Success Has Many Flavours

Being in Spain at the moment, I took the opportunity to use the excellent train network to travel and see my father-in-law, who has lived in the country full-time since retiring ten years ago.

He lives comfortably, if humbly, within his means. A UK state pension and a small personal retirement account to bolster it are all he requires. I don’t think I could live on his retirement income, and I don’t think he could have managed without the geoarbitrage he undertook to make it work.

A messy late-life divorce a few years before retiring, and significant personal debt in the aftermath, left him in a very precarious position at such a crucial time in his life. It was a bleak outlook indeed, as he confided to me at the time.

His saving grace was being able to hold onto his Spanish property and completely transform his outlook toward money and debt. By being diligent and making tough choices, he managed to climb out of the swamp of debt during his final five years of working life.

I always think of my father-in-law’s journey as a shining example of the human ability to overcome major hurdles. His ability to find a pathway to a modest but content and fulfilling retirement is humbling.

Sometimes I feel that on Humble Dollar, the subtle underlying narrative contrasts this more basic type of retirement with a taint of failure. Maybe for some, by their personal yardstick, it would be. To me, that’s not the case.

Personal contentment and happiness, combined with peace of mind and a social circle of friends, are in my opinion more often than not a better measure of someone’s retirement situation than the size and performance of their portfolio.

To target a humble, modest retirement—by choice or by necessity—is just as valid as striving for one of plenty, and it’s something we should be mindful of. The old adage that money isn’t everything certainly rings true with my father-in-law. Success has many flavours.