SOME BELIZE RETIREMENT QUESTIONS ANSWERED

RETIREMENT QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Got a Louisiana couple here visiting, looking at Belize for retirement. They had some interesting questions.
Why not case in the ceiling like they do in the USA? The reason is field mice and cockroaches in the tropical climate. They built nests in the dead spaces. Same with gypsum board walls. Can’t see the termites eating the wood studs. Field mice nests in ceilings are a big nuisance.
Our building is a utilitarian building. We live mostly wide open to the outdoors, with half Dutch doors open, windows open, etc. Why do I have the wiring on pvc pipe on the inside cement walls? The reason is, for ease of changes and additions. You can build with wiring into the cement block walls and many do. My own experience has been that I’m always wanting more lights, or outlets that were not originally planned on. It is just easier to have an electrician come in and put in extensions. The cost is around $40 usa per outlet.
Why did Silvia and I choose to live up here in the suburb of Hillview in Santa Elena Town. Partly because of the cooler Spring weather, particularly at night for 8 months a year. The other reason is bugs. Like mosquitoes and sandflies, common on the lower altitude coast. We are at 600 feet here and if you study the Mayan thatch villages, you will note, they always build above 400 feet altitude for the same reasons. Cut out the mosquitoes and get better sleeping temperatures. It was also a question of price, availability, convenience of streets, water service and electrical service and garbage service. The East West road is asphalt paved as is the North South highway. All other streets and roads are dirt. We just bought another house and lot in our suburb for $8000 usa. Will take that again to fix it up properly, but still a bargain by US standards. Expect we will increase floor space from the 400 square feet to about 3200 square feet. Our house and hotel here now is around 4000 square feet and started off with one of these small houses.
Building material costs! Most gadgets like nails, hinges, paint and screws are imported. If you take the retail cost in the USA and multiply by 3 times, you have the rough cost in Belize currency of the item. Due to taxes, shipping and customs brokers. Belize currency is $2 bz to $1 usa. Building supplies are erratic in availability. You have to wait when they run out of supplies for a couple of months, for wholesalers to import another shipping container of building supplies.
Building in cement is preferable to wood. Termites are the main reason and lower maintainance. They import cement and make cement blocks locally though. Building insurance for us is around a $1000 usa.
Land prices are variable and based on location and demand. Title processing is complicated and very slow. Lands Department backlogs run about a year.
If you are waiting for Permanent Residency and have completed a year in the country, the backlog in the Immigration Department is running right now about a year and a half. Most of it is due to a very complex inter-departmental sign off process, on the process of regulating things. Your file gets put on somebody’s desk and will get ignored as political party members hustle favors for people. The priority system doesn’t work due to politics.
Why live in Belize instead of the USA? The main reason is climate, this is a rural pristine country with a small population. We have two or three months of summer heat and eight or nine months of nice Spring type climate. ETERNAL SPRING.
Being a statistic in a metropolitan area doesn’t suit a lot of people. Here people know your name and greet you on the street.
That occurs in rural USA also though.
When you get older, medical problems arise. Medical service is better in Belize than in Metropolitan areas of the USA. The doctors are as good, at a fraction of the cost. You don’t need medical insurance and most new retirees have canceled their Medicare A & B, their medical insurance and taken the monthly money instead.
Medical problems can be frightening in the USA. The main reason is; I know of several people who lost their bank accounts, houses, stocks and assets. An example would be a male nephew who was around 40 years old and had looked after his rich aunt for 14 years. She wouldn’t give him power of attorney and he didn’t know enough to be appointed Guardian. Her incontinence in home living became too much for him to handle. So he applied to get assistance. Within 18 hours, the court had made the State her GUARDIAN. She had about $2 million in cash assets and $4 million in real estate. The nephew was kicked out of the house in downtown Metropolitan Miami with zero. He expected to inherit and became homeless instead. It took the STATE about 2 ½ years to run through her fortune. Every time she needed medicine, it required a judge, expensive lawyers to confirm the injection, all debited from her assets. The STATE argument was she would be in a STATE facility care for the rest of her life at no expense after the money was run through.
If you talk to some homeless people on park benches and living under bushes on Miami Beach, they can give you horrific stories. Of getting sick, homes and property sold for property taxes and being evicted. It is not unusual to have a million and a half medical lien on everything you own, for a ten day hospital stay. Nobody cares, once you have no more money. The medical system is designed to strip a person of their assets. If you are single and alone for any reason, you are in big trouble. As you get older you need to protect your assets and cash flow.
Like many countries, Belize has a system whereby if your property taxes are delinquent, the property cannot be transferred, inherited or sold, until all back taxes are paid up in lump sum. You don’t get kicked out on the street in your old age.
p.s. THIS IS A RE-WRITE OF AN ARTICLE DONE A YEAR AGO IN 2008 ON THE BELIZE CULTURE LISTSERVE DEBATING LIST.

BELIZE has many BUTTEFLIES that are unique!

The jungles of Belize have some wonderful unique butterflys.

http://folkmusicfl.tripod.com/adventuresinbelize/ adventuring in Belize headquarters for the budget traveller.

Young Belizean couple buying at the Macal River market in Western Belize

Young Belizean couple in the Saturday morning Macal River market of the Twin Towns out in Western Belize Agricultural and Recreational Area. January 3, 2009

WESTERN BELIZE TWIN TOWNS GET FANCY INTERNET CAFE AND STARBUCKS STYLE COFFEE HOUSE!

This is the NEW INTERNET CAFE ( BELIZE DIGITAL EXPRESS ) across the narrow main street of Santa Elena Town in Western Belize, Cayo District, Recreational Area, across from the AGRO PRO feed and fertilizer store. The girl is Maria Jiron, who is 21 years old and has a daughter. The unique thing about this Internet Cafe in Santa Elena Town, a typical dusty Central American agriculture and tourist town, is that it is the first place in the TWIN TOWNS to combine an Internet Cafe with Vivians Coffee House. They serve Frappuccino for $6.50 which has ice cream in it, they also serve frozen coffee for $5.50, hot Cappunicio for $4.50 and hot Latte. There are Nachos to munch on, ice cream, Sundaes and other good stuff. This is the first time the WESTERN BELIZE RECREATIONAL AREA has seen anything modern like this. They seem to be doing good business as well. I was surprised to see teenagers and people in their twenties queing up to buy what for me is a rather expensive delicacy. I myself usually eat at the Hindu Restaurant across the river and $2.50 will buy me a Ginger Lime juice in a big glass and a Somoza, which is a kind of pastry that has inside it various vegetables. $5 for a coffee strains my Scottish frugal genes.

Andreas German immigrant to Belize runs ultra light service out of Central Farm airstrip.

Andreas the German pilot and wife from Trinidad. Andreas is typical of many immigrants to Belize. Being from Germany and a pilot with his own TRIKE ultra light, he has towed around from country to country. He tried living in Trinidad, in the Bahamas and a few Caribbean islands in between. The immigration policies were not too good and restrictions on his flying business poor. On his second marriage to a Trinidadian student lawyer, who is trying to finish her law studies by internet extended campus right here from Belize. My daughter Wendy is living in Houston, Texas, putting her grown kids through University and running her Auxillou Beach Suites condos on the beach on Caye Caulker inside the barrier reef and monitors the guests coming in and her manager with a video cam, up there in her house in Houston, Texas. She also is trying to do her law degree ( for the Commonwealth rules ) by internet extended campus system. Andreas our German friend adventurer is your typical adventurer immigrant. I was that way once myself many, many, many years ago. Self sufficient, varied incomes and locally here in Belize where he has been around for over a year ( must qualify for Permanent Residency now? ) and takes people up for tourist rides over the Belize River Valley, farms, real estate developments and Twin Towns area and does photo shoots from his open air TRIKE ultra light, run by a Rotex motor. He tells me this TRIKE ultralight is sold now with the dinghy underneath and he plans to buy another one. His wife and he have moved out of Hillview suburb and they are now living down near the center of San Ignacio town, where they can get internet service to run their myriad, extended family, small international business interests. He has a son running another tourist business on the Amazon side of the Andes in Peru. Unfortunately, if it was possible, we too would move into the center of the twin towns, as we can get neither cell phone service, or internet service, even though we live in a suburb of Santa Elena Town here in Cayo Western Recreational Area. This crimps the business opportunities no end in todays world. Everybody in small businesses are suffering for lack of telecommunications.

INVESTOR OPPORTUNITY IN BELIZE FOR DAIRY FARMS

MILK PRODUCTION SHORTAGE IN BELIZE

Belize needs investors in dairy farms. There is a widespread shortage of production of milk. Cheese factories cannot get fresh milk, and with a population growing exponentially and expected to double in the next eight years, the current lack of milk production locally in the small nation is a handicap for our economic growth.

http://westernbelizehappenings.blogspot.com
http://folkmusicfl.tripod.com/adventuresinbelize/

Dutch University Fraternity student backpacker group stay at budget dormitory Falconview Adventure Hostel

Nine DUTCH University Student fraternity backpackers arrive at Falconview Hostel, booked by Hostelbookers.com, UK. They are from somewhere near Rotterdam, Holland.
They got in midday and in a rush we tried to accomodate them with a courtesy afternoon trip to the two Mayan ruins of Xununtanich and Cahel Pech. Today, four of them are off with Pacz Tours to the ATM ( Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave system). This is the XIBALBA, or one of the ancient entrances and sacrificial sites to the underworld planes of existance of the Maya spiritual mythology. About a mile underground using head lamps with a guide, they will arrive at the sacrifical site, where the archeology department of Belize have left skeletons and pottery as it was found. Tourists must walk carefully in stocking feet around the remains. This is an all day trip and you must traverse three underground rivers in the cave system to get here. Have no idea of how terrified captives must have felt back centuries ago. The other five on a cheaper budget were going to share some canoes and paddle the Macal River Gorge exotic jungle scenery. Tomorrow these nine will be off to Caye Caulker by bus for $6 Bz and water taxi for $30 Bz round trip to this fabulous Great Barrier Reef small island, surrounded by sheltered emerald green waters of the inner lagoon, protected by the reef itself. ( exchange rate is $2 bz for $1 us dollar )
These Dutch kids were TALL. Six feet six inches at least. Must be all that milk drinking in Holland? Made my five feet, 11 inches feel like a midget.
http://folkmusicfl.tripod.com/actuntunichilmuknal/
http://folkmusicfl.tripod.com/adventuresinbelize/