[villagetinker]

Tomcat, lots of useful info so far. Here are my humble thoughts, there are lots of opportunities to volunteer look in the daily sun. If you need to earn some additional funds, I have seen many listing in the classifieds, and you can register on INDEED, you will probably get more offers then you can imagine. I would stay away from Craigslist. Depending on what your career was, you could possibly just go into business for yourself, as a consultant or similar. There are many people in the villages doing small jobs for others, I help with odd repairs for example.
I took early retirement (62), did the consulting thing for 1 year, then worked around the house (back up north), my wife was still working at the time, then she decided to retire, within 2 months we bought a lot, built a house, and moved in 2 days after her last day of work. We keep busy with an active lifestyle, and all of our friends.
Hope this helps.