Post: #1

[Maybe this is a "Travel" or "Lifestyle" post?]

Anyhow, do you guys who have been to or lived in Argentina find this article credible?

http://www.businessinsider.com/tom-phela...012-6?op=1

Last I checked, Argentina had a relatively high cost of living.

Could someone really retire in Argentina if he only had 150K?

Post: #2

From reading the story, it appears to be a little bit more complicated than it first seems. They bought some land for $132K and run a vineyard as a business, so I am not sure whether that really qualifies as "retiring" per se. Isn't that just running a business in another country? I'm not sure how much it cost to hire all the help, the equipment to farm and make wine, etc., but I suspect that all told it was more than $150K.

Post: #3

Becoming a vintner is the one way the burned-out bourgeois can escape the hell of corporate servitude without losing face. If they abandoned the rat race to become farmers, people would think they're insane. But making wine has that romantic allure, that sexiness that mere farming does not.

My grandfather burned a fortune trying to become a vintner. Here's my advice: unless you're really knowledgeable about wine and are able to hedge your bets, run away from such foolish, romantic dreams.

Post: #4

(06-27-2012 03:45 PM)Menace Wrote:  From reading the story, it appears to be a little bit more complicated than it first seems. They bought some land for $132K and run a vineyard as a business, so I am not sure whether that really qualifies as "retiring" per se. Isn't that just running a business in another country? I'm not sure how much it cost to hire all the help, the equipment to farm and make wine, etc., but I suspect that all told it was more than $150K.

Exactly, anyone can "retire" like them for $1000

Post: #5

I'm skeptical because wineries in Napa and the California Central Coast lose money. (I looked into starting one, as those places get insanely hot chicks in every weekend.)

You start a winery when you're already rich. You use the winery as a tax write-off. It's basically a fun hobby that operates as a tax write-off.

Best case you make a profit after over a decade of doing everything right and not hitting back luck.

So why is Argentina any different?

Article sounds suspicious, but I have no understanding of Argentina and thus can't reach a conclusion.

Post: #6

(06-27-2012 03:31 PM)MikeCF Wrote:  [Maybe this is a "Travel" or "Lifestyle" post?]

Anyhow, do you guys who have been to or lived in Argentina find this article credible?

http://www.businessinsider.com/tom-phela...012-6?op=1

Last I checked, Argentina had a relatively high cost of living.

Could someone really retire in Argentina if he only had 150K?

This is pure sham.

The only way you are "retiring" like that is you basically own the entire lot, are dodgy with your accounting running all cash down there and you "survive" by the bottles you sell. I would call that "surviving in argentina for life with 0 upside". Finally the article does not mention the location of said vineyard. For comparison purposes this would be like retiring in Byron California with a "hotel" that you also live in and use the 4-5 stragglers who use the place to pay your bills. To solidify the dodge style they are selling you, if you want to really rent or get places in Argentina they manually scan your bills. Be it USD or ARS, to validate sales on higher scale purchases so needless to say its not the safest currency to be transacting in if you decide you actually hate Argentina.

A more reasonable way of life would be probably double that. You can buy up a small 1 bedroom in the city centre, have a cushion earning say a 7% yield as savings and get a job doing anything on the side for your party money as you have cut out he highest recurring cost. Rent.

One note that doesn't seem to go noticed here on the forum is from a girls perspective, Argentina is more class oriented than most countries. So game isn't as useful (I had an old coworker recently retire in BA but he was liquid in the 7figures USD). That said you can definitely have a great time with 150K but remember its a very class oriented society. I am still in contact with the dude, he loves it, but who wouldn't with 7 figures in the bank?

Finally, "while workers broke in the land they stayed in a condo 1.5 HOURS AWAY..."

Post: #7

I told my parents instead of a house, car, wife and kids I wanted to get enough money to live off interest/dividends, buy a plot of land and start farming. They told me I was insane, and still do, but I intend to buy some land.

Post: #8

(06-27-2012 07:19 PM)zeeman Wrote:  I told my parents instead of a house, car, wife and kids I wanted to get enough money to live off interest/dividends, buy a plot of land and start farming. They told me I was insane, and still do, but I intend to buy some land.

Does this video resonate with you?

Post: #9

Because of the necessity of farming, farms, and farmers get a tremendous number of tax breaks. My uncle and cousin are both "farmers". They've done this for much of their lives, in addition to both having held jobs with the Federal government. Both are now retired. Their farming operations have never turned a penny of profit, and yet they both drive new, expensive trucks, and have Category 3 tractors with loaders and an assortment of expensive implements. They're able to do all of this after lifetimes of fiscal discipline. And they wouldn't do it if it cost them ANY money.

People who get into the wine business are doing the same thing on a much grander scale. Due to the romanticized bullshit of wine which was taken to new levels by the movie Sideways, wine making has become a tax shelter for the wealthy. It takes a lot of capital, a brand name, and God only knows what else to simply break even on the venture.

At one time, Patricia Kluge was believed to have received the largest divorce settlement in US history. Her ex-hubby was a guy named John Klugge who at one time was the richest guy in the US. In reality, he made out like a bandit on the deal. She got an estate in VA that consisted of a 24K square foot mansion and 1000 acres of land (some say as much as 2000 acres). Estimates of the cash settlement she got are all over the place. She and her current hubby decided to turn the place into a vineyard about 12 years ago. In a nutshell, whatever her divorce settlement was, it's gone now. Every single penny of it. Donald Trump bought up most of the winery, and is negotiating with the bank for the mansion. But Kluge and her hubby have jack shit at this point.

Post: #10

Resurrecting this thread -

With that money, if you have a favorable rate of exchange (blue chip swaps I mentioned before), you could purchase 4 taxis. Each taxi will run you about $35k US for the plate + car + necessary equipment, and I've found some management companies here which will handle the car rental and paperwork for 2000 ARS/month (~ 333 USD). After subtracting that fee, average maintenance, etc., your takehome would on average be around 5000 ARS/month per car. You could rent a pretty nice 3br apartment for that, and then have 15k from the other cars. Cars should be replaced roughly every 3 years and you'll get about half the original purchase price as a trade-in, so counting that saving as a monthly expense (ARS 972 * 4), you get a little over 11k pesos for food (after subtracting rent for a nice place), going out, health insurance, whatever other bills you have. Average salary here is 5k pesos, 7k is a good salary.

Short answer:

Yes, you can.