Never Retire: The Retirement Lie—What You're Chasing Doesn't Exist Anymore

The lie is that you can save your way out of this system—and that ‘retirement’ is a finish line you’ll reach by playing the game right. It’s not.

Retirement calculators are bullshit. They’re emblematic of all the pieces of machinery working together to prop up the long dead runaway American dream.

Positioned as a helpful tool, they do little more than present what is for many an unattainable moving target that keeps them spinning away on the personal financial hamster wheel amid a relatively low quality of life—ripe for burnout and a less than vibrant second half of life.

The United States requires the American dream as bait for a society that must spend to keep the house of cards stacked. The companies that sell “retirement solutions” have a vested interest in prolonging the false hope.

And it’s not like I just started railing on this stuff when I moved to Spain.

In 2022, I wrote a Never Retire article—Can You Save $1.1 Million—because that’s how much money Americans thought they would need for a comfortable retirement. At the time, 25% said there was little or no chance they would get there. And more than half predicted they would end up with less than $500,000.

Coming up next week in Never Retire:

Post #2: Housing’s Trap: Why owning in the U.S. isn’t worth the trade

Post #3: Real Numbers, Real Life: How I earn, spend, and structure things to actually live well

If you think retirement is a lie—and want to build something that works—follow along.

No guru tricks. Just structure, rhythm, and the real trade-offs behind Never Retire.

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This—and the other data we’ll update, revisit, and freshly introduce over the next few Never Retire newsletter stories—led to one of our main themes:

If your chances of retiring traditionally are—at best—slim, why continue busting your ass in such a futile direction? Unless you have a fat pension or inheritance coming—or managed to save enough—find ways to reduce your cost of living now, increase your quality of life and work less now so you can work less longer. Because working less in your prime sets the stage for the physical and mental health capacity to work longer into relative old age. A personal financial necessity of the times you can spin—without fooling yourself—into a positive opportunity to seize rather than lament.

Make no mistake—it is of the times.

It’s not like all of the people unable to save $1.1 million are individual idiots. They’re victims—hardly too strong a word—of a system that refuses to acknowledge, let alone accept and rectify its obvious shortcomings. If millions of people—independent of one another—can't even sniff the numbers the retirement calculator spits out that sounds like a collective failure of a long-broken system.

Fast forward to 2025 and the numbers on retirement—(and housing, which we’ll cover in the next few days)—have only gotten worse.

• A Northwestern Mutual study put the updated amount people think they need for a comfortable retirement at $1.26 million and also relayed some downright depressing data that flies in the face of Never Retire:

  • “Gen Zers started saving at 24, aim to retire at 61, and more than a third (34%) think it's likely they'll live to 100. Boomers+ started saving at 37, aim to retire at 72, and less than a quarter (23%) think it's likely they'll live to 100.”

• Investment management firm, Schroder’s, estimates the number at $1.28 million and noted that 48% expect to have under $500,000, and only 30% aim for $1 million.

This just highlights the absurdity of continuing to go through the motions with a strategy—if you can call it a strategy—that’s just not working.

Since 2022, mortgage rates have gone up (again, more on that in the next Never Retire newsletter story). Food costs have exploded. Basic life expenses eat a bigger chunk of income.

And the median retirement account balance for Americans looks like this by age—

• Under 35: $18,880

• 35-44 years old: $45,000

• 45-54 years old: $115,000

• 55-64 years old: $185,000

• 65-74 years old: $200,000

• 75 and over: $130,000

It’s interesting to note that the averages are much higher, which speaks to rampant inequality—another staple of the American dream.

None of this should make you feel bad. It doesn’t—and never did—make me feel bad. I simply jumped off the hamster wheel and made the moves that have taken shape over the last few years.

None of this has stopped the retirement industry’s well-funded advice machine. Its flow of regurgitated studies and press releases that make their way into a more uncritical-than-ever financial and popular media.

You still hear the same talking points: invest early, compound interest, passive income, hustle now, live later.

Some of that still applies—but not in service of the retirement lie. These things can work as elements of a comprehensive Never Retire plan.

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The math isn’t working—especially in high-cost America

In 41 U.S. states, retirees are projected to outlive their savings—New York’s average shortfall: $448,000. Even in Texas, the gap between retirement savings and anticipated expenses is high at $113,000. It’s even higher than $100,000 in low-cost states always touted as affordable places to retire. Places like Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, and Nevada.

This is because the cost of living has spun out of control. And it’s not going back. The people’s savior did not come through on day one.

In this environment, even if you get to $1 million you’re fucked: The 4% withdrawal rule turns $1 million into roughly $40,000 per year—not nearly enough to live, let alone live well in most, if not all of the United States.

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The alternative: Build a rhythm. A framework for a life you want to live—not a magic number you’ll probably never hit.

The solution isn’t rocket science: focus on income, expenses, location, and purpose.

• What monthly income do you actually need?

• What structure (flexible work + coordinated living) supports that?

• Where can that income cover your lifestyle—and your needs?

You might have to get creative. You might have to switch lines of work. You might have to start over—or something like it—and build for a while. You might have to move across the street, across the state, across the country, or even across the world.

Not easy stuff. But it’s essential.

It’s even more essential to think in these terms as soon as possible.

The United States doesn’t need personal finance classes in grade school. It needs to give young people straight talk. The sober reality that chances are they’ll have to do things much differently than their parents and grandparents if they want to either avoid their plight or exceed their standard of living—(depending on where their parents or grandparents fell on the spectrum—close to the median, far above it, or left behind.)

Paris, France—just because!