Reality Check and other unpopular Stuff

Who says money doesn’t grow on trees?!

What we thought about as our Perpetual Travel Dream evolved into a plan:

Can we afford to stop working for money?

This took a lot of number crunching. Swiss citizens can look for information here: http://www.ahv-iv.info/ahv/index.html?lang=de – a comprehensive site explaining the ins and outs of Swiss Social Security. There’s a well-hidden link on the page, where participants can apply for an estimate of future benefits, based on past and future earnings. http://www.ahv-iv.info/andere/00140/00141/index.html?lang=de The service is free if you’re older than forty! After a couple of months you’ll get a fat envelope wherein every cent you’ve ever earned is listed, and an impressive- if incomprehensible- calculation of the future fruits of your labor.

If your going for early early retirement in Switzerland, you’ll need to keep paying a premium until you officially come of (social security) age. You can do this once a year from anywhere in the world. A year’s gap in payments, any time in life, results in a yearly 2.3% cut in benefits………..

We had to work our way towards being realistic about covering our living costs before- and after- Social Security kicks in. We’re not banking on any earnings on the road, although we wouldn’t say no to a paying job once in a while. We expect most of our work to be on a volunteer basis, or in exchange for goods and services. We can live perfectly well this way, in cheaper countries. Our budget practically precludes living in Switzerland though.