Just kidding. Anyway since Uruguay and Chile have been on the radar for expat wannabes quite a lot lately I thought it'd be interesting for you guys to hear his version of things since he's had boots on the ground in both places for a total of about six years. Now I finished off the last show by paraphrasing him when he said that going down to Latin America as a couple is a surefire way to break up a marriage. He had his reasons which we'll get into later so we'll let him play devil's advocate here and let him get on with his rant. And what you hear now is going to be a bit abridged and paraphrased since like I said before these bloggers have their own dedicated communities and use a lot of their own catch phrases jargon and slang so I'll be skipping some of that stuff as we go along.
[01:45] Anyway continuing on here from last time he goes on to say after mentioning that anyone coming down as an expat couple should expect disaster down the line when it comes to the relationship well he says when I said about my great South American adventure I spoke a handful of horrible Spanish and once in the flow of things I had to sink or swim and now after six years of it I'm pretty well fluent in the language. Learning this skill is one thing I do not regret but listen to me please when I say this it does not make things much easier. Anyone ought to think it should but it doesn't work out that way. You will understand every word that is written or said but you will still not understand the lack of logic behind you not being able to get done what needs to be done down here
[02:35] and it will not stop the culture from ripping you off and raping you every time you take your eye off the ball. Scumbags are scumbags because they lie in any language. Then he goes on to say South America all of it is that way for a reason it's not for lack of foreign influence I guess he means us expats who knows anyway then he says it's not for lack of access to people or services or things it's that way because of its stubborn culture ingrained and encouraged ignorance and government interference with any and all things wonderful and efficient. When you get drafted for your adventure you will show up thinking that there is opportunity at every turn thinking why in the hell hasn't anyone done this or that thing yet.
[03:23] In other words why haven't people just picked up the ball and filled in the business gaps yet then he says the simple answer to that is they have they have filled in the gaps and they failed miserably not to lack of trying but due to the fact that the locals will make sure that you fail. Turns out he says every bright idea that expats and gringos have in South America is just a dying ember of someone else's broken dream and I guess he means there some other gringos broken dream someone who's tried it before and failed I guess. Okay then he says and once you start digging you'll find all those old bones buried under those new ideas you thought you had and I'm paraphrasing here because again he doesn't write a very flowing blog or narrative at all.
[04:08] I wonder what Cleveland public school he flunked out of. Anyway it's not a cut on the content of his letter I'm just saying if you actually write a blog and continue doing it every day or every week like this guy apparently does you should have a halfway decent control of your grammar huh well I should talk right. Anyway he goes on to say in South America you will not get ahead by holding up the torch of reason that'll just make it easier for the locals to come after you with their pitch forks and tear you down. He says the torch of reason makes the locals angry actually like kicking a beehive. Reason and logic are the Frankenstein monsters of South America. He continues by saying you left the US as an expat because you felt you didn't belong
[04:56] and now you're leaving South America because you don't feel you belong there either. So in effect because you failed in both countries you're an extra alien and don't fit anywhere. So he says the locals are ignorant in any third world country maybe even worse here but because now you're a citizen of the world because you're an expat you feel triple homeless. So what do you do I don't know the answer but maybe I'll go back to being a boat hippie. Maybe I'll be so enamored with Asia by the way I'm leaving for Asia tomorrow. Anyway maybe I'm just repeating the same idiot behavior I'm just thinking as screwed up as it is. The United States is still home and we expats have to face that. As much as I hate Big Brother I also love Big Brother.
[05:43] I think that painful reality is sinking in. I struggle a great deal with the moral implications of this because I find supporting the empire to be morally revolting. What with Big Brother and the police state etc etc. Then he says some say we should hunker down and fight the system at home in the US. Some say walk away like I did. Some say don't leave the states keep your head down minimize your taxes and keep your eye open for the exit signs. And then he says what I do know is that another thing no one ever tells you when you leave is that we end up having a lot more in common with our expat friends than anyone else. So we expats have to stick together. When we leave to become expats what we become is a strange patchwork of an adopted family
[06:29] in another country. So then he says is living abroad worth it? And oh no. For me as a result I'm poorer for it, poorer in friends and family, lacking a true home. In fact I have passed up countless opportunities over the years chasing after what I consider now BS in the third world. Sure I learned a foreign language in several local dialects but I could have done that a few hours a week in a community college. And yes a few investments in the third world panned out nicely but nowhere near what I could have made had I simply stayed home. And had I not incurred the expenses of living in pricey places abroad and getting ripped off by locals etc I could have just bought a second passport outright.
[07:15] As it stands the Uruguay passport is still a who knows kind of situation. After another year of pestering and trying and literally accumulating 25 pounds of papers and paperwork that I've assembled and yes I actually weighed them so that's the truth. Then he says after all of that I could have gotten and maintained my foreign residences in both Chile and Uruguay and still lived in the US vacationing once in a while in those foreign lands instead of living there. That would have been smarter. Even though now I have no passports to either country I can still head back to them and stay as long as I want if need be. That's a pretty good plan B. And then he adds another paragraph here he doesn't seem so certain about.
[08:00] He says again do I regret moving to South America? To be honest sometimes yes and sometimes no. I am a firm believer that you should regret things that you haven't done not the ones you have done. But really what grand things could I have done had I stayed? There have been lots of things I wanted to do which I couldn't because I was stuck chasing paperwork in some idiot government bureaucrats office doing some morons job for them or generally just chasing my tail herding cats in the third world. And he says as I write this I'm getting my bags packed to travel to Asia for six weeks and I found out last night that the guy I trusted to finish the renovations on my apartment in Santiago Chile has not shown up for a couple of weeks and I'm probably going to return
[08:51] home to the same half finished wreck of a place that I left two months ago. What a nice thing to think about while you're trying to relax on the other side of the earth. Huh? Especially when you're on a boat with no internet or telephone for three weeks. And here are his final words. My advice, stay put, keep your powder dry, cultivate your friendships, and work hard back in the USA where you know the lay of the land and the locals are less likely to screw you. Live within or below your means, save aggressively, but be ready to hit the road if you absolutely have to. Just don't give up your US opportunities at the expense of a shiny El Dorado you think is laying right behind the next hill. Okay, now that I've read this guy's little piece, I want to read you another little piece
[09:38] from a guy who responded to that rant. A guy who spent just as much time down in Uruguay in Chile, but with a completely different outlook. And of course, I'll give you my response in a few minutes too, but I want to read this guy's response because it says something mighty interesting to all you guys down there who've put the idea into your head that Uruguay is the golden retirement paradise. And in this guy's response, he's coming from a very different angle, one that I've never talked about before, but was meaning to. Now since this guy really did his legal homework, it's best I lay it on you in his own words, and then I'll say my piece. So here goes with this guy's response, and I'll only have to do a little bit of paraphrasing here because this guy is obviously more coherent than the other guy. He starts out by saying, listen, living abroad gets better, you just have to stick with it.
[10:28] It sounds like for you, with all that negativity, the romance period is over and now reality is setting in, which can be a bit depressing. Once that passes, you'll know what you're up against, and you'll learn to lower your expectations of the new countries you plan to spend time in, accordingly. After all, this is the third world. In every country I've been to, I met people who'd rather be in my country, the US of course, or the one I just arrived from. Everyone is looking for that perfect place that just doesn't exist. You have to get over that hump and understand that. The challenge is balancing the negative and positive aspects of the place, and then visiting the place of course, and making something work. Then he says, as for me, before moving to Chile for the purpose of acquiring land and
[11:16] citizenship, I looked into moving to Uruguay too, for the same reasons. I figured it would be easier there until I read the Uruguayan constitution and discovered that I would have obtained a kind of a second-class citizenship, unequal to a natural-born Uruguayan, with the risk of eventually losing that citizenship after acquiring another, unlike natural-born Uruguayans who can't have dual citizenship. If you become a naturalized Uruguayan citizen, you can't. And after discovering by reading the Uruguayan constitution that voting is obligatory for all citizens, not to mention the vague uncertainties in their income tax law, and seeing the high
[12:05] taxes on automobiles and basically all imports, etc., etc., I thought, what else are these guys going to come up with? Talk about Big Brother and the bureaucratic nightmare. So, I decided that Uruguay was probably not in the cards for me, not if my objective is to increase my freedom and decrease my exposure to bureaucracy. Who wants to move to another country that ends up being just another cage, like the states? Anyway, originally I had discarded Chile as a destination because I was looking for a territorial tax-based country in South America, but even after I acquired permanent residency in Panama, I prefer spending my time in Chile because it's just a better country in my opinion.
[12:51] And having a lawyer assist me with residency and banking in Chile made things super easy. Turns out in Chile, the requirements for citizenship are also straightforward. First obtain temporary and then definite permanent residency in Chile and then stay in the country for 180 days a year for 5 years, including the years of temporary residency. Then unlike Uruguay, dual citizenship is allowed, and again, unlike Uruguay, there's only one class of citizenship, once you've got it, in Chile. The natural born and the nationalized citizens have exactly the same rights. And sure, you could just go out and purchase some economic citizenship somewhere, but in my case, I still need to establish residency somewhere in order to get away from the super
[13:41] high income taxes in the states and Europe. So even if I spend $1,500 a month on rent for 6 months in Chile for 5 years, which is the minimum amount of time you need to remain in Chile to maintain your residency, the fact is there is still no economic citizenship program out there that you can buy from any country for let's say $50,000 that offers a high quality passport like Chile that has visa free access to Europe, the USA, Russia, and the rest of Central and South America. And in Chile, there are no bribes or palm greasing required. And plus, moving my money down here, I'm protecting my assets that would have gone to waste via government theft back in the states, as far as I'm concerned, a win-win situation.
[14:28] So for me, in response to that other guy's rant, is living abroad worth it? Yes, I'd say most definitely. For both personal and financial reasons, it really works for me. Not to mention that I've met amazing young expats from various backgrounds while in Chile, which was completely unexpected. So that's just the icing on the cake. So anyway, that's a response from a guy who thoroughly investigated Uruguay and ended up in Chile. Now there's a lot of little points to talk about on this. So let's start from the beginning. First, as a general blanket statement, I have to say that our guy with the dark message there, to me he seems like he did almost everything the wrong way. First of all, he ended up smack dab on what you might call the burgeoning tourist trail, the places that rags and mags like International Living and all those retirement magazines
[15:16] are touting as the latest and greatest places for expats to retire. And by then, it's no secret anymore, and it's not cheap either. Why does it seem like every time magazines like International Living pump up a place as a great expat living destination, the bloom is already off the rolls and all the juice has been squeezed out of it? It's just so predictable. And of course the gringo dollar and the euros are flooding into those places like a gusher. And when the expats arrive by the boatload, they immediately hook up with lawyers and real estate agents. And how do they find these guys? They pick them off the internet, the yellow pages, or heard about it in an expat bar from a gringo friend of a friend. And they end up getting sucked into every scam imaginable. I know expats and gringos just like that, they just can't manage to live without hanging
[16:06] around with other gringos and expats. And that just keeps you separated from what's really happening. It's one way to assure yourself you're going to be isolated. It's a way to be trapped in a kind of artificial niche that I don't particularly care for at all. But gringos and fresh expats seem to attract each other like lint. I know the type, I see them all the time. Going to gringo clubs and bars and even starting their own little gringo clubs. I mean if you want to play and hang out with gringos, why did you ever leave Cleveland? And that's also one way to guarantee you're never going to perfect your Spanish. Oh you'll eventually be able to buy gas and things at the grocery store, but don't expect to pick up on the nuances of the latins around you conversing. Irrespective of what our first guy said, remember he said he was 100% fluent after 6 years.
[16:53] Well I don't know about that. I know a lot of American women in Chicago who think they're great dancers too. Unless our guy is some kind of a gifted linguist. I don't believe he learned his Spanish 100% and knows some dialects too. The fact is I don't know any gringos or expats who can claim that. Only expats who happen to have lived in Latin America as kids can really speak flawless Spanish. I can't and I'm off the tourist trail and I've been down here more than 20 years. I guess I'm just a realist and I know I can't dance. Then again maybe I'm just thick. So like I said, gringos and fresh expats seem to clump together like hairballs. You see them hanging together all the time at gringo clubs and bars and every place else gringos hang and as a result they end up paying too much for everything.
[17:42] And then when they find out in the non-gringo saturated parts of a country or town prices are a lot lower, they wind that the locals are taking advantage of them and ripping them off. I mean I remember back in Costa Rica more than 20 years ago. Now you'd think back then before the place was really getting pumped up, discovered and recommended by every retirement website that it would be cheap, basically unspoiled and there would be tons of deals to be found with everything from real estate to hotel prices to professional services like doctors, accountants and lawyers. Well I'll tell you, every single one of my gringo expat buddies in Costa Rica was actually scammed in one way or another by a lawyer or ripped off on a real estate deal. It happened to me, my Costa Rican lawyer gouged me a number of times just like my expat friends
[18:30] and most of them got ripped off by their very own lawyers too. And here's the thing, when new expat friends of mine would come down they'd say, Johnny, I need a lawyer, can you give me the name and number of your guy? Now I knew my lawyer was gouging gringos and he was gouging me but he didn't bleed me enough to cause me any real lasting pain and as long as I kept my eyes open, he didn't gouge me as much as he gouged a lot of other guys. So what was I supposed to tell these fresh expats? Well yeah, here's the name and number of my lawyer. He's a cheat but he's not a big cheat. He'll gouge you but he won't drain you dry and that was over 20 years ago. That's why I learned the hard way that you got to get off the tourist trail and you've got to disassociate yourself from the gringo bars and the expats.
[19:17] Now that doesn't mean of course you can't have expat friends and buddies but when you're off the tourist trail you really have to go out and try to find them because they're not just popping up around every corner like they are in Panama, Costa Rica, Chile, Uruguay and even Bolivia these days and Mexico for sure. Now let's discuss a little bit about coming down as an expat couple since our dark pessimistic guy says relationships like that are doomed for disaster. Well one thing is that he fails to mention that up in the states anyway half of the marriages in the states disintegrate within 5 to 7 years and moving to another country doesn't seem to alter those statistics at all. In fact it turns out statistically about 50% of married American couples fall within that crash and burn range of 5 to 7 years.
[20:05] Whether they're an American couple living in the states, Latin America, Europe or Asia, take your pick. So if you're a married couple coming to Latin America will your marriage eventually disintegrate? Well flip a coin who knows either way 50-50 ain't good and Americans and expats and gringos on their second marriages are even worse off statistically. So there's definitely no real proof that it's Latin America that is the actual root cause of some of these breakups. It seems to be a phenomena that knows no borders. But I will say this and I've seen it a thousand times. For both first world expat males and females there's an awful lot of temptation simply due to the fact that nearly every Latino and Latina has a secret fantasy of hooking up with a gringo or a gringa, permanently that is as in kids and marriage.
[20:54] And of course it's a thousand to one or ten thousand to one shot especially off the tourist trail simply because we're vastly outnumbered. Nevertheless it's a fact and I can prove it. But that's a topic for another very politically incorrect show so stay tuned for that. But just to put a frame of reference to it, if you're in the elite popular crowd in high school and college, you know just what I'm talking about. That's what it's like for gringos and gringas who might be coming down here looking for love and romance. And by the way I was not in the popular crowd in high school and college myself but I was in a rock and roll band which does have its definite social advantages too. And I played cello in the symphony orchestra which had snob appeal but zero social advantages
[21:40] at an age where you really needed them. So even now I can talk Beethoven, Bach, List and Wagner with the best of them. But back then it got me nowhere with the ladies. Now if and when you do come down here to Latin America, you should never forget the following unwritten law. Whatever number on the one to ten scale you were in the states, as soon as you end up down here in Latin America you can instantly add two or three points to that score. So for example a guy like me, I always rated myself about a six when I was up in the states. As soon as I landed down here I instantly became an eight or a nine. And believe it or not that can be a real problem and I'll tell you why. Suppose you did not get much attention at all from the opposite gender when you lived up in the states. And on top of that maybe you were an introvert or a wallflower.
[22:29] Obviously I wasn't one of those. And all of a sudden once you're down here, maybe for the first time in your life the opposite sex is actually paying attention to you. Whereas before, up in Cleveland, maybe you were just treated as unremarkable and neutral. I mean according to the bell curve that's about 80% of everybody. Well you see, like in that second letter that I just read to you, after the so called honeymoon is over down here in Latin America, by the way I'm not talking honeymoon as in marriage, I'm talking the honeymoon period that happens to all of us once we land in a brand new country. That first few months when everything seems marvelous and wonderful. Anyway, after reality sets in and you start seeing the warts and the problems that might come up living in a third world country, all of us, I mean all of us, after about six months
[23:16] or so, get a little bit depressed. Wondering if it was really the right move to make. And during that time when expats aren't going through that phase when they're a bit depressed, that doesn't make you any less popular at all with the locals. But it's guaranteed to make you more susceptible to those certain temptations if you know what I mean. And that's when a lot of expat couples start having troubles with their relationship. Now you compound that with the extra temptation, well as you might imagine you gotta watch out for that. And worse yet, what I've seen happen many times to single expats is that they crave companionship to help out with their depression and they end up in a romantic relationship that's just not right for them. And a good percentage of them end up getting married or having a kid with the first pretty
[24:02] face or handsome guy they hook up with. And provided you don't look like Oprah or Danny DeVito, the eligible ladies and gents will be lining up to take a number. And you know if you were a solid four, five or a six back in the states, you'd never think in your wildest dreams that you could ever have a date with the homecoming queen or the captain of the football team, much less Miss Cleveland. So what happens when a solid four, five or a six comes down to Latin America and he or she is suddenly faced with that? Like Jesus said, the flesh is weak. By the way, that was Jesus my gardener who said that. Oh and by the way, Expat Eddie has revised that one to ten system. You know, the scale we all measure ourselves by. He says if you ask a gringo or an expat to rate themselves on that one to ten scale, always subtract one.
[24:48] Because we're all eternal optimists, you know? That aside, our dark and depressed expat who's throwing in the towel, he talks a lot about getting ripped off by the locals and believing that he'll come back to his place in Santiago Chile and find out that the remodeling job he contracted for will never get done, etcetera, etcetera. Well again, there's one thing I noticed myself that happens on and off the tourist trail. Gringos always, and I mean always, end up paying too much upfront when they contract for services. Now I'm telling you, when any contractor down here asks for 50% upfront, a gringo will almost always give it to him. Yet, if you said to him, look, I'll give you the job but I'll only give you 25% upfront, take it or leave it, you know what? The guy's not gonna turn down a job, not from a gringo.
[25:35] Yet so many gringos get sucked into paying too much on the front end. And like I've mentioned in past shows, Latin construction workers and contractors are not good about handling money. They're always living on the edge and can barely come up with payroll when they've got their own workers. So if they get in trouble by blowing the money you advance them, sure, they'll deal early dally and delay because they'll be working side jobs, not yours, to scratch up some more dough, and in fact, they might even be using the material that you bought for your job on another job. So you can see, you've got a lot to learn when you come down here to Latin America and that's why I do this show. And I admit, when I first came down, I got stuck in a number of ways too, nothing earth-shattering or depressing enough to make me want to go back to the States, that's for sure. Again, that's why I do this show.
[26:21] But now, let me say a bit about the guy who made the rebuttal that he's moving to Chile instead of Uruguay because he found the Chilean passport to be much better. Now you might have picked up on the fact that he said he doesn't mind paying $1,500 a month rent for that six-month minimum in-country residency requirement for the first five years. Now that should have struck a nerve when you heard that, simply because anybody who's going to dish out $1,500 a month for rent in a Latin country obviously is not coming down to Latin America looking to live like a king on a social security check because $1,500 a month rent will eat up your entire social security check. So for all you expats looking for a great deal, you're just never going to get it in Chile, for that matter in Uruguay. Because whether you want to face it or not, those two countries are first world expensive
[27:10] now and they're only going to get worse. But if you've got four or five thousand bucks or more coming in on a good solid retirement pension, be my guest, pick Chile. But as for the other 70 to 90 percent of first world Americans that aren't so lucky, you better rule out places like Uruguay, Chile, Panama, Costa Rica, and Argentina. Or maybe their cat food is better. Have you tried it? You've been listening to The Expat Files, living in Latin America, coming to you twice a week from somewhere south of the border. Email me, The Expat Files, at gmail.com. And don't forget to check out expatwisdom.com to sign up for your free reports on Latin America. See you next time. Nos vemos!