ive found and saved a little information(wish i had saved more or had a perfect memory lol) about low cost living aboard to share. argentina seems to be the unknown as to how cheap it is to live there. most countries south of you are alot cheaper hwoever costa rico and dr are becoming more expensive due to foreigners living there. panama needs too many malaria, denger fever drugs. for mexico, the border areas can be risky due to drugs etc, however most of the country seems safe including for solo women http://forums.mexonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=955
and cheaper the further south or less touristy one goes.
to stay in mexico for longer than 6months(max length of a tourist visa) a person has to show a nonmexican origin 1000usd a month income. i think this is the same rule for thailand(1to3months tourist visa) , phillipines , malaysia(3months visa). however it is easy to visarun in far east countries. that is reapply for another 3month visa by crossing a border for a nights stay and then then reapplying. thailand are clamping down on visaruns but malaysia(60day tourist visas renewable), philipines(90day tourist visas renewable) arent. of the far east countries thailand is very cheap( 250usd a month for a house), phillipines slightly more expensive. dont know how countries south of you (the woman i was speaking to was in the usa) treat visaruns
a few countries like thailand, philipines, mexico have retirement schemes that you could look into also, that allow retirees to live in their country. to find expat forum with the info about cost of living and real, not vacational rental prices , i enter the following in google "country+forum" eg. "thailand+forum"
rents for a large apartment, small house seem to go from 400to700 usa dollar a mnth inc utils for mexico,argentina, philipines. thailand seems slightly cheaper at about 400 usa dollars
a few good houses on this page, craigslist now has active sites for many low cost countries. until very recently only vacation rental prices were posted on the sites. http://mexicocity.craigslist.org/apa/
hi