Never Retire - Semi-Retirement: 'I'm Old Enough and I'm Young Enough'
I came across a short article out of the UK about semi-retirement: I’m Old Enough and I’m Young Enough: Semi-Retirement and Career.
I was going to pull excerpts from it, however, it’s a quick and relatable enough read that you can digest the entire thing here. The link should prompt your device to download a small PDF file.
While so much of what you’ll read is likely to resonate—as it did with me—the only issue I have the 55-and-older focus.
You can be semi-retired right now.
In many ways, this newsletter is as much about how to live a semi-retired life across the lifespan as it is about Never Retiring.
You will make evolving financial and related lifestyle decisions at different phases of your life to facilitate semi-retirement, which might mean you’ll also Never Retire.
For my partner and I, this means happily renting a below market rate apartment in Los Angeles to drive our low cost of living today. Going forward, we hope to lower our cost of living even more by making a move to Spain, which might include some form of property ownership. It will also require adjustments in the type of work we do.
We’ll all have different narratives to weave, stories to tell, and strategies to make the these things possible.
Way back in May 2021, I attempted to define semi-retirement—in this context—in a Medium article: Exactly What It Means To Be Semi-Retired.
I hope you enjoy that article and the small research piece.
If you’re a new subscriber, be sure to check out the Never Retire archive to see where we’ve been and where we’re going. If you’re new or a long-time subscriber, here’s a glimpse into where we’re going—
I have a stockpile of academic articles on retirement, working in retirement, and related areas to get to for summary and review.
We will review and add to the core personal financial strategies we can use to be semi-retired and Never Retire. What are they? How can you make them happen, practically and psychologically.
We’ll put together a step-by-step guide on how to be semi-retired, now and forever.
We will update the plans my partner and I have for the next 3-5 years.
We’ll dig deeper into the prospects of home ownership, looking back on how it’s not what it used to be. Which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be or never will become a homeowner. Here again, it comes down to personal preference, your phase in life, place, and how you view renting versus owning from psychological perspectives.
We’ll talk about debt and why it’s almost always a bad idea, particularly if you want to be semi-retired and plan to Never Retire.
For now, enjoy the early morning view I had this weekend while visiting my daughter in San Francisco this weekend—
