'What do Ticos do when they retire in Costa Rica' Retirement

Sandy (1) from United States (Contact Member) -

What do you do when you retire in Costa Rica? Do you sit back and draw retirement benefits? Do you travel around the world?

Do you sit on your porch inside the steel gates with barbed wire and drink iced tea?

Comment #1 Beauty from Costa Rica (Contact Member) -

Hi Sandy;

Sadly I have to admit that here in Costa Rica we do not have such great retirement plans like in US or Canada (those are the ones I am familiar with).

When we start to work (we usually do it while studying), we start to contribute with a government pension plan (they deduce a certain amount based on your salary from payroll).

Then, when we retire, we receive a pension based on our contributions, however, the pension is usually tooooooooooo low and it would never allow us to stop working at all, we would need either a part time job or help from the youngs of the family.

That is the best case scenario, but there are instances where the people has not made many contributions (either because they did not want to or because their employeer did not contribute to the plan) and when they become disabled to continue working, if lucky, they receive aid from the government, again... extremely low.

Luckily, our family values have been very strong along the years and the majority of us will take care of our old relatives when the time comes. For example, I take care of my mom already because she has always been an independent worker and never contributed to the plans.

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