Semi-Retiring To Europe Is Not Just About Cheap Beer

It's about finding the life you want and need

Today, a guest post from

Charlie Brown

changes things up a little bit.

Charlie writes two excellent Substack newsletters:

Simple and Straightforward

, which I have a guest posting appearing in on Friday and

The Capsule Pantry

:

The Capsule Pantry in one sentence: Eat incredibly well, save time, money, and food waste with our highly customizable recipes designed to adapt to what you love to eat and have in your pantry. Access all recipes for $5 a month or $50 a year.

Here’s the thing about The Capsule Pantry. It’s not your standard, boring recipe blog, littered with annoying ads and that stupid jump to recipe button. It’s a creative look at a dish, colored by practical insight as well as Charlie’s experience in hospitality (she owned a wine shop!) and her recent digital nomad adventures. Adventures she encapsulates in today’s fantastic story about why her and her husband left the UK and, after being nomads for a while, ultimately decided to settle in Portugal.

Here’s Charlie directing traffic when Melisse and I spent a day with her and Sam in Barcelona earlier this year. We’ll do it all over again in less than five months. After the image, you’re reading Charlie’s words.

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People are surprised when I tell them if I wanted a cheaper life, I would have stayed in the UK.

Surely, they say, I moved to Portugal for the cheep beer, rents and lifestyle. That’s what everyone moves abroad for, right? And Britain is expensive, no?

As always, the truth is buried deep within the sweeping statements we all like to make.

For a start, I could have moved somewhere far cheaper than Portugal. Albania for instance has a low barrier to entry for third nationals. Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia are all incredibly cheap for Westerners.

But they don’t quite give me what I need. What I’m obsessed with and have been ever since I started to work in hospitality.

European food and wine culture.

This isn’t a story about living in a cheap country just because it’s cheap. This a story about how your life – especially if you’re pursuing semi-retirement – HAS to give you what you want and need.

Otherwise, what’s the point?

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Of course, this newsletter is all about living a semi-retired life. And in some ways, I do.

I have some investments from the sale of my British business and house. But I’m only 38 and it’s not a huge nest egg that will cover all my expenses for the rest of my days.

So instead of relying on them completely which would deplete them too rapidly, I work and and supplement with my investments when or if I have to.

Which is good for me because I LOVE working. Always have.

The difference is that I only work part-time. Around 4-6 hours, five days a week.

My work as a writer is one of my “5 pillars”. These are essentially my priorities. They are, in no particular order:

• Food, wine and coffee

• Writing

• Friends and family

• Exercise

• Traveling

It’s no coincidence the so-called “Portuguese lifestyle” fits into those pillars. I enjoy plenty of that too, outside of my work hours.

I’m learning how to surf. I spend a lot of time shopping for groceries at the various markets and small independent food stores that dot the city.

I walk a lot. I hang at my friends’ wine bars and restaurants. I nap and read and watch TV and enjoy the tiny balcony on the back of my apartment. I host friends and family.

When it comes to being semi-retired, living simply is the best weapon you have in your arsenal. Simplicity is the only way that most of us – certainly those of us who are not squillionaires – can get a life we want as quickly as we can.

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In some ways, Portugal is extremely good value.

Three large free-range chicken legs from a butchers cost me €2 the other day. A small beer in a bar is about €1.50. A decent glass of wine – even the very good stuff – will rarely be more than €5 and can be as low as €2.

Compare that to the UK or the US and those prices look amazing.

But it’s not just about the cheap beer and food.

First, I pay WAY more for an apartment here than I would in my hometown. My rent for a one bed apartment in Porto is around 50% more than something of comparable size at home. 

It’s not just renting, it’s ownership too. A quick look online shows a decent three bedroomed apartment in my Porto neighbourhood will set you back around $650,000. A house in my home town of comparable size (bigger when you include the yard)? Around $375,000.

Second, food and wine is my profession and has been for a decade. First as a wine store and bar owner in the UK, second as a writer on both Substack and Medium. It’s also my love and - for want of a better word - passion.

Because I owned my own wine bar In the UK, much of my food, wine and beer was free or bought at cost value. Produce might be cheap here but it’s not that cheap.

The same goes for transportation. Because I owned my own business, my car back in the UK was essentially free to run. Here, I have to pay for public transport and Ubers. 

There are other things too. We have free healthcare in the UK whereas in Portugal I legally have to have private healthcare. I pay for Portuguese lessons which don’t come cheap. And because this is not my own country, I have lots of costs I wouldn’t have in my own country, from Portuguese lessons to flights home to see family and friends.

I know Rocco agrees with me that when it comes to saving money, you have to look at your big costs - housing, transportation and food. I’m spending more in all of the three major areas of life now - as a semi-retired person - than I did back in the UK.

I know this all sounds I’m flying in the face of finance convention but stick with me here.

Keeping those costs low are very important, especially as you work towards a semi-retired life.

But it’s not everything, especially when you’re putting in the hard work to craft a life that works for you. Retired, semi-retired, or other.

If it was, you could move to a cheap part of your own country, even if you hate it. You could do nothing and see no one and save all your money.

But that’s not a life.

So it becomes about balance and about compromise. You choose the place that works for you and you figure out ways to make that happen.

Similar to Rocco, I rent a small place so I can afford to live in a city I love.

I don’t own a car (which would cost me a damn sight more than a few metro tickets and Uber rides) so I could channel my money into eating and drinking out, two of my favourite activities.

I make use of Portugal’s incredibly cheap produce so I can keep my food costs to a minimum.

And for all that, I get to live the life I want. 

A life on continental Europe. 

That always came first. The cost came second.

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It’s a hard truth that if you’re a member of Rocco’s Never Retire community, you’ve not chosen the easiest life path. It’s SO much easier to go with the flow, is it not?

But – and I know Rocco will agree – the easiest path is rarely the best. Convenience is not very good for you. What is good for you is a life well lived. One that aligns with who you are. Your values. Your very being. 

For that, we all make sacrifices. I chose to live somewhere that costs me more than I could have spent in the UK.

But for that – as cheesy as this sounds – I get to work exactly how I want to work, to eat and drink exactly how I want to eat and drink, to live in a country that I love.

It’s not a fancy life. But it is a boa vida.

The good life.