Never Retire: What a Morning in Valencia Costs—And What It Really Says About America

The facts, the receipts, and what I see every day in Spain.

One of the things some Americans love to do—especially when they feel uneasy about the state of their country—is repeat the lie that everyone in Spain earns minimum wage. It’s a quick way to flip an inferiority complex into a superiority complex.

In today’s Never Retire newsletter story, we present the facts, then consider on-the-ground experience.

But first, a quick note—

Now that it has launched, I plan to keep Friki de Bici mostly separate from Never Retire. They will function as distinct newsletters/projects with only light, random, and necessary cross-promotion.

If you want to know what’s happening with Friki de Bici, here’s a link to the first Substack post. And—as a thank you for being a Never Retire newsletter subscriber—there’s a discount code at the end of today’s post you can use on Friki de Bici merch.

Also, I am keeping today’s Never Retire newsletter story free for all subscribers after this puppy below generated a solid 10,000 views and brought in some new readers via the Substack app.

I’d love to see some of those free subscribers upgrade to paid, with the $100 founding (lifetime) membership being the best value.

I convert all founding memberships to lifetime subscriptions instantly. Pay today and never pay again.

Never Retire: By Far, The Biggest Problem I Have With Life In Spain

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Yesterday, after slapping a Friki de Bici sticker on this bike rack just below that beautiful Brooks saddle—(I think I want one; it would be my first)—I went into the Russafa Market and spent:

• €6.70 on strawberries, blueberries and an onion

• €9.43 on a just under one pound chicken breast and three large chicken hamburger with vegetables patties (hamburguesas de pollo con verduras)

Just before that, I dropped €3.65 on a loaf of 100% rye (centeno) bread—super healthy and made fresh that morning at Horno San Bartolomé, easily the best bakery (panadería) I’ve ever been to.

On the way home, I stopped at a to-go coffee shop attached to Russafa Market—Elixir Café—and purchased a medium-size café con leche and small cappuccino for €5.60.

• As of this morning, that €25.38 equals $28.91.

• An equivalent run—(the same simply isn’t possible)—in the United States would have looked more like this:

  • $12 at the farmer’s market, where I rarely bought strawberries and never bought blueberries because they’re prohibitively expensive and not much better than supermarket quality. Come to think of it, $12 is probably low for the farmer’s market because that probably would have been the cost in the supermarket—at least in LA. But we’re splitting mathematical hairs on what is straightforward, objective fact. But I can be precise—and obsessive—like that.

  • $20 minimum at the farmer’s market for the chicken products. Here again, I would default to the lower prices (probably around $10-$12 at Trader Joe’s)

  • $8 minimum at the bakery I liked in LA that couldn’t hold let alone sniff the jock strap of Horno San Bartolomé.

  • $10 minimum for the coffees pretty much anywhere that does coffee like that (así) in the US.

• So, $50 to execute a morning routine that I absolutely love. One that—when I bit the bullet and paid the price or, more often, defaulted to the affordable options—I could only half-ass in the United States.

The urban lifestyle you can live—and the quality of food and drink you can consume—in Spain simply isn’t a thing in America. The longer you live elsewhere—specifically Valencia—you realize the real myth is that things are better in the United States. They’re not. In fact, they’re much, much worse.

The quality of life blows.

If earned minimum wage, I know where I’d “want” to do it.

But, the reality is that only about 10%-15% of Spain’s workforce actually makes just minimum wage.

The official data shows that the typical wage in Spain is roughly €2,442 before taxes—so, about €1,800-€1,950 after taxes. In bigger cities, such as Valencia, that before tax number is closer to and higher than €3,000.

This is baseline stuff. But it’s factual. And that matters. Because, as usual, the truth lies somewhere on the side of middle that’s further away from the extreme. From the stereotypes created and perpetuated to soothe egos and rationalize existences.

Sure, it costs $5 for a coffee in the US, but we make more money and everyone in Spain makes minimum wage.

All of this said, I am not tone deaf to the reality that housing prices have soared in Spain—(especially in Valencia)—and that the reality of life on the ground for some people isn’t always reflected in official data.

It’s interesting when I told ChatGPT—(don’t fight it because it has good uses and it’s about a thousand times better than Google Search)—that I see Spaniards young and old and with families constantly out and about eating, drinking and shopping, it said:

If you replicated the €25 of spending I did on Tuesday morning three times a week (which might be too much food), you would be spending €300 a month on high-quality market food and coffee splurges compared to—at minimum—double that in the United States. And, if you did that, you would be eating super well in Valencia.

On minimum wage, you simply cannot do this in a similar size city—San Francisco as one not quite parallel example—in the United States. You would have to do what I did as a person who makes more than the minimum wage. Default to lower-quality options as you live under the illusion that you’re actually receiving high quality items at places that have become opportunistic rackets, such as farmer’s markets and high-end grocery stores.

It’s all part of the illusion—that a high quality of life, and the runaway American Dream, are still within reach for people not making absurd amounts of money.

They’re not. Not unless you settle for less and convince yourself it’s more.