Alternative Personal Finance, A Month Traveling, Then Planning To Move Abroad 🇪🇸
A 2023-2024 preview for Living The Semi-Retired Life subscribers
If you’re a free subscriber to the Living The Semi-Retired Life newsletter, it’s quite likely decision time. Unsubscribe—which would really suck—or become a paid subscriber now. I hope today’s post prompts you to subscribe because I’ve never been more excited by how my writing connects to a new chapter of my life.
That’s the thing about this newsletter: At 48 years old, I’m entering the second act of my life with full intention to make it every bit as physically and mentally vibrant and engaging as the first act. Ideally, this newsletter becomes my sole source of income within 5-to-7 years. And I write it—with near daily posts—for the next 52 years (or so!).
Reinventing yourself, seeking change, taking on new challenges—that’s the key to setting up a fun and exciting second act as you stare mid-life in the face. All of the content I write—whether it’s focused on money, travel, work, housing, cost of living or moving abroad relates back to Living The Semi-Retired Life. So, no matter your age, you can take what we’re doing here and adapt and apply it to your life.
At the end of October, I gave you a preview of what you missed over the prior 10 days, along with a link to my rationale around making this a paid subscriber newsletter.
Today, we look ahead at what’s to come over the next few months through 2024 before listing what you missed in the most recent 10 days (or so).
This week I should be able to announce the major media organization I’m writing personal finance and investing articles for. I have written this type of content pretty consistently over my 15-year freelance writing career. I really enjoy it. And I recently decided that newsletter subscribers can benefit from taking that more traditional—call it mainstream—content and applying it to Living The Semi-Retired Life. So that’s what I’ve been doing (as you’ll see in the list of our most recent posts down below) and intend to up the ante on going forward.
In particular, on the February-long trip my partner and I are taking to Spain and France.
On that trip expect—
7 posts from each of the seven cities we’re visiting (Barcelona, Girona, Montpelier, Lyon, Paris, Bordeaux and Toulouse) with urban and food photography, cost of living comparisons and general observations as they relate to Living The Semi-Retired Life.
10 posts that take a traditional personal finance or investing topic (think 401(k)s, financial planners, money market funds or accounts) and relate them to the non-traditional path you might be following or want to follow.
I also plan to take actual grocery shopping trips in the US and do hypothetical trips to buy equivalent items in Spain and France to highlight differences in cost of living. Sounds nerdy and it is. But it’s also incredibly eye-opening and potentially helpful as you consider your spending whether in the United States or abroad.
We had a lot of great content from Spain and Italy this past February. And we hope to do even better in less than three months!
This post was among the most popular—
Then, when we get back from the trip, it will only be a few months before we start the visa process. From document gathering to checking the list of qualifications (and ensuring we meet them) to leaving for Spain, applying and waiting for a decision. It’s going to be a big 2024.
Come January 2025—hopefully with a Spanish residence permit in hand—the newsletter keeps rolling as we apartment hunt in Spain, navigate the bureaucracy to get settled and report on exactly how it feels to live in a country where we have to adjust to a day-to-day life and culture we crave and, in my case, learn a new language. My Spanish-speaking girlfriend doesn’t have to worry about that!
Not too long after we hope to begin the hunt to buy an apartment. All the while we plan and hope to travel around Europe and detail how we’re making all of the pieces fit together financially.
If that’s not reason enough to subscribe right now …
Maybe it’s the reminder that a $100-or-more founding membership is your best value, given that it automatically converts to a lifetime subscription. Pay today. Never Pay Again. When you do the math (I plan to write this newsletter for 52 more years divided by 100 …), it makes sense.
Or maybe …
