Part Six: The Financial Component Of Living More Evenly Across The Lifespan

We're being asked to do the impossible so we should probably try something different

In part five of our March series covering 20 Never Retire checklist items, we discussed working less now so you can work less longer with a focus on the health, well-being and quality of life benefits you can gain by reorganizing your relationship with work—

Putting in 40-plus hours a week, particularly if it’s intense and keeps you from living a full, well-rounded life, can wear you down, physically and mentally. It’s not only the work that wears you down, it’s the absence of abundant leisure and rest time.

By limiting work today (I’m in my late forties now), you can help yourself maintain the energy, vitality, enthusiasm and interest necessary to do work past traditional retirement age.

In today’s part six, we discuss the closely-related living more evenly across the lifespan, which adds a layer to the work discussion. We’re going layer by layer here!

Living more evenly across the lifespan focuses on everyday and long-term personal finance. We’ll get into specific concrete strategies on spending, saving, cost of living and more later in the series. For now, I provide a general illustration of living more evenly across the lifespan.

One of my most well-received newsletter posts to date—from September, 2022—introduced this concept—

Most people who hyper focus on retiring have to go, go, go before they can come down. They must earn as much money as possible, invest aggressively, and cross their fingers that they’ll hit their traditional retirement nest egg number sooner rather than later.

Again, we know what’s wrong with this so there’s no need to spend a ton of time on it.

It’s the rat race—or personal financial hamster wheel—of fighting to increase your income as much and as fast as you can as you do the dance between living and saving.

One day, you can rest and enjoy the downward slope of drawing down your savings.

Let’s add to that, evolve and round out that post with more perspective on living evenly across the lifespan, starting with the dangers of the double whammy of traditional retirement.