Never Retire: What Day-to-Day Life Costs in Spain

A mid-month October field note on what we spend to do life abroad

Never Retire is field notes from midlife abroad.

I write from Spain, but this isn’t a travel blog. It’s a lens on how daily costs, routines, and choices add up to a second act that works—financially, emotionally, and practically.

Every post brings the numbers, the stories, and the takeaways you can use to build a life that doesn’t coast and doesn’t quit.

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🇪🇸 The real story isn’t the numbers—it’s in how day-to-day life feels.

This isn’t to say that the numbers don’t matter. They’re fun to look at and potentially useful for you, whether or not you plan to move abroad. Maybe you’re already here.

In any event, let’s do today’s Field Note a little differently—running through our day-to-day spending halfway through October, then telling a story about the aforementioned feel.

At the end of today’s post, I preview a new wrinkle you can expect from the Never Retire newsletter that applies to cities, particularly housing, income, and gentrification—issues that impact or interest most of us one way or another.

The Numbers (From 1 Oct to 15 Oct so far)

For food and drink—at and away from home—let’s go even more fine-grained than we normally do, breaking it out in five specific categories so you can really see how it looks and feels on the ground.