Access to my Social Security while in Cambodia

@TheDudeAbides Hello Kris

Welcome on board !

Please note that I have created a new thread from your post on the Cambodia forum so that members can guide you.

All the very best

Bhavna

Hello everyone, I'm Kris from Stateside and am in the early stages of planning a Cambodian retirement, probably in Siem Reap.
My first question is how would you recommend I best access my Social Security while in Cambodia?

Thank you for your time.
-@TheDudeAbides

Welcome to the forum -

Seems like most retirees throughout the Southeast Asia region have a bank account in their home country, from which they withdraw funds at ATMs using their bank card.

Some Americans prefer Charles Schwab because they reimburse/do not charge various fees.

In Cambodia, you can choose to take out USD (these days usually limited to 100-dollar bills) or KHR (riel). The risk of using dollars is that even slightly damaged bills will be rejected, so in the end, withdrawing or immediately changing some to riel simplifies your life.

I'm not sure, but it may be possible to have your SS directly deposited into a local bank account. Cambodia has several major banks that are popular, such as ABA, ACLEDA and Canadia. Expats on retirement extensions can open an account. The ABA banking app is widely used to make digital payments.

As a result, the most common method, although it may not be the "best", is to withdraw $$$ from your US account, deposit some funds into your local account, keep some benjamins on hand for emergency cash, and pay for rent, food and purchases using your phone, while also having a supply of local currency for beggars, direct tips for staff, very small purchases, when the app is not working, etc.

@jayrozzetti23

Thank you for the useful information 🙏

Hello everyone! Kris from USA here and have narrowed my retirement location to Siem Reap.

My first question is about finances, of course. What's the best way to get my social security from the States while living in Siem Reap?

Thanks in advance.

@TheDudeAbides

You might want to read up the rules of social security for moving outside of US. Normally there's number of days before your benefits stop.

I personally used Remitly transfer app while keep social security benefits in US bank account. Once you get social security benefits deposited into your US bank account, transfer the amount to local Bank such as ABA bank. There's no fees when transferring directly to ABA debit card. Remitly  app has low fees 16 dollars per 1k transferred.

This would allow Social security payments as normal without triggering a notice that you might be out of country.

@cbalto22 Wrong! That's only if you're drawing social security as a dependent. The US  does pay SS to different countries except for some. As a dependent and you're out of the country for more than 30 days, yes then it will stop until you get back in the US. If you're drawing SS from your own earnings there's no problem. SS will pay to any bank you want to as long as its an allowed country.

A little late to this game. Here is what I think with US social security. Get yourself an american account and have direct deposit enabled. I use CapitolOne. Get a second bank account to use as a backup. I use Schwab. Enable ACH deposits between them both ways. Now what I did was get an american address at a mail forwarding company. If you want my recommendation, drop me a PM. This will be your american address. Mine is an apartment number. I include this address as my home address in everything. Banks, social security, IRS, even my California Driver License. And yeah. You can have an out of state address at least on California driver licenses. Then I got a Google Voice phone number which acts as the bank, the IRS, the social security number. This receives all the verifications, fraud alerts, etc and I can call people like banks using it as though I am in the US. Works well for me. This has saved me numerous times with fraud alerts, various state and federal agencies, personal calls. I just install the google voice app on my iPhone. Works well.

Finally when you get into country get yourself a local bank account. I use ABA but there are others. To transfer funds and I do this often I use Xoom which is a Paypal service linked to one of my bank accounts. I rarely use the bank debit cards any longer. Just use my ABA debit visa card for everything even paying a few little bills in the US on occasion.

This whole thing has worked very well for me for years. Some things are easier if you are in the US when doing it. Google Voice can be difficult out of the US. But it brings up the topic of using a VPN service as well since people have gotten numbers using VPN. I rarely use VPN these days but I also am aware of what I do online like banking. I don't type in passwords ever or use the same password for anything. Over 22 years in IT and doing large cloud program which included global security and identity management had its affect.

So that's my answer to receiving US social security in Cambodia. Or Vietnam. Or Laos. Wherever I happened to be at the time.