THE answer to this question is your discernment and the willingness to sacrifice something. If you live in a high end subdivision which has a commanding view of the bay some miles away, then you have to sacrifice some luxuries. You cannot indulge in everyday shopping or everyday visits to the spa, the golf course or the casinos. You cannot hold drinking sprees all the time. However, you must spend your investment at home. You must organize barbecue parties at the pool to show yourselves to your friends that you are living like a king. You must have a 50-inch LCD television set so you can indulge yourself in games. Heck, you must have your own home entertainment theater room and system.

There are a few spots in the world that offer spectacular residencies. There’s Valencia, the Beverly Hills in Europe. Many celebrities have either lived there or are living there. There’s Antonio Banderas and wife Melanie Griffith, there’s Joan Collins, there’s Sean Connery and many others. Then we go to Malibu or Hollywood Hills where Grey’s Anatomy and Knocked Up star Katherine Heigl is billeted, having moved here a decade ago from her hometown of New Canaan, Connecticut. That’s some trivia for you huh? You don’t live like a king if you have not earned or accumulated your wealth. That’s something for sure.

But if you want to live like a king without spending anything, then that’s another story. You can still do that too. Here in France for example, particularly in the urban areas, there are lots of condominiums and they are very cramped. Cramped as they are, their security system is perfect and untouchable and invincible. They have their own panic rooms so you don’t need to worry about burglars and robbers. For me, that’s already living like a king.

If you are in some tropical country like the Philippines, then you can still live like a king even if you’re just living in an RV back in the States. The cost of living there is incomparable to the cost of living in the United States. A dollar is equal to 44 Philippine pesos. That’s 44 times the value. That’s how low the cost of living here is so if you cannot stay in a Hilton in New York, you can stay in a Shangri-la there in the Philippines. And if you want to buy a house, you can do so easily and pay it in cash. Although most lands there are admittedly the ones for sale and you have to construct the house yourself. But that’s neither a problem because building costs are still kept at a minimal.

If you go to a place like Japan, it may be relatively expensive to build a house there made of wood because wood is a pretty expensive stuff there. But don’t worry, once you have built a duplex bungalow and there are all amenities associated to it like a fireplace or so, you’re just like living like a king. After all, living like a king is not something physical. It goes with the heart.