How To Live Your Ideal Version Of The 'Never Retire' Lifestyle
You're never going to retire so do it the best way possible for you
I enjoy asking questions and getting real answers.
So, thanks for your response to Monday’s installment of the newsletter.
There’s still time to add your two cents by answering my poll questions and upgrading your subscription.
In public and private messages, two clear themes emerged on what people want from this newsletter.
Subscribers Want To Focus On The Idea Of Never Retiring
For example—
I came here originally for the practical “never retire” content related to personal finance and outside-the-box thinking regarding working longevity. Focusing more on Spain Life would probably be too great of a shift for me to remain a paid subscriber.
And—
What attracted me to your newsletter in the beginning was your view on never retiring. Why work so much and save for decades to finally fully retire and enjoy life in your 60s. It's helped me think about how I want to structure my business so I can have more time freedom as my kids grow up.
I see Spain as a part of your ideal "never retire" lifestyle. I'd love to see the newsletter help more people get out of the rat race so they can live their version of "Spain" sooner than they thought possible.
The last comment was super cool to hear. It made my day.
That said, if I have ever backed off of the Never Retire theme, it’s because I don’t want to do what a lot of online writers do. And that is—sell the dream. Having written online for roughly 15 years, I am in a unique position. However, as the last comment pointed out, the work I do and—in less than three months—Spain is just MY ideal Never Retire lifestyle.
As I have written probably dozens of times now, you can take my specific situation and apply/adapt it to fit your circumstances, needs and wants. Freelance writing and Spain are merely placeholders for whatever it is that you’re doing or want to do going forward.
Something I wrote in this newsletter more than two years ago sums up our foundation and where I intend to place focus going forward—
When I first realized I’d Never Retire, I viewed it negatively and resisted, as I discuss in the stigma article. No surprise. We’re conditioned to think falling short of the amount of money you need to quit work altogether in relative old age is an individual failure.
Newsflash: It’s not. It’s more like an epidemic where the cards have been increasingly stacked against those of us of modest means who still manage to make decent or better money. We’re expected to do impossible things with money—simultaneously.
Typically, people who realize they’ll Never Retire double down on the same strategy that led to their current, so-called conundrum in the first place.
They digest the articles that tell them to save more money to catch up on their retirement savings. To look for a new job, work more hours, get a side hustle. Whatever.
Because if you work really, really hard, you can successfully plan for traditional retirement, even if you don’t have shit saved in, say, your thirities or forties. This often comes at the same time as living an expensive lifestyle thanks to things many people accept as the cost of doing the business of life, such as home ownership or market rate rent.
This is what often leads to financial distress in old age.
Attempting to do the impossible in the face of super clear writing on the wall.
I didn’t want to end up like that. So I decided to adopt a new outlook.
To organize work and money around my life, not the far more typical other way round…
Saving for traditional retirement defines the rat race. You’re up against the clock, working your ass off in your prime years, to hit a number that’ll allow you to quit work altogther. Then you’re up against the clock again to ensure you don’t blow through your nest egg prior to leaving Earth.
You put work in its proper place. Flowing from that ^ you realize you don’t need to work 40-plus hours a week at a high-paying, demanding job—or whatever—if you don’t want to. Because you don’t need to. Simply put, when you embrace your expression of a Never Retire lifestyle, you probably discover something pretty cool: You can spread your earning efforts out over time. You don’t need to cram it into 30 or 35 years of your prime.
I wrote all of that before making the decision to move to Spain. Which is telling.
All of the links in that excerpt are worth your time. Taken together, they define Never Retire as an umbrella concept for those of us who have discovered that it can make more sense to work less now so you can work less longer.
So—to that end—we’re going back to our roots with a fresh and new perspective. Which ties to the second theme that emerged.
Subscribers Want To Know About The Reality Of Living Life In Spain
Which given everything I have said so far can easily fit under the Never Retire umbrella. I can blend interesting content from Spain with the idea that it is the setting for my ideal Never Retire lifestyle. And—necessarily—a big part of this will involve comparing what we anticipated life to be like in Spain with the reality of what life is actually like in Spain.
I will always do my best to merge the two themes while allowing for the spontaneity to move in other directions when they appear intriguing or otherwise useful.
And—ultimately—that is what I want this newsletter to be for you.
Useful.
Generally useful as you attempt to work less now so you can work less longer and organize work and money around my life, not the far more typical other way round in whatever situation you’re in and want to be in. And specifically useful if you have an interest in moving to help make any or all of the above happen.
With that, we move forward. Con eso seguimos adelante.
And I urge you to support the newsletter and get the best value for your subscription by upgrading or joining with a founding membership today, which I immediately turn into a complimentary lifetime subscription.
I too love this line: "I'd love to see the newsletter help more people get out of the rat race so they can live their version of "Spain" sooner than they thought possible."
This newsletter has helped me truly think about my life in this way. How do I enjoy more of my life right now instead of focusing on a "someday I might be lucky enough to retire" view. Because seriously - that would be way older than 65 for me. Too long. Instead I have embraced the idea that I am kinda semi-retired right now. And WOW that mindset shift is everything.
A good reminder of how we got here!
I have worked as a one-man show consultancy for the last 15 years. For the most part, I was working full-time on one project for one client at a time. There the challenge is to keep prospecting and build a pipeline. I had a few mercifully short gaps along the way. Work found me for the most part. Not much rest when I was off as I spent my time networking and looking for work.
Now, I have several projects on the go. Not really at 100% of capacity. But, that is not a big problem as I head, aged 60 now, to semi-retired status. Same challenge of trying to fill the dance card. That said, work finds me.
So, I’d say that if you want to semi-retire you need some sense of whether and how work will find you.