There is an email doing the rounds that suggests it is cheaper for a pensioner to live on a cruise liner than in a retirement home.
According to the email, the benefits of spending your golden years cruising are substantial. Apart from having all your meals prepared for you, and even served breakfast in bed if you want, you are treated like a customer and not a patient.
You meet new people every seven to 14 days, and when anything breaks they replace it immediately and apologise for the inconvenience.
There are swimming pools and daily entertainment. You get to travel to new places. Apparently you also receive free toothpaste, razors, soap and shampoo.
Why spend money on an expensive retirement home when you could spend it cruising, the logic goes?
The Mail & Guardian decided to put this theory to the test. Cruise prices range according to the length of stay. The longer the cruise, the lower the daily rate.
On average, the monthly cost to live on a cruise liner would be in the region of R21Â 000. This is based on an average rate of 21-day cruises, which are only available overseas and work out at about R600 a day. Local cruises of 14 days work out at about R800 a day for pensioners.
A house in an upmarket retirement village will set you back about R1million. Then there are monthly levies in the region of R2Â 000. A live-in domestic helper will cost about R2Â 000 in salary alone. Groceries would cost about R2Â 000 a month and monthly maintenance R1Â 000 a month. If you ate one meal a day at a restaurant, at an average cost of R100, you would spend R3Â 000 a month.
Additional entertainment, such as DStv, movies and going to the theatre, could cost up to R1Â 000 a month. Maintaining a car and petrol would be about R1Â 000 a month. Conservatively, your monthly expenses would be in the region of R12Â 000 in order to give you the type of lifestyle you could expect on a cruise liner.
According to Old Mutual, if a 60year-old woman took out a life annuity of R1million, she would receive about R9Â 300 a month for the rest of her life. So if a retiree took the money for the retirement house and invested it in a life annuity, this income could then be used towards the accommodation on the ship.
The monthly income from the R1million plus monthly expenses, which he or she would have incurred at the retirement village, would provide R21Â 000 a month to pay for a life of cruising around.
However, this provides no extra cash for spending money or tips, although this was also not provided for in the retirement village scenario.
While on the surface this may seem like a possibility, the catch is that the income from the annuity will not increase, but cruise prices certainly will.
There will also be no asset left as a life annuity provides an income for life with no capital payment on death. The scenario is also for a single person. A couple would have to pay double rates on the cruise liner, but would share the R1million house and living expenses.
So, if you are a single, wealthy adventurer who considers a retirement village a fate worse then death, then this could work for you. But the food and entertainment might become a bit repetitive — and you would be in serious trouble if, after a day on the ship, you discovered you suffer from seasickness.