I am heavily invested in baseball trading cards, Amway, and scratch tickets. With that kind of diversified investing I’m sure I’ll be comfortable in retirement.
Can someone loan me two million dollars? I’ll pay you back when I’m 90.
Sure, but all I got is a 100 trillion, can you break that?
Looks like you were well prepared for the bathrooms that had no toilet paper in them.
You know what they say about money- it’s filthy 
Luckily here in NZ and Australia our money is made of plastic and you can wash it.
When we say we are paying for something with plastic, we mean a (plastic) credit card.
I like the idea of plastic money that can be washed. I assume it’s also tear resistant? Can you stretch your dollar to go farther? (that’s a joke) Can you stretch it out of shape? Do new ones stick together like our paper money does? Does the wallet put a persistent bend in them? When that happens, we can run a crease lengthwise down the middle to get the bend out. Can you do that without harming the bill? Are your coins made of plastic, too? Is any part of your money clear? We love clear stuff. I assume money wasn’t always plastic. Do you like the “new” money? Feel free to also answer any questions I forgot to ask. Thank you. 
It’s all completely machine washable. Just dont’ iron it. I used to collect coins and notes as a kid, and I remember bawling my eyes out after melting my $20 Aussie note.
http://www.dfat.gov.au/facts/currency.html
I can’t imagine going back to paper money- the plastic stuff is so much more durable. You can’t tear it easily.
Plastic money 
That’s all new to me…Thanks for the enlightenment 
I wonder if the polymer bank notes get oily? Or at least maybe they show their dirtiness more than paper money? Not to say that I feel clean after handling paper money, just that the paper doesn’t seem to show the dirt. Maybe it absorbs the filth so we can’t see it.
This gives new meaning to dirty money and money laundering.
Sorry, Terry. I’m thinking about moving to Australia or New Zealand and keeping my entire retirement savings in cash. See, I’m really on-topic after all!
Just open an Australian bank account. They have some of the highest interest rates in the world…you don’t need to move there!
You guys have negative real interest rates at the moment.
Re Polymer notes- I’ve seen quite a few countries using them now. Last time I was in Hong Kong (2008), New Zealand, and I think Vietnam from memory.
My parents tell me Ireland are using them now aswell
Wow! Reminds me of a quote from when we went to Unicon III in Tokyo (70 Yen=$1 US). “Anybody got change for 10,000?”
American paper money is machine washable also, though I don’t recommend doing it regularly. Someone I know is famous for not emptying her pockets all the time, so I’ve pulled my share of money out of the washer.
Also you can microwave American paper money if it gets wet. Learned this in Hawaii, when I accidentally went in the ocean with my wallet. I rinsed everything thoroughly in fresh water, including the cardboard health insurance card, my wallet photos, etc. Jacquie put the cash in the microwave for a few seconds, and it came out looking great. Then she nuked my soggy leather wallet… not recommended. It was no longer wallet-shaped afterward.
American paper money is made primarily of cotton. I remember the shininess of the NZ cash, but never realized it was actually plastic!
LOL, and we love shiny things, too!
Nobody will answer whether if feels clean. I can imagine a plastic surface touched by many grubby hands… having a visible and tactile yuckiness. I still think our paper money absorbs the filth so we can’t see it or feel it.
And by the way, John, money laundering is illegal!
Well, it’s not very absorbant, so I wouldn’t follow Gilbys suggestion of using it as toilet paper
I’ve got a plan that will take care of expense reduction AND travel in one… moving to a different country!
We moved my grandparents back to Poland in their last few years. It cost us $300 a month to house and care for them. Here in the US it would cost 10-20 times as much.
After a trip through Vietnam, I think I’ve found paradise. I could live very comfortably there on $20 a day…
What employer would double one’s salary in a retirement plan? The maximum contribution I can make to my 401k is only 10% of my paycheck, and while my employer matches that dollar-for-dollar, it’s still going to take me a couple decades of work to be able to save for a comfortable retirement.
I think you haven’t done any math on this…
Cynical, yes, but solid advice. Leverage free and/or cheap credit as much as you can.
I like this idea. What about medical though?
There is top-notch medical and dental care available for ridiculously low cost in Thailand. Thailand is one of the medical vacation countries along with Costa Rica and India. I imagine that Vietnam is not that far behind.
This is the hospital that fixed me up after I broke my leg in Laos:
It was pretty modern, and decked out more like a hotel than a hospital. Walking through the wards was like being in a UN convention. They had patients from all over the world.
That’s wishful thinking. I’m sure the textured surface of our money holds many times the amount of bacteria that a smoother plastic texture would. As I said, we didn’t realize the NZ money was plastic, but noticed its smoothness.
I guess it’s like a touchscreen phone. First thing you have to do is grease it up with your own fingertips, but it’s flat glass. It holds way less gunk than any keypad of physical buttons.
That is a rare benefit these days (100% matching). I hope you’re taking full advantage of it! Then you can always save more; just after taxes.