Never Retire: How Much We Spent On Groceries And How Much We Walked During Week One In Valencia
Plus the practical meets the personal
Yes, Spain is proposing a 100% tax on property purchases by non-EU, non-resident home buyers. Smart move. Way better than scrapping the Golden Visa. This would likely decrease speculation and vacation home buying among people without any intention of living here.
As this news makes it to the English press—(people in the UK especially are freaking out)—it’s interesting that you don’t see mention of this 100% detail in the headlines or even in the body of the stories. If my Spanish is as good as I think it is, this (below) says that the government also proposes—(these are all just proposals right now)—to grant a 100% personal income tax exemption to owners who agree to rent their homes at a price deemed affordable by the government.
Para sortear este bloqueo, una de las medidas estrella anunciadas por Sánchez implica que el Gobierno propondrá al Congreso la aprobación de una exención fiscal del 100% del IRPF para propietarios que alquilen su vivienda según el Índice de Precios de Referencia que ha fijado el Ejecutivo, sin necesidad de que estas se encuentren en zonas declaradas tensionadas.
So not anti-property owner, anti-housing crisis.
Speaking of money. We ran into a small, but ultimately no big deal snag trying to transfer some this week. I will detail it with some other money-related matters in tomorrow’s edition of the Never Retire newsletter.
Now, let’s get on with today’s!
Two themes help tie together the overarching Never Retire premise that gave birth to this newsletter—
The practical. Here’s what we’re doing in the day-to-day, how/why we did it and how much it cost.
It was planning the move. Now, it’s executing it and settling into daily life in Spain. An evolving process that we’re two parts clueless, one part certain about.
So, while I’d say take the things I say with more than a grain of salt, just know that they’re what we’re experiencing now based on what we think we know. Nearly every single day we find new ways to do or other options for doing things we came to not think twice about in Los Angeles.
The personal. While the practical is also personal, the more here’s how I feel about what we’re doing part of things isn’t quite as concrete.
All of this stems from the practical and the idea of leaving behind the comfort of the status quo or a good situation for challenge and adventure than can help keep you curious and otherwise physically, mentally and emotionally growing and vibrant into old age and beyond.
This doesn’t have to be moving abroad. It’s whatever variation of cool shit you think you need to do to keep your brain and body on its toes.
And I will tell you this with certainty after only a week: Moving abroad will keep you on your toes. Especially if you don’t, but even if you do know the language.
Speaking from the perspective of a person learning Spanish, I literally don’t say a word to anybody other than my wife while out and about in Spain that I don’t more than carefully consider beyond the norm we should all adhere to as we carefully consider our words.
It’s not a case of am I being polite and speaking in a way to be kind to others as much as it is how to verbalize the most basic requests, pleasantries and thoughts. I will turn 50 this year and have never felt this way in my life.
Super competent for actually being here. Super clueless—at the moment—while I’m here. Super humbled, really. And it’s a feeling I don’t expect to go away anytime soon, if ever. Is this what people mean when they say moving abroad changes you? That it humbles you?
I find it all incredibly refreshing.
This is what I wanted. This is how I thought it was going to be.
I can already feel the benefits of having done this.
Such a drastic change of setting and scenery forces you out of your comfort zone. And—simply put—if you can’t be comfortable being out of your comfort zone, you’re probably fucked.
The process I’m interested in watching play out is how, as my familiarity with living here increases (and my familiarity with where I came from naturally decreases), what will happen to my increased level of intellectual and spatial vigilance?
I think a considerable benefit of this newsletter is that I write it in what is pretty close to real time. I don’t see the utility in crafting perfect stories or speaking in absolutes. I’d rather you experience things as we experience them as they unfold. As such, expect the practical and personal to change a lot as we learn how to best navigate and make this new landscape home.
To do all of the above and more (which includes things I have planned or would like to do in 2025 and beyond), I need your support.
This isn’t my side hustle. It’s my livelihood.
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