Living Long Is Great — Until the Money Runs Out

I keep banging on about the health side of longevity — the training, the smoothies, the blood pressure. But there's a whole other half I care about just as much, and it gets talked about far less because, frankly, it's less fun to think about. Money. Specifically, having enough of it to actually enjoy a long life.

This is the wealthspan side, and the biggest, scariest piece of it is retirement. Because here's the uncomfortable truth: living to 90 is only good news if you can afford to live to 90.

The bit nobody wants to hear

The stats here are genuinely sobering. A huge share of people reach their 50s and 60s with nowhere near enough saved to keep them going through decades of not working. Loads of us are quietly counting on the state pension to carry us — and it was never designed to do that. It's a floor, not a comfortable life.

And it's getting harder, not easier. We're living longer, which sounds great until you remember it means your savings have to stretch across more years than any generation before us planned for. A retirement that used to need to last 15 years might now need to last 30. Same pot, double the distance.

The trap: leaving it too late

Here's the thing that really gets me though. The single biggest mistake isn't saving too little — it's starting too late. And almost everyone starts too late, because when you're young, retirement feels like something that happens to a stranger.

The reason timing matters so much is compounding. Money you invest early doesn't just add up — it grows on top of its own growth, over and over, for decades. Which means the years matter more than the amounts. To put rough numbers on it: someone who starts putting a bit away at 25 can easily end up with around double what someone starting at 35 does by retirement — even though they only saved for ten more years. That's not a typo. Ten years early can be worth more than all the extra money the late starter ever puts in.

That one idea changed how I think about this completely. The most valuable thing I have right now isn't a big income — it's time. And time is the one thing you can't buy back later.

How I'm trying to protect myself

So what do you actually do about it? None of this is financial advice — just the sensible stuff I'm doing.

Start now, even if it's small — a little, early, beats a lot, late. Automate it so it leaves my account before I can spend it, because willpower is unreliable and I know it. Take the free money first — any employer pension match is a return you'll never beat, so I make sure I'm not leaving it on the table. And actually invest it for the long run rather than letting it sit in cash slowly losing value to inflation. Boring, consistent, automatic — that's the whole game.

Retirement arbitrage: making both last longer

Here's the angle I've become genuinely fascinated by, and it's where the health and wealth halves of longevity meet beautifully. Your money and your health don't only last longer by saving harder or training more — you can also change where you spend those years.

It's sometimes called retirement arbitrage, or geographic arbitrage: retiring somewhere your money simply goes further. A pension that would have you scraping by in London or New York can mean a comfortable, even generous life somewhere with a much lower cost of living. Same pot, a lot more life.

And here's the part that got me — a lot of those places are also better for your healthspan. Warmer climates that keep you outdoors and active year round, fresh local food, a slower pace, tighter communities, less of the low-grade stress that quietly wears you down. Some of the longest-living populations on earth live exactly this way. So the right move can stretch your money and your health at the same time. It's longevity arbitrage, really — buying yourself more good years on both fronts with a single decision.

The tool helping me here: RetireAway

This is exactly why RetireAway caught my eye. Retiring abroad sounds lovely right up until you try to actually work out where — the costs, the healthcare, the practicalities, which places genuinely suit you. RetireAway is built for precisely that: finding destinations where your retirement stretches further, in money and in life. It turns a vague "maybe we'll move somewhere sunny one day" into something you can actually plan.

It ties straight back to what I'm building ULTM8 around, too — the whole point is keeping the body and the bank account going. Retiring somewhere that looks after both at once is about the clearest example of that I can think of.

The best time to start was years ago. The second best time is today. That's the whole reason I'm writing this one down — including for the version of me who'll be very glad I did.