
(Photo from AFP)
Johnny Noe Ravalo continues his online bestseller last week on preparing for retirement in the Philippines. This made me wonder whether retirees are ready for rising medical and travel costs:
Food and utility bills will be the baseline but they will not figure prominently in the total cost scheme. What you need to be very realistic about is medical expenses. Maintenance medicine and periodic check ups are never cheap.
If diabetes runs in the family, for example, you will have to dish out over P5,000 in monthly medicines plus the annual check up which can run up to P10,000 if all the laboratory tests are included. That’s P70,000 per year — minimum — for an ailment that has no cure and has to be paid when you are no longer enjoying both a regular salary or your company’s medical plan. Complications also add to the expenses. Any hospitalization will set you back in the tens of thousands for as short as a day or two of confinement. You need to estimate a portion for monthly medical maintenance plus set aside a lump sum for the “just in case” part.
Some of MoneySmart’s regular readers are in their 30s but are already planning for their retirement. A lot of you are working and living abroad and are planning to come home for your golden years. It’s relatively easy to figure out the lifestyle part for me, personally, but medical cost is very much a puzzle. How do you know what medical problems you will have to prepare for, huh? (trying out a sultry, vampy voice) Can’t I just be young forevah?
Noet brings me back to earth. Okay, okay, the medical cost fund should be extra, extra fat. And since every Pinoy is a tireless “lakwatsera”, the travel fund should be, too. We’re all dreaming of visiting every beach in our 7,000 plus islands so we gotta raise the travel fund too what with the rising cost of oil and all. Sigh. There goes the upgrade to Macbook Air.