In America, Traditional Retirement Is Dead And It's Never Coming Back
But it's less about retiring and more about not having to struggle
The other day I restocked our pantry with several items. Mayonnaise, ketchup and mustard. And, looking at our usage patterns and expiration dates, realized we won’t be buying these things again in Los Angeles.
It’s on!
Once the expiration date on the milk butts up against when we’re leaving for Spain, it’ll really be on.
This makes now the ideal time to upgrade to a paid newsletter subscription. Within a few months, we’ll be assembling paperwork and starting the visa process. We’ll close up shop in LA and book one-way tickets to Valencia. Once there, we submit the visa application and begin to situate life—as immigrants—in our new country.
$5/month, $50/year or $100 for a founding membership. Pay Today. Never Pay Again. All founding memberships get converted to lifetime subscriptions. I’ll be writing this newsletter forever as a key component of my Never Retire strategy. So, for $100, you’ll get more than your money’s worth.
So much of the Never Retire discussion comes down to choice, flexibility and struggle.
Three variables where the United States is increasingly on the wrong side of (quality of) life and—soon, as it will be told—history.
Bottom line—if you’re not all set on housing with a significant amount of money saved, it has become literally impossible to retire (someday) in America. You have less choice and flexibility and will face meaningfully more struggle.
The reality is we’ll Never Retire in Spain either. We’re not made of money. We don’t have backgrounds in tech with high salaries and copious stock options cashed in. We save in the ones, tens, hundreds and one thousands.
We’re moving to Spain primarily for the quality of day-to-day living. Which includes more say in the matter of doing life (choice), greater flexibility and, as we vision it, less struggle.
We’re moving from the former land of opportunity to one of the many places around the world welcoming people like us with not only opportunity, but physical and social environments you can be proud of and more than happy to contribute to.
What’s the difference between Never Retiring in our present situation (LA) and future one?
Let’s use recent—and flat out startling—data from New York City to illustrate the point.